Sprinter DMU light rail (San Diego area) out of service 2-4 months

thully · Mar 9, 2013

Just heard today that the Sprinter DMU light rail service from Oceanside to Escondido (near San Diego) is going to be out of commission for a while. Apparently, an inspection revealed wear in the braking systems that needs to be repaired. Unfortunately for NCTD, they found out about this right before the line was to celebrate its 5th anniversary...

From the press release:

North County Transit District will be suspending SPRINTER service at midnight tonight due to maintenance issues with one of the 24 braking systems on the light rail train. The length of the service interruption is not known but may last from 60 to 120 days.For the past week, NCTD staff has been developing bus replacement services to minimize the impact to passengers. Bus replacement service is in place for Saturday, March 9, and Sunday, March 10.

This weekend, the agency will operate a special express bus service that will operate between Oceanside Transit Center and Escondido Transit Center and make stops atVista Transit Center, Palomar College, and Cal State San Marcos. The buses will run every 30 minutes. The total length of a one-way trip on this express bus will be 45 minutes.

NCTD is finalizing bus replacement service beginning Monday and encourages the public to monitor the website at www.GoNCTD.com, Facebook atFacebook.com/goNCTD and Twitter @goNCTD for the latest service announcements.

The service interruption will allow NCTD and their contractors, Veolia and Bombardier, to repair the central disc braking system. Rotors inside these central brakes were exhibiting accelerated wear patterns. The primary concern of the transit agency is the safety and welfare of our passengers and staff. NCTD is taking every prudent measure to assure the safety of our riders and at the same time to continue to serve the transit public.

Anyway, I figure this is going to cause a lot of disruption among Sprinter riders. 60-120 days is a long time - I did hear one news article that suggested that the need to get special parts from Europe for the DMU trains (which aren't readily used in the US) is a factor. I have only taken the Sprinter once or twice (as I don't live in North County where it operates) but I can only imagine the chaos that a multi-month bustitution of the whole line will bring (particularly since it is essentially the core of their transit network).

Paulus · Apr 3, 2013

From KPBS comes word that NCTD deleted all COASTER and Sprinter maintenance funds and threw it into buses and truly idiotic studies. This included a long budgeted provision precisely for replacing those brakes.

DET63 · Apr 4, 2013

From Paulus' link:

NCTD’s Executive Director Matthew Tucker told the Investigations Desk in early March that the agency’s mechanical maintenance officer, Richard Berk, along with the maintenance contractor, Veolia Transportation, “failed to report” the brake problems when they were found in 2009 -- just one year after the line began operations.
However, Berk, who quit the agency in early March, has maintained that many people knew about the brake problems, including his superiors. The agency’s Capital Improvement Program (CIP) budgets bolster his statements: funding for the SPRINTER’s “Drive System Overhaul” -- which would have included replacing the brakes, according to Berk -- made it to the top of the agency’s priority list in 2012. The item was cut this year.

Although Berk was not included in the final budgeting process, he says, the brake priority was mentioned “in all discussions” that he had about the SPRINTER capital budget proposal.

Sounds like Tucker is trying to throw Berk--if you'll pardon the expression--under the bus.

Ispolkom · May 11, 2013

Is there any chance the Sprinter will be running when I visit San Diego in the second week in June? Looking at the Sprinter-uption Web site (I gag at the thought of how much more time was probably put into thinking up that title vs monitoring the train's brake system), I don't have a lot of hope.

thully · May 16, 2013

NCTD just announced on their website (gonctd.com) that the Sprinter will be back up and running as of this upcoming Saturday (May 18th), on its regular schedule. So unless they have more problems between now and then, it should be fully functional in June.