One switch to rule them all

Some of you may not even be home yet to read this because, as you unfortunately know, the LIRR had a fire at a control tower east of Jamaica. Apparently, the fire knocked out a switch that serviced 10 of the 11 branches of the LIRR. Obviously, this must have been an inferno that engulfed the very core of the LIRR’s nervous system, overwhelming all back-up systems, laying waste to all contingency plans, and keeping an army of heroic staff at bay. Alas, this was not the case, and so it is therefore the focus of a much belated rant.

As the story goes, a power line that supplies the third rail shorted out and caused a fire at a nearby control tower which in turn destroyed a switch that controls 90% of the system for our nation’s largest commuter railroad! What is wrong with that statement? I’m not sure where to begin. Were you surprised to hear that equipment based on pulleys and levers controls such a crucial junction of the LIRR’s system? Could it be that the control tower had no fire alarm, or no nearby staff to fight a fire? Perhaps it was even that, in this day and age, a single point of failure of this magnitude even exists?

If LIRR service announcements are correct, it appears that the fate of the entire LIRR system is held by a single switch. You would think that this control tower would be a virtual Fort Knox of the LIRR and that this switch was one of the most sophisticated pieces of technology in the system. Not the case, and I can understand that – but pulleys and levers? What year are we in that we have vintage equipment as the backbone of our railroad? Was Conjunction Junction in charge of that control tower as well? I’m sure that tower looked like a museum, complete with the latest in smoke signaling technology.

I read in the WSJ online edition that the power line short was likely caused by heavy rains? That’s another major ‘WTF?!’ New York is one of those places that, at times, can experience the harshest weather of every season, including that funny stuff that drips out of the clouds every now and then. What’s that called again? Oh, right, that’s called rain. I guess we never thought that these things should be weather proof. So my vision of this power cable is that of a frayed power cord on your ancient vacuum cleaner. You know, the one with years’ worth of electrical tape wrapped around it. Only this one controls a commuter line carrying over 100,000 people a day. If they only had that tape…

Another line from that article also struck me as odd: “More than 50 extra switch and signal workers were called in to Jamaica…” Let’s break this part down a little. More than 50 – extra – switch and signal workers. So not only are there switch and signal workers that focus on a very specific thing, but there are 50 EXTRA of them. That’s an army of people that work on switches and signals! Let's please have one of them at this control tower, and we can still send out the 49 for coffee and donuts.

What takes the cake in all of this is the comment from LIRR President Helena Williams that, even though the LIRR is replacing 1920’s era equipment, the piece of equipment that actually caught fire was less than 10 years old! Does that mean it’s OK that it happened? Perhaps it’s the equipment’s fault? This is baffling to me, and should be extremely embarrassing to the LIRR. The fact that new equipment was susceptible to such a condition, and that the likely 50-100 year old equipment would still have been working, is ridiculous. Sometimes even new equipment can fail, I get that, but how it fails and how it is backed up sounds like the real failure in all of this. Also, the 100 year old control tower that runs on hamster wheels could have had better monitoring. Perhaps one of the 50 extra switch workers can stop by every now and then to indiscriminately spray WD-40 on everything. That ought to do it.