Winter weather gives reason to wonder about the Kingston terminal’s wind tunnel design (see cartoon).

Kingston was the first of three new terminal projects; the others were Edmonds and Bremerton. The window gaps allowed the windows to open inward so that the ferry staff could clean them. These gaps were considered acceptable, as passengers were typically only in the terminal for 20 minutes, with the last 10 minutes spent getting on the boat.

When Edmonds was designed later, the blowback from riders about Kingston’s design was a big factor in fully enclosing the terminal. Edmonds also needed protection for the ticket booth and turnstiles.  The Edmonds design ended up costing a lot more than Kingston’s because codes required fire sprinklers, heating and cooling, high efficiency windows and so on.

These systems also increased maintenance costs and the non-rotating windows required a vendor to wash them. So when the new Bremerton terminal was built it reverted back to the Kingston design as most likely the new Mukilteo will also.

What’s “fare”?

The biennial fare setting process is under way.

Now through May, Washington State Ferries will be discussing fare proposals with the Ferry Advisory Commitees and our representative, Dennis Cziske. Meanwhile, the Legislature will be hatching the transportation budget.

The gap between the Legislature’s budget and WSF’s operating costs has to be made up by fares. This is normally a 2.5 percent increase per year. By mid-May, WSF passes its proposals to the state Transportation Commission. It is the commission, not WSF, that sets the fares.

The commission solicits public comments in June and July and makes its decisions by the end of August, with the new fares going into effect in October. Besides the 2.5 percent increase, other changes being considered include:

nIncreasing the spread between passenger and vehicle fares;

nAllowing frequent rider discounts on more fare types;

nPeak hour fares to encourage off-peak travel;

nCharging vehicles by the foot.

Comments? Contact us at elliottmoore@comcast.net.

Tacoma’s tribulation

This month we descend into the engine room to see what happened to Tacoma’s inner workings and hidden mechanisms on that fateful day in July when she was towed to Bainbridge.

Tacoma has four 3,000 kilowatt diesel-generators that pump out electricity at 4,000 volts for the ferry’s drive motors. Tacoma can happily cruise along with just two of these diesels running. However, because the engines are needed to stop the boat, when approaching the dock a third engine is started to have more power for emergencies.

After docking in Seattle, Tacoma’s third diesel generator was shut down. With the generator at 20 percent load (about 150 amps) there was a voltage surge. Though not abnormal, the surge caused the generator’s control system to fail. That damage was undetected until later, when approaching Eagle Harbor, and that same generator was restarted.

Because of the damaged controls when the faulty generator was connected to the other generators, it was out of synchronization, creating a huge voltage mismatch. Picture shifting gears without a clutch and add lots of arcs and sparks.  In less than a second cables melted while equipment tripped off line, causing a blackout.

The crew immediately got the emergency generator running and equipment started back up, and later some of the big generators were brought back on line.

The only puzzling thing to me is that before the malfunctioning generator was connected, the engineers didn’t have an indicator that would have shown that the voltage and synchronization were way off. There’s a lesson to be learned there.

The Tacoma is still being fixed and will be remain in Eagle Harbor for a couple of more months.

— FerryFare is written by Walt Elliott, chairman of the Kingston Ferry Advisory Committee. Contact him at elliottmoore@comcast.net.