Miami Intermodal Center at Miami International Airport

[jis]

I don't think after Super Star is done there will be a 12-13 car train anyway.

As for backing in after the train is looped in Hialeah, the fastest way to get the train into MIC is to simply attach a locomotive at the other end. Don't even need to hook up HEP and all, if you are willing to let someone sit in the road locomotive now at the rear end. It is probably much safer too.

 

[neroden]

Passenger cars are 16' longer than the P42's. With vestibules forward, I don't think the first car of a 12-car train backed in would platform. But they could load on the crossing.

On a 13-car train, the door would probably be beyond the crossing. If they had passengers walk back, they would have to make sure they don't put a handicapped passenger there for Miami.

....unless they use the new Siemens Ventures where wheelchairs can roll between cars!

 

[joelkfla]

Measure the backing time in Tampa.

OK. The schedule difference between Lakeland & Tampa with & without the backup move is 13 minutes. The distance from Hialeah is about 1.7 times the distance from the Tampa wye. I calculate that the backup move from Hialeah should take 22 minutes.

As for backing in after the train is looped in Hialeah, the fastest way to get the train into MIC is to simply attach a locomotive at the other end.

But then you're losing 69' of platform to the engine. That might not get another door on the platform.

 

[neroden]

I don't think after Super Star is done there will be a 12-13 car train anyway.

As for backing in after the train is looped in Hialeah, the fastest way to get the train into MIC is to simply attach a locomotive at the other end. Don't even need to hook up HEP and all, if you are willing to let someone sit in the road locomotive now at the rear end. It is probably much safer too.

I think there's a name for a locomotive which just hauls trains in and out of the passenger station. It used to be a thing, in the 19th century (at that time, often to eliminate smoke from mainline locomotives within the trainshed). Could certainly bring that back.

 

[joelkfla]

....unless they use the new Siemens Ventures where wheelchairs can roll between cars!

That's gonna be a few years.

 

[neroden]

My comments should be interpreted in the context that, like Jis, I think once the Meteor comes back, it is unlikely that trains longer than 11 cars will run routinely, at least not for several years in the future.

If they have to do a one-off for a special extra-long Thanksgiving train or something, I think they can.

 

[joelkfla]

My comments should be interpreted in the context that, like Jis, I think once the Meteor comes back, it is unlikely that trains longer than 11 cars will run routinely, at least not for several years in the future.

If they have to do a one-off for a special extra-long Thanksgiving train or something, I think they can.

Like I said above, I couldn't find anything on YouTube beyond 10 cars, except for deadheads tacked on.

 

[cocojacoby]

Like I said above, I couldn't find anything on YouTube beyond 10 cars, except for deadheads tacked on.

One thing you will find on YouTube is an occasional Silver train with only one engine. Would they dare do that using a new ACL-4 Siemens?

No problem fitting then.

 

[Brian Battuello]

Heritage dining car and baggage car. Change at Amtrak is glacial, but it does happen.

 

[cirdan]

Heritage dining car and baggage car. Change at Amtrak is glacial, but it does happen.

The video is from 2011

 

[dan]

The Pennsylvanian comes into the Pittsburgh station's spur engine first. After riders get off, the train backs out and does a wye so it's facing the right way to depart East in the morning. Why couldn't they do that in Miami?

 

[jis]

The Pennsylvanian comes into the Pittsburgh station's spur engine first. After riders get off, the train backs out and does a wye so it's facing the right way to depart East in the morning. Why couldn't they do that in Miami?

That is what they do in Miami now and will continue to do after they move to MIC. They just use a balloon track instead of a wye at Hialeah to turn the train

 

[cocojacoby]

The Pennsylvanian comes into the Pittsburgh station's spur engine first. After riders get off, the train backs out and does a wye so it's facing the right way to depart East in the morning. Why couldn't they do that in Miami?

They disconnected the SW leg of the wye when they put the new crossing in at 28th Street.

 

[joelkfla]

The Pennsylvanian comes into the Pittsburgh station's spur engine first. After riders get off, the train backs out and does a wye so it's facing the right way to depart East in the morning. Why couldn't they do that in Miami?

If it comes in engine first, it will have to back up 3.5 mi. to Hialeah yard for overnight maintenance anyway, where it is run around a balloon loop to be turned for the next day. That's not a problem after passengers have been discharged.

The issue is that the platform at the new station is only long enough for 10 cars + 2 engines, and the current combined Meteor/Star and, reportedly, the normal Meteor on rare occasions, are longer than 10 cars.

People were discussing the possibility of backing into the station to platform an additional car or 2, but that would require doing the balloon loop with passengers on board and then backing up 3.5 miles, which would delay arrival.

As @cocojacoby said, there used to be wye near the station, but it is no longer there.

 

[joelkfla]

Like I said above, I couldn't find anything on YouTube beyond 10 cars, except for deadheads tacked on.

I should add that since I've been watching on YouTube for past 6 weeks, deadheads have been inserted behind the locomotives. They'll have to go back to putting them at the end of the train if they want to platform a 10-car train at MIC head-in.

