(4/3/13)
– IE Transit Talking Points Short
The
North County Transit District has been working hard to provide
continuous coverage of the transit district’s progress of the
Sprinter train interruption. As mentioned, NCTD suspended all
Sprinter light rail service between Escondido and Oceanside due to
maintenance issues with one of three sets of braking systems on the
train.
North
County Transit District Chief of Safety Tom Tulley was tasked to lead
the effort for the Sprinter Recovery Task Force which includes
posting blog posts on updates and publishing answers to common
questions which were backed up with facts. NCTD can be credited in keeping the
public well informed with fact-based plans and solutions to get the
trains rolling again.
However,
this level of transparency was certainly not the case when the brake
issue was first discovered just one year after the Sprinter opened. The San Diego Union Tribune
reported that a Sprinter subcontractor and a NCTD engineer initially
knew about the problem, but failed to pass the information to NCTD
staff. The engineer later resigned.
Meanwhile, The
Transit Coalition has been following NCTD’s Sprinter-ruption blog
and praises Tulley’s efforts in keeping the public informed with
reader-friendly blog posts. NCTD has a rather surprising fact and
lesson for the state and the federal government: Nearly
all U.S. manufacturers of diesel multiple unit trains have gone out
of business. With demands for mass transit on the rise in the
country, shouldn’t the state and feds explore incentives to get
train manufacturing back into the United States?
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