# Southwest Chief's On Time Performance



## river (Sep 6, 2021)

We are planning a trip in a bedroom on the Southwest Chief near the end of September from CHI to LAX and back. Wondering what has been the overall on-time performance both ways of late and if there are any known possible impacts on this route that could affect it being on time. I know nothing is certain, but would just like an idea how early/late this train has been of late. Thanks!


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## AmtrakBlue (Sep 6, 2021)

Use this site to search






ASMAD - Amtrak Status Maps Archive Database - Train History Search


ASMAD - Amtrak Status Maps History and Archive



juckins.net


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## river (Sep 6, 2021)

Thank you! Perfect--wasn't able to locate something like this!


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## me_little_me (Sep 6, 2021)

Are you needing to make a connection? Planning a wedding the day of arrival? Is the arrival time really important?

If not, best to assume some delays and think of it as an opportunity to enjoy some extra time on board. You're scheduled to arrive LAX at 8AM so being late means you have an opportunity for a relaxing breakfast instead of fighting rush hour traffic.

On return, you are scheduled for mid-afternoon so it has to be really late to get an extra meal but the most likely worst thing is arriving at rush hour. In that case, pack your bags at the lounge and celebrate your trip with a last meal in downtown Chicago before heading home.

Have a fun trip. Enjoy the scenery. Enjoy the real food that others traveling before August didn't get.


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## river (Sep 6, 2021)

Thanks for your suggestions! We are hoping to get off in Fullerton actually and head for Disneyland for the day we arrive with relatives. So hope we don't arrive too late! 
Coming home our actual destination is Grand Rapids MI so wondering about the layover time (about 3.5 hrs) if we end up choosing to take the Pere Marquette to Chicago both ways. 
Currently we are just planning to drive to Chicago from Grand Rapids the morning we board the train and park at a relative's home in the suburbs.
(Don't want to stay overnight in Chicago with a guaranteed connection. Need to get home that evening.)


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## Just me (Sep 6, 2021)

Sounds like a fun trip. Enjoy!!!


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## Cal (Sep 6, 2021)

river said:


> Coming home our actual destination is Grand Rapids MI so wondering about the layover time (about 3.5 hrs) if we end up choosing to take the Pere Marquette to Chicago both ways.


The Chief has a fairly good OTP compared to others, they have little to no freight traffic between Trinidad and ABQ and BNSF generally treat's Amtrak well. But sometimes theres no other choice so always be ready for a long delay.


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## river (Sep 6, 2021)

Thanks for the info! I looked at the chart AmtrakBlue provided above and like you said, I saw the OTP for the last month was actually quite good and well under the 3.5 hour layover time we have. Nice to see that!
So, I took advantage of the current 1/2 price sale and booked seats on the Pere Marquette. We'll just chance it that the SWC will be reasonably on time back to CHI. I noticed there is a 7 AM train to Kalamazoo the next morning that we could hopefully take on the small chance we're too late into Chicago on the SWC. It's just an hour south of GRR so someone could pick us up and we'd be home before noon.
Looking forward to our trip! Hope the dining car will be open! Love traveling in a bedroom! Did it once before to CA many years ago. Very nice trip.


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## river (Sep 6, 2021)

And now a follow up question. If I called Amtrak and asked if they'd combine our tickets to make GRR-LAX a guaranteed connection would Amtrak be willing to do that? That means they'd provide a free hotel room for the night if we missed our connection.
I got a great 1/2 price deal on the GRR to CHI tickets and wonder how that works. I'm guessing they'd raise our ticket fees to provide a guaranteed connection.


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## Cal (Sep 6, 2021)

river said:


> And now a follow up question. If I called Amtrak and asked if they'd combine our tickets to make GRR-LAX a guaranteed connection would Amtrak be willing to do that? That means they'd provide a free hotel room for the night if we missed our connection.
> I got a great 1/2 price deal on the GRR to CHI tickets and wonder how that works. I'm guessing they'd raise our ticket fees to provide a guaranteed connection.


Should be no problem to do, and is the worst choice


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## AmtrakBlue (Sep 6, 2021)

I THINK you can have them link the two reservations.


