Amtrak delays

[fdaley]

Today it's the Crescent's turn. No. 20 was due out of Atlanta at 11:29 p.m. last night but didn't leave till 5:01 a.m. on account of a "trespasser incident" in Alabama. (Sounds like a fun wait at Peachtree Station.) It's currently about five hours down and seems sure to miss the last same-day connections to Albany, Hartford/Springfield and Boston.

 

[joelkfla]

Today it's the Crescent's turn. No. 20 was due out of Atlanta at 11:29 p.m. last night but didn't leave till 5:01 a.m. on account of a "trespasser incident" in Alabama. (Sounds like a fun wait at Peachtree Station.) It's currently about five hours down and seems sure to miss the last same-day connections to Albany, Hartford/Springfield and Boston.

Can't blame that on Amtrak. It's up to the police to decide how long they want to investigate the scene, and up to the host railroad to clear any debris from the tracks.

 

[jis]

Can't blame that on Amtrak. It's up to the police to decide how long they want to investigate the scene, and up to the host railroad to clear any debris from the tracks.

And then there is the Coroner who has to come and take care of paperwork if a fatality is involved. Sometimes it is hard to find a Coroner in the sticks in a timely manner.

 

[John Bobinyec]

We all feel that PSR has increased the delays to Amtrak. But has it improved the movement statistics for the host railroads? I'm thinking of "dwell times", "velocities", etc...

jb

 

[fdaley]

Can't blame that on Amtrak. It's up to the police to decide how long they want to investigate the scene, and up to the host railroad to clear any debris from the tracks.

Oh, I agree, you can't blame Amtrak for trespasser incidents or grade-crossing accidents -- or for the disabled freight trains that caused the Silver Star problems this week and the California Zephyr extreme delay that rippled through the system for a few days and contributed to delays on the Lake Shore and Capitol. But when you combine all of these incidents with factors that are more within Amtrak's control (such as mechanical problems that result in a five-hour delay getting No. 48 out of Chicago), you unfortunately leave a lot of non-train-buff customers with the feeling that this mode of transportation has a lot of problems.

On the matter of freight-related delays, certainly it makes sense to try to use the legal system to get the freight railroads to live up to their responsibilities, though it's still not clear to me how well this effort will work.

I do think these extreme delays are another reason to prioritize the quality of the on-board experience. When you're on a 24-hour or 30-hour trip that winds up being 8 or 12 hours late, it's a lot less tolerable if you're on a train that's lost its Sightseer Lounge and/or dining service and only has one food car that's running out of flex meals -- and worse, you've maybe been bumped from sleeper to coach with little or no notice, as has been happening this summer.

I also think Amtrak's scheduling choices have worsened the problem when there are unavoidable delays to certain trains, such as the northbound Crescent and eastbound Lake Shore. When the Crescent was scheduled out of Atlanta at 7 or 8 p.m., a delay of 4-5 hours, while unpleasant, would have been a lot more tolerable and would likely still have gotten the train into the Northeast in time for most connections. And with the Lake Shore's late evening departure from Chicago, delays of even a couple of hours can easily mushroom into a post-midnight arrival into Boston.

 

[kangforpres]

3 Zephyr's are out on their routes right now at least 12 hours late? What's the reason? Crew problems, equipment, UP traffic problems?

 

[jruff001]

Oh, I agree, you can't blame Amtrak for trespasser incidents or grade-crossing accidents -- or for the disabled freight trains that caused the Silver Star problems this week and the California Zephyr extreme delay that rippled through the system for a few days and contributed to delays on the Lake Shore and Capitol. But when you combine all of these incidents with factors that are more within Amtrak's control (such as mechanical problems that result in a five-hour delay getting No. 48 out of Chicago), you unfortunately leave a lot of non-train-buff customers with the feeling that this mode of transportation has a lot of problems.

Yep. I was on 92(16) which was 6+ hours late into DC on Friday and down the hall from me were a couple of Amtrak first-timers who left as part of the "never again" crowd.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

Beautiful sunny day here on the NEC in DE…and trains are stopped. Oh, did I mention very windy too?
A tree fell & took down a wire that knocked the signals out.

 

[Anderson]

I can probably let this image speak for itself. There's an Acela that is down 2.5 hours as of now, among other things. There are literally so many trains delayed that it's overwhelming the display boards. Updated since I took the photo, 91 is due into BAL at 4:44 (vs 1:55), 2213 at 4:50 (vs 2:23), etc. The only trains "on time" here are a few that are originating out of WAS...and the delay pile is bad enough that they're almost getting shoved off the screen.

So...does anyone know what's gone to Helena up here?

 

[joelkfla]

View attachment 28653
I can probably let this image speak for itself. There's an Acela that is down 2.5 hours as of now, among other things. There are literally so many trains delayed that it's overwhelming the display boards. Updated since I took the photo, 91 is due into BAL at 4:44 (vs 1:55), 2213 at 4:50 (vs 2:23), etc. The only trains "on time" here are a few that are originating out of WAS...and the delay pile is bad enough that they're almost getting shoved off the screen.

So...does anyone know what's gone to Helena up here?

Maybe this: Amtrak delays

 

[fdaley]

Crescent No. 20 had another 5 a.m. departure from Atlanta this morning. (It was due out last night at 11:29.) The run started two and a half hours late out of New Orleans, I assume because of the late arrival of inbound equipment the night before. (The previous night's No. 19 arrived at NOL at 3:12 a.m.)

