Coast Starlight hits truck in Ventura County CA, partially derails (6/28/23)

[zephyr17]

Just looked...seeing #14 EMY>SEA on 7/1 and on. #11 showing "Sold Out" on 7/1 and 7/2 and available on 7/3.
#11 SEA>LAX on 7/10 as you stated above.

Under a "normal" schedule #11 arrives EMY in AM and #14 departs in evening so, the trainset would only be there during the day. Assuming it is "turned".

I was looking at the "Schedules" tab rather than reservations. It is somewhat quicker and can get a weeks worth of information at once. They usually reflect the same information, but can get out of sync. With them showing different data, I'd take whichever is the more pessimistic one as likely to be true until they get reconciled to whatever reality turns out to be.

Amtrak IT strikes again.

 

[west point]

Unless mistaken. Amtrak will not even touch the cars for repairs. Remember some 16(?) passengers went to hospital. Here come the lawyers. Strange no crew member to hospital? Makes one wonder!

 

[joelkfla]

The train being towed to the yard. Some nasty scraping sounds, and one car clearly leaning.

 

[zephyr17]

The diner seems to be the one with both the lean and making the worst scraping noises.

 

[Yumacool]

Unfortunately, the last leg of our Amtrak adventure seems to have disintegrated. The partial derailment of the Coast Starlight that took place in California July 28th, has caused the train to be cancelled for the next week. My wife and I were originally scheduled to travel on it between Portland and Paso Robles July 29th, but I got with Amtrak Customer Relations and changed it to July 2nd. Today they decided to cancel it for the next week. The reservation folks said we could not get a sleeper reservation until July 9th. Therefore, we cancelled the reservation and will be returning home by air. My wife and I have traveled several thousand miles aboard Amtrak trains in the past few weeks, safely and on time. One thing we have learned during our many years of travel is that one has to roll with the punches, and that's what we're doing -- with a smile!

 

[Agent]

The diner seems to be the one with both the lean and making the worst scraping noises.

The uploader of the video mentioned a spring later gave out on it.

 

[sitzplatz17]

Am booked on train 11 for tomorrow (7/1) from SEA and still haven’t received any cancellation notice? Also see that currently it’s still available for booking too…

 

[zephyr17]

Am booked on train 11 for tomorrow (7/1) from SEA and still haven’t received any cancellation notice? Also see that currently it’s still available for booking too…

Cancelled in Schedules. Open in reservations. My bet is it does not run. To me it is likely some kind of Amtrak IT screw up. My money is on cancelled.

My only advice is to be prepared for 11(1) not to go.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

Am booked on train 11 for tomorrow (7/1) from SEA and still haven’t received any cancellation notice? Also see that currently it’s still available for booking too…

How far are you going? They may be running to EMY

Cancelled in Schedules. Open in reservations. My bet is it does not run. To me it is likely some kind of Amtrak IT screw up. My money is on cancelled.

My only advice is to be prepared for 11(1) not to go.

Or maybe the new Schedules programming wasn’t set up, though it might be “in the works”, to handle something like this. I’d trust the old system, reservations, since these things have occurred many times in the past.

 

[trimetbusfan]

Booking site suggests 11 and 14 are running every day from here out SEA-EMY.


The first trains to run the full route SEA-LAX and back are


Southbound: 11(8) - sold out /// or 11 (9) - seats available

Northbound: 14(9) - sold out /// or 14 (10) - seats available

 

[trimetbusfan]

Or maybe the new Schedules programming wasn’t set up, though it might be “in the works”, to handle something like this. I’d trust the old system, reservations, since these things have occurred many times in the past.

The schedule tab tends to show the train as ‘canceled’ even if it is still running for part of the Route.

Ex: coast starlight is still running SEA-EMY for the time being (with the exception of 11 (30) being canceled), but because it is canceled EMY-LAX it shows ‘canceled’

 

[AmtrakBlue]

14(30) is running from EMY to Seattle

 

[Yumacool]

When I spoke yesterday with Amtrak reservations, the agent was very emphatic that the Coast Starlight was cancelled this week. I asked if #11 was traveling between Seattle and Emeryville, and she replied "no." This may be incorrect, but I was not in a position to mess around, since I've already been forced to cancel twice and am staying in a Portland hotel. I hated to cancel once and for all to make plane reservations, which I was loath to do, but that's what I did. I was really looking forward to a calm, scenery-filled, overnight Coast Starlight trip.

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

The train being towed to the yard. Some nasty scraping sounds, and one car clearly leaning.

The diner seems to be the one with both the lean and making the worst scraping noises.

The uploader of the video mentioned a spring later gave out on it.