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## zephyr17 (Sep 6, 2021)

Be careful. Messing with reservations can cause you to lose your pricing. Be sure that you understand exactly what the agent is going to do before they do it. If they "link" the reservations, my understanding is it is just a note, which should not disturb anything. My understanding of how the guarantee works is they compare the passenger lists, so if the reservation is under the same name, you ought to be okay if there is a problem.


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## river (Sep 6, 2021)

Thanks for this info. I am leery of doing anything to mess things up! I wonder if I did it in person at the GRR station ( I think it's staffed) that would work so I could explain and be aware of what the attendant does.


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## me_little_me (Sep 7, 2021)

river said:


> Thanks for this info. I am leery of doing anything to mess things up! I wonder if I did it in person at the GRR station ( I think it's staffed) that would work so I could explain and be aware of what the attendant does.


Good idea. Go at an off-time i.e. when the agent is not busy preparing for a train arrival. This way they won't feel rushed. And be sure to be really nice up front: "I hate to bother you but I wonder if you could ..." or "Looks like you've been busy. Do you have a moment to ....". I find that puts the agent in a good mood to go out of the way to be helpful.

If you do call an agent, call at an off-hour - again to have the time. Make sure you make it clear to the agent that you do NOT want the reservations changed in any way other than linking them to be sure the delay on the first train gets you a guaranteed connection. If they can't do it, tell them never mind, thank them and call back at another time.


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## Barb Stout (Sep 7, 2021)

Back before I understood that I should make multiple segments on one reservation, I was on the LSL that was 5 hours late into Chicago due to a train/pedestrian fatality. This meant we were a few minutes late to catch the SWC, but they held the train presumably because there were a number of people besides my sister and me that were on the late LSL. I don't know how many, but apparently enough to hold the SWC. I didn't know enough to have requested linked reservations either.  Whether there would be enough people catching the Pere Marquette from the SWC for them to do a similar thing, I wouldn't know. The next time I traveled by train, I still didn't realize about having multiple segments on one reservation but found out about that from this forum. I also found out about linking reservations. When I called to have Amtrak customer service (or whatever it's called) link them, I didn't have any problems; I just explained the situation, and the agent seemed happy to oblige my request.


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## river (Sep 7, 2021)

Thank you for your suggestions Barb!


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## river (Sep 7, 2021)

And thanks to me-little-me for your suggestions as well!


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## zephyr17 (Sep 8, 2021)

river said:


> Thanks for this info. I am leery of doing anything to mess things up! I wonder if I did it in person at the GRR station ( I think it's staffed) that would work so I could explain and be aware of what the attendant does.


Grand Rapids (GRR) is not staffed.


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## river (Sep 8, 2021)

Thanks for saving me a trip to the GRR Amtrak station! I think I will see what I can do to link my return reservations at a counter when I arrive in Chicago to start our trip. I'll have plenty of time as our layover before boarding the SWC is about 6 hrs. Getting so excited to go!


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## moselman66 (Sep 14, 2021)

This page on the same site specifically lets you look at the success a connection, in this case from 4 (Southwest Chief) to 370 (Pere Marquette) connecting in CHI.

Looks like 85% successful this year, and if you exclude a couple of rough patches in mid June and mid July it routinely is north of 90% success.

https://juckins.net/amtrak_status/archive/html/connections.php?a_train_num=4&c_train_num=370&station=chi&date_start=01/01/2021&date_end=12/31/2021&df1=1&df2=1&df3=1&df4=1&df5=1&df6=1&df7=1&buffer_mins=5&sort_dir=DESC&dfon=1

Note that the link loads and refreshes slowly, but patience is rewarded.


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## river (Sep 17, 2021)

Thanks for the info moselman66


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## acelafan (Sep 18, 2021)

Glad you find the statistics useful. If you search for more than 60-90 days at a time the results do take longer to show up. The script has to figure out all queried arrivals/departures and match them up before comparing. Also ignore times when some trains don't run or have service disruptions.


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## moselman66 (Sep 18, 2021)

acelafan said:


> Glad you find the statistics useful. If you search for more than 60-90 days at a time the results do take longer to show up. The script has to figure out all queried arrivals/departures and match them up before comparing. Also ignore times when some trains don't run or have service disruptions.



Credit where credit is due -- I have used your data tools countless times in these early days of this airline guy getting more into passenger rail. Great stuff!


