Capitol Limited & Lake Shore Limited Delays Summer/Fall 2014

[neroden]

I am actually completely floored with amazement that she actually said that, and then you proceeded to report that on a public forum! As Neorden pointed out, that is admission of a patently illegal act! Oh well..... wonders never cease I suppose! I guess minimally reporting that to the STB may be in order. Though, I suspect that your grand daughter was probably not speaking based on first hand knowledge, but on the general atmosphere within the company, which in the past has been sufficient to construct a case against a company.

Evidently, it's not illegal until the Supreme Court says it is, and it hasn't decided that issue yet.

That's not how it works. It's illegal to prioritize freight trains ahead of passenger trains. The Class I executives *know* it's illegal. That's why, whenever they're asked, they claim that they are giving passenger trains top priority, and that the problem is simply that they're just generally incompetent at running their railroads. (Not a great defense... but it's legal to be incompetent.)

In the case of BNSF and NS recently, I can actually believe the execs. The passenger trains are delayed for hours, but the freight trains are being delayed for days and *weeks*.

 

[neroden]

The larger question will be if things keep up like this in the rail industry, at what point do we see a push start for re-regulation?

This is the larger question, yes. And that movement has already started, as you can see if you check the news regarding it from last year. However, the re-regulation movement should gain steam with the current breakdowns of the BNSF and NS systems. It's really, really bad, politically speaking, for Class I management to screw up right now, like they are doing.

Full disclosure: I'm invested in NS, CN, and Berkshire Hathaway, and I wish they would realize that they need to move into expansion mode; I think it's very dangerous long-term for them to generate snarls like this.

It appears to be an industry wide issue now that too many lines were pulled in the 80's, and now they're sorely needed. If domestic industries are continually impacted, particularly bulk commodities like farm products, there could be a serious push for regulation which will definitely not end happy for the railroads. Hopefully they're genuinely committed to adding capacity quickly, Amtrak is just the canary in the coal mine.

I also hope they're genuinely committed to adding capacity quickly, but I see no evidence of it from NS (or most of the others). BNSF is adding *some* capacity, but it seems that it's less than was needed *last year*, which seems kind of half-assed.

 

[Barciur]

Back to earth. A report "abord" 30(6) from TO:

Bused. We are almost to waterloo. Bus load of unhappy people. They rushed us out of union station like it was on fire then the station attendtants stood around and discussed how to best load the buses. Loaded people thrn moved some then moved them again. After the five of us were on a bus they came back 3 times to count who was going to waterloo. We them sat for an hour outside the station waiting for a few connections off #6

15min till freedom. Still better than 8+ hour delay.

 

[montana mike]

So much for a train ride!!! If this wasn't real life it would be a hollywood comedy.

:-(

 

[afigg]

For those who have not checked Track-a-Train or Status maps today for ongoing saga of the CL and LSL, #29 and #49(10/6) were terminated at Toledo, so it is buses to Chicago and the stops in-between again. #29(10/6) arrived 2 hours and 49 minutes late at TOL so its passengers will be rather late to CHI. #29 departed PGH 26 minutes late, then CLE 2 hours and 11 minutes late, so it got delayed between PGH and CLE.

Both #30 and #48 departed Toledo late, looks like 2:36 late for #30, over 2 hours late for #48. CL #30(10/6) is presently 3:14 late at Connellsville and #48(10/6) was 2:48 late at Erie. So the bustitution did not get the eastbound trains back on schedule (east of TOL), but they are at least not horribly late. Perhaps they will do better with the buses tonight with some practice.

 

[jis]

It also depends when the buses actually make it out of Chicago after sweeping up all late arriving trains from the west etc.

 

[montana mike]

Excellent point, since trains like the EB are now running at least 6 hours late arriving (which puts those pax into CHI after 10 PM), and it appears Amtrak is willing to wait on those arrivals rather than put them up overnight.

 

[afigg]

It also depends when the buses actually make it out of Chicago after sweeping up all late arriving trains from the west etc.

True. Looking at yesterday's western LD trains on status maps, there is missing data for #8(10/4) which has not been filled in since the website outage on Sunday, so don't know how late #8 arrived at CHI. Of the rest, CZ #6(10/4) was the latest, arriving CHI at 6:40 PM, 3 hours and 50 minutes late, on Monday. So the CL #30 buses were likely held for #6.

The challenge over the CHI to TOL route with bus substitutions is that the CL and LSL scheduled trip times of 4 hours and 4:20 respectively are competitive with the Google map predicted driving time of 4 hours. So adding time to load everyone on the buses, then doublecheck to make sure people got on the correct buses, move those who got on the wrong bus, drive to Toledo, maybe with a pit stop, then unload the buses and board the train? Ok, now that I look at it, with bustitutions, the CL and LSL are not going to depart Toledo eastbound on time.

So the question remains, how long will Amtrak turn the CL and LSL around at Toledo?

 

[jis]

They started doing these turns in Toledo to a significant extent because they simply don't have enough T&E staff on the Toledo extra board to run those trains all the way to Chicago and back with the level of delays they have been experiencing. A close second of course is cost of missed connections in Chicago. But short of hiring or transferring more staff into the Toledo extra board it is not possible to run those service on a new schedule which is 4 to 6 hours longer, day in and day out.

