Now that this topic seems to be winding down, I'll ask what to me seems to be an obvious question: why does Amtrak schedule such long layovers in Chicago? (Longest layovers are 7:10 from CL to CZ and 7:08 from TE to LSL.) It seems that recent late arrivals have been much less extreme than before.
It appears to me that Amtrak is driving away the non-tourist, through-Chicago business, which would generate more revenue than it would cost occasionally to deal with very late arrivals.
At their hubs, transit operators use a "timed transfer" of about ten minutes. Why not a standard timed transfer for Amtrak at Chicago of about three hours, with chronically late arrivals assigned a somewhat earlier arrival?
It's not that Amtrak is deliberately scheduling such long layovers to deal with late trains. It's far more complicated than that. And there are some connections that are less than 3 hours, like the Builder to the Cardinal.
Factors that affect how long a layover might be are; how many trains can Amtrak handle arriving & departing at the same time in Chicago, schedules of the various trains at major cities along the way and the other end point, cleaning the inbound train in time for its outbound departure, and of course what windows was Amtrak able to get from the freight hosts.
Nobody suggested that Amtrak is scheduling trains deliberately for long and inconvenient Chicago connections, but they have had about four decades to bring convenience to the mess of arrivals and protracted departures. During this period, freight carriers have modified their schedules many times, giving Amtrak many opportunities.
If Amtrak had a plan for optimized connections from the first, they could have insisted on incremental improvements for their schedules as those carriers changed their own operations.
Successful businesses learn how to adjust their operations to suit the customers' needs, and they get more customers as a result.
For discussion's sake, let's assume that the goal was to have all long distance trains that connect west bound in Chicago with the Empire Builder, California Zephyr and Southwest Chief arrive no more than two hours from their departure, and that the EB, CZ and SWC arrive in Chicago to connect with the CL, LSL and all other CHI departing LD trains within two hours of their departure. It would seem to me that would be a scheduling, capacity and logistical disconnect (though passengers would love the shorter connections). Am I missing something?
Actually, it's an easy case, if compared to what happens daily now at Penn Station, New York and what formerly happened locally at Suburban Station and old Reading Terminal. At CUS, four westbound Eastern/Southern trains (LSL, CL, Card, and C/NO) would arrive on four parallel station tracks, be unloaded, and be pulled to the yards. Later, four westbound Western trains (EB, CZ, SWC, and TE) would be brought in to the same four tracks to load and depart.
Then at a different time (probably much later) four eastbound Western trains would arrive, be pulled, and four eastbound Eastern trains would be placed and depart in similar fashion.
If the separate westbound and eastbound pulses occur outside the commuter peaks, that would simplify the operational issues. Between the morning and afternoon peaks, empty track space opens up as commuter trains are removed to their separate yards for maintenance. Four tracks at Chicago Union Station would be needed for the four LD trains during each of those pulses. One of those tracks would (as now) be the through track used for moving the Empire Builder's consists between the north side of the station and the yard which is located south of Union Station.
The amount of time each LD consist would stand in the station (especially for arriving trains) should be much less than a hour, plenty of time to be vacated for the departing train to replace it. A fifth track might be kept available in case of late arrivals.
There would seem to be two options for scheduling the westbound and eastbound pulses: (1) westbound, within the 10am-noon range and eastbound, within the 1pm to 3pm range or (2) midday for the westbound pulse and after the afternoon commuter peak (about 6pm and later) for the eastbound pulse.
Running most of the eight trains a bit later would have some advantages: a more reliable connection from the CS to EB at Portland, more convenient eastbound station times at Salt Lake City and Lincoln, and later departures (after work for most people) at both the East and West Coast terminals.
People hate transfers, especially long ones. I think there would be many more Amtrak customers if the trains at least connected promptly with each other. Later, through cars and eventually through trains would attract even more.
