Yikes. Not a good week on the Atlantic Coast lines.
They ran 97 around 53 as it waited for a recrew.
I was on 91 (06) in January which still stopped in Tampa despite being nearly 12 hours late. Considering the high volume of passengers at Tampa, I think it still makes sense to stop there regardless of a delay unless it will cause a major operational issue that could be avoided by running straight to Miami.
Shouldn't be. 2/5's delays were due to a freight issue, not the SC accident.
What about the rest of the through passengers who will eat another 2-3 hours? Bypassing Tampa it isn't much different than busing the other passengers while the Star is detouring....assuming you can corral the buses.
In my experience, usually at least 2/3 of the passengers detrain in Tampa, with the same fraction boarding heading south of there. If my numbers are accurate, that would mean 80% or more of total passengers board or detrain in Tampa. In addition, when the train is 12 hours late like when I was aboard, many South Florida passengers may prefer it to lose a little more time as it becomes an early morning arrival rather than the middle of the night.
If they prefer to lose more time perhaps Amtrak should have left the A line and used the Andrews sub detour after all.
I guess they aren't going to play with it. With 52(6) trudging along 12'21" down, 53(7) is canceled which will eliminate the death cycle for this set and 52(7) is canceled to balance the equipment.
I understand your point, but I think the majority of passengers would rather be a little more late than transferred onto busses. If Amtrak and the host railroads were willing to give up stops to improve OTP, there are other routes across the country they could reroute but do not such as Denver-Salt Lake City and Fargo-Minot. Regardless, I would also be interested to hear what caused the change in policy. I'm certainly not an inside source, but if I had to guess it may have just been a combination of passenger complaints and high costs.If they prefer to lose more time perhaps Amtrak should have left the A line and used the Andrews sub detour after all.That would have chewed up 2 more hours and made for an even later arrival.
At any rate, thank you for your opinion regarding how late you'd like to arrive but I'd still like to read what AmtrakLKL has to say about why this practice seemingly no longer exists. Costs? Lack of buses? Too much travel?
Management decreed the bus bypass dead several years ago because it is "too expensive." At what point does an 8, 10, 12 hour late train that turns to a late northbound the next day exceed the cost of a bus?