 

[montana mike]

It also depends when the buses actually make it out of Chicago after sweeping up all late arriving trains from the west etc.

True. Looking at yesterday's western LD trains on status maps, there is missing data for #8(10/4) which has not been filled in since the website outage on Sunday, so don't know how late #8 arrived at CHI. Of the rest, CZ #6(10/4) was the latest, arriving CHI at 6:40 PM, 3 hours and 50 minutes late, on Monday. So the CL #30 buses were likely held for #6.

The challenge over the CHI to TOL route with bus substitutions is that the CL and LSL scheduled trip times of 4 hours and 4:20 respectively are competitive with the Google map predicted driving time of 4 hours. So adding time to load everyone on the buses, then doublecheck to make sure people got on the correct buses, move those who got on the wrong bus, drive to Toledo, maybe with a pit stop, then unload the buses and board the train? Ok, now that I look at it, with bustitutions, the CL and LSL are not going to depart Toledo eastbound on time.

So the question remains, how long will Amtrak turn the CL and LSL around at Toledo?

I believe #8 (10/4) arrived in CHI around 1 AM? No matter what the exact time, they have all been running very late since BNSF started moving the Fall harvest a couple weeks ago (and today's is no different around 6 hours behind). While I would think truncating the CL/LSL trains in Toledo should be a very short term "solution", I just don't see ANY thing happening in the next couple months which would change the operating parameters at NS to allow them to run along those tracks and have any semblance of reasonable timekeeping.

 

[jis]

Depending on how fluid or not Porter to Engelwood is, this may be a moment when Amtrak seriously ought to look at temporarily rerouting those trains, perhaps coupled together, via Michigan, putting in place necessary modification to schedules on a temporary basis.

 

[George]

Can Amtrak reroute the LSD via Niagara Falls and Widsor?

 

[jis]

Anything can happen with enough LSD I suppose. But as for the LSL not likely. Some of the tracks that were originally used apparently are not in good shape, and TSA will throw a huge hissy-fit too.

 

[Barciur]

Any news on what's happening to pax that connect to Pennsy in PGH? Are they taken for a ride to WAS and connect there back to PHL/NYP if that's their destination? Or is there buses to Harrisburg?

 

[justinslot]

Customer Relations did refund my sleeper costs from Chicago to Toledo, and gave me a $200 credit to boot, so all's well that ends well.

 

[Barciur]

So how does that work? Did they discount the Chicago-Toledo and treated your ticket like Toledo-final destination?

 

[jis]

No. They give you a voucher for the difference, or sometimes even refund in the form that it was originally paid for. What accounting they do internally I don;t know. But AFAIK there was nothing that changed in my PNR.

 

[Barciur]

I'm just curious what justinslot meant by "refund my sleeper cost Chicago-Toledo" on top of the $200 voucher.

I'm also curious how my trip turns out - Lancaster-Milwaukee in a sleeper from Pittsburgh roundtrip on Oct 31 with return on Nov 2. Will definitely be doing a very detailed travelogue with pictures and will take a journal along to note exact times of happenings, since it sounds like it will be an eventful trip.

 

[R30A]

Considering the number of delays due to crew shortages, perhaps they should delay the Capitol Ltd out of CHI to leave with the Lake Shore and intentionally combine the trains from Chicago to Cleveland.

 

[City of Miami]

There were repeated announcements in was Union Station this afternoon that train 29 will terminate in tol and bustitution beyomd that.

 

[Barciur]

So this will be the third day - I guess this is the new norm then?

 

[afigg]

The Chairman of the STB asked the freight railroads in August to provide an assessment of its ability to meet the expected peak fall traffic demand and its plans to respond to that demand. In mid-September, each of the freight railroads responded with a letter to the Chairman which have been posted to the STB Peak Season Service Plans page*. The response letters are after the block of links of the original letters from Chairman Elliott.

Link to the NS letter (7 page PDF). The NS response is a scanned document so I can't readily cut and paste text from it. Letter has list of capital expenditures including $500 million committed to investments in routes and terminals in the Chicago to Cleveland corridor; how many new hires; that the project to expand the classification yard at Bellevue, OH is expected to be completed in December and start operational service in the 1st qtr of 2015.

The not so good news is that NS does not expect network velocity and service levels to approach normal levels until the 1st quarter of 2015.

* Found out about the STB letters from a post on trainorders, so give credit where it is due.

 

[John Bobinyec]

Since 29 and 49 have been turning at Toledo, and buses carrying the passengers to Chicago, are they making connections to the SWC? Anybody know?

Thanks,

jb

 

[jis]

Yes, some of our friends en route to the AU Gathering in the Bay Area in California have made such connections over the last day or two. One even made a connection to the TE.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

Yes. I made my connection to the SWC on Monday from 49. We arrived at CUS about 10:30 CT. Our bus did NOT make a stop (they handed out pastries & water as we left TOL).

Even before the buses they held 3 for as long as they could, it seems.

People made their connections to TE, CZ & EB.