 

[frequentflyer]

No way to easily back a southbound in right now. You would have to do the loop in Hialeah and then slowly back four miles to MIA. Passengers might not consider that very "tolerable" adding lots of time to their arrival. The wye would need to be rebuilt to make backing in more practical and that is not in the cards at this time.

Blocking the crossing is no big deal since they have built an alternative route for the few times a day it might happen. If they really needed to, they could build more platform on the other side of the crossing.

Northbounds would always need to be backed from Hialeah but as a deadhead move.

Why back in at all? The train still have to be serviced at Hialeah. That is the whole contention, the distance between the station and the servicing area. As JIS stated, I bet the train will be pull back by a switcher. Unless work rules makes it cheaper for the crew that brings the train in to just back it up.

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

Not sure there a switcher assigned to Hialeah. There was a contract switch operated by CSX a few years back, but Dave Gunn canceled that one. They were using the road unit to move passenger cars around as needed.

Just another expense to be added.

 

[joelkfla]

Why back in at all? The train still have to be serviced at Hialeah. That is the whole contention, the distance between the station and the servicing area. As JIS stated, I bet the train will be pull back by a switcher. Unless work rules makes it cheaper for the crew that brings the train in to just back it up.

The usable platform appears to be 962'. Reversing in pulled by an added engine, you would get one additional car in, and the door would be on the crossing, not the platform -- which gets you no more than if you come head-in and unload an 11th baggage car in the crossing. Backing in without an added engine would get you 11 cars on the platform, plus the one in the crossing.

How long would it take to split the train at Hialeah with passengers on board, and use both sides of the platform? Or to have a switcher split the train at MIC? Maybe they could unload 11 passenger cars, and pull off just the 12th baggage car at MIC and back that into the other track.

But this whole discussion is interesting but academic if they never again run more than 10 cars on the Meteor (or 11 if they unload baggage in the crossing.) Maybe they'll just add 2 cars to the 8-car Star if they need more capacity.

 

[jis]

But this whole discussion is interesting but academic if they never again run more than 10 cars on the Meteor (or 11 if they unload baggage in the crossing.) Maybe they'll just add 2 cars to the 8-car Star if they need more capacity.

The Star is slated to get another Sleeper and maybe another Coach in the 24-25 timeframe making it a regular 10 car train like the Meteor, or so is the indication from a few usually trustworthy sources.

 

[jis]

4 Coaches
3 Sleepers
1 Lounge
1 Diner
1 Baggage

adds upto 10.

Actually if they do add another Coach it becomes 11, but that is a definite extreme maybe.

Either way, it will sort of fit with the Baggage car sticking out into the crossing.

 

[Ryan]

How long would it take to split the train at Hialeah with passengers on board, and use both sides of the platform?

This seems like the logical solution - the two tracks split to 4 just south of the 28th street crossing. Have a switch engine sitting on one of the platform tracks, with the switch lined to the other platform. Stop the train with the middle of it in the 28th street crossing and pull the pin. First half of the train pulls into the station with everything on the platform. Throw the switch, engine pulls up and hooks up, pulls the second half onto the other platform.

Here's where the Real Railroaders remind me why this would take too long to be practical.

Looking at Google Maps, it looks like the land for the missing leg of the wye is still there. Is there something not-obvious that would simply prevent the track from being rebuilt (other than it doesn't get you anything other than the length of the locomotives more in platform space)?

 

[jis]

AFAIK Other than being able to acquire the wye from CSX nothing stands in the way. CSX apparently wants someone to take the entire Homestead Secondary off their hands for some spectacular price, not just the wye.

 

[user 14106]

Will probably see another Star sleeper when they start pulling stored Viewliner 1s out of mothballs. I would expect any additional sleepers to go to the Silvers and Lake Shore as those seem to be the favored trains at the moment.

 

[joelkfla]

Looking at Google Maps, it looks like the land for the missing leg of the wye is still there. Is there something not-obvious that would simply prevent the track from being rebuilt (other than it doesn't get you anything other than the length of the locomotives more in platform space)?

Just the cost of doing it to accommodate an apparently miniscule number of trains per year with more than 10 cars. Maybe if they ever wanted to expand the Meteor beyond 11 cars on a semi-regular basis, it might be worthwhile.

And remember, because the locomotives are shorter than the cars, and the doors are at the front of the cars, it only gets one more car to the platform. They could double that if they moved baggage to the front of the train, as well.

 

[cirdan]

I don't think after Super Star is done there will be a 12-13 car train anyway.

As for backing in after the train is looped in Hialeah, the fastest way to get the train into MIC is to simply attach a locomotive at the other end. Don't even need to hook up HEP and all, if you are willing to let someone sit in the road locomotive now at the rear end. It is probably much safer too.

There will always be the need to deadhead equipment or to convey private varnish.

Or, God forbid, passenger numbers might actually increase to the point that longer trains are needed.

Designing a station that might still be in use 50 years from now for the minimalist needs of today can be a very shorted policy.