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## moosejunky99 (Sep 18, 2021)

The first time i rode on the southwest chef back in April of 2019.. This train was early.... into Fullerton... The dispatcher seemed to be on the side of the train. We keep passing freight trains on the way there and back.. I think i was 20-40 mins late coming back because the lights (red and green and yellow lights) went dark and had to wait for them to come back on and high wind warning had the train slam on the brakes once or twice..


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## river (Sep 18, 2021)

I also had a question about what happens when your purchased bedroom price drops, but I moved my question to another thread--to Roomette Rate Lowered thread.


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## river (Sep 29, 2021)

And the FOLLOW-UP on the timings of the Southwest Chief on our recent trip:

We returned last evening form our GRR-CHI-LAX-CHI-GRR trip. I am happy to say everything went fine and according to plan.

The GRR-CHI leg was on time both for departing and arriving.

The Chicago Metropolitan Lounge was a comfortable place to relax, do computer work, and snack. I'd even say go early so you can enjoy it. We waited about 5 hrs for the SW Chief but it was nearly as comfortable as being at home.

We were able to get off one stop before LAX--in Fullerton Our excellent SCA (Richard) said Totally Fine! It was about 30 minutes behind schedule into Fullerton. The train hit a horse we were told somewhere in Arizona or New Mexico and there was a 15 min stop to check the train after that. There were maybe a few very brief stops on the trip due to freight traffic.

On our return from LAX when we arrived at the Amtrak Metropolitan Lounge in Los Angeles I asked the very friendly attendant to link our return reservations to GRR in case we missed our GRR connection. (I waited until she had time to address it--in Chicago the ticket agents were always busy so I decided to wait until LA.) She did by adding a note on our reservations on her computer. She actually showed me what she wrote on her computer, so that was an extra measure of trip protection.

No need to worry though as we arrived in CHI just 28 minutes late (some occasional freight traffic). We had about a 3 hour wait back again in the CHI Metropolitan Lounge. But very comfortable and enjoyable.

And our final trip from CHI-GRR was on time leaving and arriving in Grand Rapids.

Wonderful timing the entire trip!! Thanks all for your comments and suggestions!

* Also want to add the dining car was open and the food was consistently DELICIOUS. And we didn't have to wear masks in when in our rooms in the sleepers. They didn't announce that overhead but the SCA's both ways said it was fine not to wear in our rooms when they came around to our bedroom to greet us (Masks were required everywhere else they said.)


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## Cal (Sep 29, 2021)

river said:


> And the FOLLOW-UP on the timings of the Southwest Chief on our recent trip:
> 
> We returned last evening form our GRR-CHI-LAX-CHI-GRR trip. I am happy to say everything went fine and according to plan.
> 
> ...


I’m glad you enjoyed. Richard was my SCA two months ago, he was great.


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## flitcraft (Sep 29, 2021)

me_little_me said:


> And be sure to be really nice up front: "I hate to bother you but I wonder if you could ..." or "Looks like you've been busy. Do you have a moment to ....". I find that puts the agent in a good mood to go out of the way to be helpful.


This is such good advice for dealing with any customer-facing staff of any business. Catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, as they say...


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## ja5151 (Dec 15, 2021)

I live in the STL area and like the idea of taking the Chief to Albuquerque or Flagstaff some day. So I could take the 4:29-9:40p River Runner from Kirkwood to Kansas City and catch the Chief at 10:42p, which is nice and efficient, as long as the River Runner doesn't run late (which it sometimes does). I assume that's not a guaranteed connection?


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## tgstubbs1 (Dec 15, 2021)

Maybe if you book it that way, but one hour is pretty close timing. 

Still, if one is late it might be the SWC.


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## AmtrakMaineiac (Dec 16, 2021)

tgstubbs1 said:


> Still, if one is late it might be the SWC.


SWC has a pretty long layover at KC so even if it arrives late it would probably leave on time unless it is really late.


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## tgstubbs1 (Dec 16, 2021)

I'm not sure what the on time data is. I hope you could make it.
As it is the SWC should arrive KCY at 10pm and depart 1042pm, exactly an hour after the Missouri train should arrive. I don't know if Amtrak will guarantee that connection. No doubt 800 Amtrak could answer your question.


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