 

[AmtrakBlue]

It was a fun afternoon, for those of us watching, not for those on the trains. When the trains finally started moving it was one after another for a bit.
Alas, my phone and power pack were dying so I only took videos of a few going slowing through Newark, DE

 

[daybeers]

This, along with the mechanical delays, has been happening much too often. Not hopeful for the OTP of the NEC this year.

 

[cassie225]

Oh my, I guess I will have to take a knock out pill and start taking the plane. Although with all their cancellations lately, I might just stay home

 

[Anderson]

It was a fun afternoon, for those of us watching, not for those on the trains. When the trains finally started moving it was one after another for a bit.
Alas, my phone and power pack were dying so I only took videos of a few going slowing through Newark, DE

Oh, the train was "fun" alright...

I'm going to be calling Amtrak to give them a polite piece of my mind. The crew of 99 died at NCR, and this was probably inevitable well before the train got to BAL. It took them about an hour to get the replacement crew out to us...why they didn't already have a crew coming up to either NCR or BWI is beyond me. At one point when people were asking what they should do I ended up hollering "Go over and take the Metro. It'll be faster."

Pax going to WAS got cross-loaded to a Regional terminating there. There was no equivalent cross-loading for ALX-RVR pax onto the NFK train that came through before we left (the late NFK train actually overtook us while we were at NCR). This didn't affect me (I was heading to NPN), but...what a mess.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

Oh, the train was "fun" alright...

I'm going to be calling Amtrak to give them a polite piece of my mind. The crew of 99 died at NCR, and this was probably inevitable well before the train got to BAL. It took them about an hour to get the replacement crew out to us...why they didn't already have a crew coming up to either NCR or BWI is beyond me. At one point when people were asking what they should do I ended up hollering "Go over and take the Metro. It'll be faster."

Pax going to WAS got cross-loaded to a Regional terminating there. There was no equivalent cross-loading for ALX-RVR pax onto the NFK train that came through before we left (the late NFK train actually overtook us while we were at NCR). This didn't affect me (I was heading to NPN), but...what a mess.

Obviously I don’t know, but perhaps there wasn’t a replacement crew available because of all the late arriving trains. Even deadheading crews would have been stuck on one of those trains.

 

[Rasputin]

...what a mess.

Sadly, that pretty well sums up Amtrak nowadays.

 

[Palmland]

Trains news wire has a story abut BNSF embargoing carload traffic to California because of congestion. It would be an interesting time to ride the SWC. Some traffic (fuel, military, chemicals, grain) will be handled on a permit basis. This is viewed as a relatively short term problem (through July) with some restrictions starting to be lifted by July 6.

"BNSF Railway will limit carload traffic bound for California through the end of July as it struggles to overcome congestion...
We have experienced a sharp increase in congestion throughout Southern California during the past few weeks due to several high wind events concurrent with the high levels of traffic seeking to move through the region,” the railroad said. “In addition, flash flooding from monsoonal rains caused a service outage earlier this week on a portion of our Southern Transcon near Laguna, New Mexico, approximately 70 miles west of Belen."

 

[jis]

Trains news wire has a story abut BNSF embargoing carload traffic to California because of congestion. It would be an interesting time to ride the SWC. Some traffic (fuel, military, chemicals, grain) will be handled on a permit basis. This is viewed as a relatively short term problem (through July) with some restrictions starting to be lifted by July 6.

"BNSF Railway will limit carload traffic bound for California through the end of July as it struggles to overcome congestion...
We have experienced a sharp increase in congestion throughout Southern California during the past few weeks due to several high wind events concurrent with the high levels of traffic seeking to move through the region,” the railroad said. “In addition, flash flooding from monsoonal rains caused a service outage earlier this week on a portion of our Southern Transcon near Laguna, New Mexico, approximately 70 miles west of Belen."

The question of relevance to Amtrak, the subject matter of this thread, is whether this will improve anything for the SWC or not.

 

[Stremba]

Well I guess I will find out. I am going to be on the SWC departing CHI on 7/1 and departing LAX on 7/8 for my return trip. From a purely selfish point of view I am hoping this move by BNSF improves the SWC’s OTP.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Yesterday's #21/#421 from Chicago steadily lost time after Leaving St Louis and is now shown in a Service Disruption after arriving 9+ Hours Late into Dallas @ 9:30PM!!!

I can find no information as to why, and Amtrak Track a Train is showing " Unavailable" when I tried to find out if it made it to Fort Worth!

It's one of those LD Trains that's just Vanished!!!

 

[Cal]

On the app when you look for train status it doesn't say cancelled. Hmmm.

 

[Cal]

However, on the Forth Worth railcam (linked below) theres chatter about it being terminated in FTW with the rest of the route being served by bus. Probably right.

 

[Oreius]

When I was walking into Pittsburgh, I saw the Capitol Limited #30 pulling out. It was more of a “Capitol Limitedette” with only about 6 cars. I wonder why it was over an hour and 1/2 late?

 

[BlackDiamond]

When I was walking into Pittsburgh, I saw the Capitol Limited #30 pulling out. It was more of a “Capitol Limitedette” with only about 6 cars. I wonder why it was over an hour and 1/2 late?

An hour and a half is nothing for an LD train, sadly. Probably the usual - freight train interference,