03-03-2023, 02:20 PM
I've posted about several mentions of "scrapers" on the scanner during recent winter storms. I gather it's a bit of a balancing act exactly how they're deployed because the carbon strips cause more wear to the OCS, especially in dry conditions. The first night of the big 48 hour outage, it didn't sound like they sent out scrapers until after trains lost power, and the ones they sent out were on hi-rails or shunters and had to laboriously move around the system working around broken down trains.
During the last storm, they specifically deployed a train equipped with a scraper around 10:45pm, 1 1/2 hours after operators started reporting power loss. They also ran coupled "ice trains" all night. It really feels like they aren't proactively addressing the issue enough, and the whole procedure of deploying scrapers and coupling trains is so long winded the system can barely function once it starts, even if they can maintain power.
https://www.schunk-group.com/transit-sys...trip~p6375
https://www.schunk-carbontechnology.com/...protection
During the last storm, they specifically deployed a train equipped with a scraper around 10:45pm, 1 1/2 hours after operators started reporting power loss. They also ran coupled "ice trains" all night. It really feels like they aren't proactively addressing the issue enough, and the whole procedure of deploying scrapers and coupling trains is so long winded the system can barely function once it starts, even if they can maintain power.
https://www.schunk-group.com/transit-sys...trip~p6375
https://www.schunk-carbontechnology.com/...protection