Light Rail Action At L.A.

[WhoozOn1st]

Hanging out around the greater Los Angeles area for a couple days after National Train Day L.A. 2009, the Patrick & Alice RailRiot 2009 Executive Assistant and myself did some light rail riding on Sunday and Monday. On Sunday we took the Red Line to the Blue Line to the Green Line out to the end of the Green Line at Redondo Beach to do a little advance scouting for the On Track On Line (OTOL) Southern California RailFest 2009.

Monday we took the Gold Line ("la Linea de Oro") out to Pasadena to stroll/roll around for several hours before riding back to LAUS to catch Surfliner 785 to Oxnard. Before boarding 785 several Metrolink trains employing alien equipment were seen at Union Station, and an apparent test train was seen arriving from the obviously energized Gold Line Eastside extension.

The pics in the Picasa album are comprehensively captioned, and some questions are posed about stuff shown that I don't know what it is. I think it would be appreciated by all viewers if anybody who might have answers would post them in this thread so everybody could benefit.

L.A. Green, Gold & Blue Lines

EDIT: Shout out to chuljin: Dude, spotted you again at GDL from 785 on 5-11. Red shirt, lightin' a smoke. Poked my head out at the stop to see if you were around, but didn't spot you until 785 was rolling again on departure. We should whip up some riding plans.

 

[AlanB]

Sure looks like a Comet I and seem to recall that Front Runner brought a bunch of NJT Comet I's.

The odd thing in the catenary is a phase break, a way of isolating and seperating two different power sections. This is necessary for several reasons, but perhaps the biggest one is in the current example in the photo. You noted that the new section is engergized, since you saw a car testing things. But should a repair need to be made after the test, you don't want to turn off power to the entire Gold line, only the new section. And for that matter, it would really only be a short stretch of the new section.

 

[WhoozOn1st]

Sure looks like a Comet I and seem to recall that Front Runner brought a bunch of NJT Comet I's.
The odd thing in the catenary is a phase break, a way of isolating and seperating two different power sections. This is necessary for several reasons, but perhaps the biggest one is in the current example in the photo. You noted that the new section is engergized, since you saw a car testing things. But should a repair need to be made after the test, you don't want to turn off power to the entire Gold line, only the new section. And for that matter, it would really only be a short stretch of the new section.

Thanks, Alan! While messing around with my Santa Fe 3751 videos from National Train Day L.A. 2009 a Gold Line testing video by our own singwith/Snuffy showed up in the "related videos" box:



It was taken right by LAUS the day before National Train Day L.A. 2009, at essentially the same place as the pics in the album linked above, only with road views (from both sides) instead of track view of the grade crossing. Windy day!

EDIT: Note in the video that the gates don't function until the train is well over the crossing. That's what testing's for, eh? I recall similar issues before the mechanical monstrosity that is Sprinter - diesel light rail Oceanside-Escondido (north of San Diego) - could begin revenue service. The crossing gates would lower when there was no train anywhere near them, and wouldn't lower when a train actually passed. I seem to recall it was a software issue that took months to resolve, and that the California Public Utilities Commission set a deadline for beginning passenger service, the missing of which would have resulted in the whole certification process starting all over again. They made it with mere hours to spare.