Week one of Xlake, what are your honest thoughts?
A week of service, how's it been? Main gripes, issues, etc?
As an operator, its been fantastic, the oohs and ahhs hasn't gotten old at all. I still do the same going over the bridge. The 2 line definitely has the better views on a clear day in my very biased opinion 🤣
Lynnwood has been... interesting. Getting people off the trains in a timely manner has been the biggest contention, which can slow things down from Shoreline South into Lynnwood and can get a bit tight from U district to IDS. I believe getting the DSTT back to 30, at least between Westlake and Pioneer would help with some of that and having the route set manually by LCC coming into IDS would help with flow a bit more.
The Woojin fleet is approaching 4 vehicles in testing, 2 in dynamic testing at OMF-East, 2 in active testing/completion, so that will help with trainset availability as they finish those up.
The crowding is my biggest concern as we were often close to or at standing room only Tues -Thurs. The biggest surprise was the amount of airport and Amtrak travelers. As I mentioned before, out of JPS, I make an announcement with the option of IDS or Capitol Hill xfer points. Most do get off at IDS but I've had some thank me for the Cap Hill suggestion just because of the amount of luggage they have and makes the transfer far easier.
Personal thoughts - It would be great to have a center platform at Pioneer Square. We use the turnback for vehicle moves between OMF-Central and East, so having a center platform there wouldn't work. Pioneer Square has been there before as a temporary solution but a permanent solution with stairs and an elevator would be a large project and would likely disrupt operations, not to mention it would be narrow AND would require the SB train to be there, so any service disruption would have a ripple effect on the entire system..