The rail grinding machine, shooting out sparks, passes through Mount Baker Station. Photo by Jason.There have been delays on the Link light rail system after 7:00 pm every night for the last week. This photo shows the rail grinding machine that is the reason for the delays. The machine is smoothing the rails to reduce the train noise at certain locations, such as near Mount Baker Station near South McClellan. The delays will continue until December 30; in the meantime, if you need to travel on Link after 7:00 pm, be aware that you may need to wait on a different platform than your usual one, and the wait may be longer.
6 thoughts on “The source of this month’s Link delays”
I have no faith in the reliability of the link light rail. I have taken the link about 7 times and 2 of the times it has broken down on me. Once I was stuck in the SODO for over an hour and today I had to get off the train and onto a bus to make it into work late missing a meeting. Please remind me, what are the benefits of the link light rail????
I have ridden it much more than 7 times and it has been very reliable. The only long delay was last week, on the night Jason took the above picture, but that was a scheduled maintenance delay that we already knew about, so it was not a problem.
You have just had bad luck, I think.
I agree with Wendy. I’ve been riding it everyday for months and have only had a delay once.
I’ve been riding it about 8 times a week for months, and it’s been very reliable for me. Once I was delayed by 40 minutes because they were dealing with ice on the tracks for the first time ever, once I chose to take the #36 instead because of delay due to derailment, and once I chose to take the #36 instead because of delay due to rail grinding.
Perhaps the main benefit of light rail is to give people something new to complain about based on their subjective anecdotal experience instead of statistical data.
It all about me Brook.
Personally, the system has been far more reliable and incident-free than I expected. I too have been riding the train during outages, but I actually came away impressed with the ability of the system to adjust to issues. For instance, when the tunnel was shut down temporarily due to an emergency of some sort, it was quite easy to get off of the train at the Stadium station and hop on a bus in the busway and bypass the tunnel. The day that the derailment happened there were significant delays, but the system still was able to run despite a train sitting derailed on one of the tracks. There have been more times than I can count that it took me over an hour to get home via the 36 because traffic downtown was in gridlock or the bus was too full and wasn’t allowing more passengers.
Another thing that hasn’t happened is the numerous injuries and deaths (referred to as murders by one prominant BH resident) that were supposed to happen due to the at-grade alignment in the Rainier Valley.
I have no faith in the reliability of the link light rail. I have taken the link about 7 times and 2 of the times it has broken down on me. Once I was stuck in the SODO for over an hour and today I had to get off the train and onto a bus to make it into work late missing a meeting. Please remind me, what are the benefits of the link light rail????
I have ridden it much more than 7 times and it has been very reliable. The only long delay was last week, on the night Jason took the above picture, but that was a scheduled maintenance delay that we already knew about, so it was not a problem.
You have just had bad luck, I think.
I agree with Wendy. I’ve been riding it everyday for months and have only had a delay once.
I’ve been riding it about 8 times a week for months, and it’s been very reliable for me. Once I was delayed by 40 minutes because they were dealing with ice on the tracks for the first time ever, once I chose to take the #36 instead because of delay due to derailment, and once I chose to take the #36 instead because of delay due to rail grinding.
Perhaps the main benefit of light rail is to give people something new to complain about based on their subjective anecdotal experience instead of statistical data.
It all about me Brook.
Personally, the system has been far more reliable and incident-free than I expected. I too have been riding the train during outages, but I actually came away impressed with the ability of the system to adjust to issues. For instance, when the tunnel was shut down temporarily due to an emergency of some sort, it was quite easy to get off of the train at the Stadium station and hop on a bus in the busway and bypass the tunnel. The day that the derailment happened there were significant delays, but the system still was able to run despite a train sitting derailed on one of the tracks. There have been more times than I can count that it took me over an hour to get home via the 36 because traffic downtown was in gridlock or the bus was too full and wasn’t allowing more passengers.
Another thing that hasn’t happened is the numerous injuries and deaths (referred to as murders by one prominant BH resident) that were supposed to happen due to the at-grade alignment in the Rainier Valley.