A bit surprised that they are traveling so fast and far with that diner car. Those scraping sounds indicate additional damage been caused. No reason not to set it out and have a field crew fix the problem from a service truck. That diner is going to need some extra TLC from the shop. The other cars should be back much sooner.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

Per the tracker, 11(1) left SEA at 9:56 am. Though the tracker indicates it's going all the way to LAX, I'd take that with a grain of salt at this time.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

When I spoke yesterday with Amtrak reservations, the agent was very emphatic that the Coast Starlight was cancelled this week. I asked if #11 was traveling between Seattle and Emeryville, and she replied "no." This may be incorrect, but I was not in a position to mess around, since I've already been forced to cancel twice and am staying in a Portland hotel. I hated to cancel once and for all to make plane reservations, which I was loath to do, but that's what I did. I was really looking forward to a calm, scenery-filled, overnight Coast Starlight trip.

Sad to say, for your situation, it looks like 11(1) has left Seattle "on time" this morning per the tracker.

 

[zephyr17]

When I spoke yesterday with Amtrak reservations, the agent was very emphatic that the Coast Starlight was cancelled this week. I asked if #11 was traveling between Seattle and Emeryville, and she replied "no." This may be incorrect, but I was not in a position to mess around, since I've already been forced to cancel twice and am staying in a Portland hotel. I hated to cancel once and for all to make plane reservations, which I was loath to do, but that's what I did. I was really looking forward to a calm, scenery-filled, overnight Coast Starlight trip.

To start @trimetbusfan appears correct in that there a bug in the Schedules display when part of a route is cancelled. It does appear that 11(1) will operate. Right now, few minutes before departure, if it were not I would expect that it would show "cancelled" or "Sold out".

I hesitate to mention this, given what you've been through on it, but as of this morning PDX-PRB is bookable for today's departure, with rooms even available. The options are PDX-EMY and EMY-PRB, on what appears to be a bus bridge, Amtrak chartered bus 4794, or PDX-EMY-SJC-PRB on the regular Capitol Corridor train EMY-SJC and a regular Thruway bus SJC-PRB.

The system may not have been updated with the bus bridge yesterday, nor the connection at EMY for the regular service (the normal connection for that is SJC). However, even with the bus bridge not there and the regular Capitol/Thruway EMY connection not showing, that routing ought to have been bookable by an agent by piecing it together manually like we can do on the website with Multi-City.

I know that information is too late for you and I am sorry about that. It does, however, highlight that agents, even AGR agents, sometimes don't know all the ins and outs and field conditions. Especially these days with less experienced agents after the Great Resignation. It always pays to have researched it independently on the web.

 

[west point]

This cancellation nonsense makes one shake his head. Amtrak has three perfect fully good Starlight train sets. Run the 3 good sets 3 days together. Fourth day cancel. Before or after find at least a Superliner car(s) or even single level cars ahead of transition car. Rebook cancelled passengers in those coaches. Oh wait, logic is not in Amtrak's mind set. IMO present way just plain stupid.

Yes, some T&E would need to van one way either before or after to cover their other direction. OBS no problem.

 

[Yumacool]

Yeah, maybe the info I received from Amtrak Reservations was wrong. Sometimes people give advice about things they think they know a lot about, but actually know just enough to be dangerous. She was so definite that no sleeper rooms were available until July 9th! I'll be interested to see whether or not Coast Starlight #11 actually operates this week.

 

[zephyr17]

Yeah, maybe the info I received from Amtrak Reservations was wrong. Sometimes people give advice about things they think they know a lot about, but actually know just enough to be dangerous. She was so definite that no sleeper rooms were available until July 9th! I'll be interested to see whether or not Coast Starlight #11 actually operates this week.

11(1) departed Seattle on time and just departed Klamath Falls. 14(1) departed Emeryville on time and is now approaching Martinez. 14(30) arrived early into Seattle this evening and should depart on time as 11(2) tomorrow morning. They only need the three sets that were north of the derailment to operate daily between Seattle and Emeryville. At the time of the derailment, there was one 11 in Central California that terminated in Oxnard, another 11 that just left Seattle and a 14 that was around Chemult.

It's running, and apparently with full service. It'll just be between Seattle and Emeryville until July 8th(11) and 9th(14).

The agent was technically correct that there aren't rooms to Paso Robles until then. But there are rooms to Emeryville and bus seats to Paso from there in the interim.

PS, there aren't many protection cars in LA, and almost certainly not 3 sleepers required for the Starlight plus a Diner. Nor is there a spare transdorm. They might be able to scare up enough equipment for a coach train if they borrowed some California owned equipment, but even that's doubtful.

 

[Yumacool]

Too bad, what can I say. My wife and I took a plane this morning and now I am at home in Paso Robles. If I knew that #11 still operated to Emeryville, with train/bus connections beyond, we would have done it-on today's Coast Starlight.

 

[GDRRiley]

A bit surprised that they are traveling so fast and far with that diner car. Those scraping sounds indicate additional damage been caused. No reason not to set it out and have a field crew fix the problem from a service truck. That diner is going to need some extra TLC from the shop. The other cars should be back much sooner.

Whats interesting is they moved it west to Oxnard not east closer to Ventura like in metrolinks Moorpark layover yard or directly into LA shop complex. If I got time I'll see if its still sitting in UP yard on the 5th

 

[GDRRiley]

Looks to still be sitting in the back of oxnard yard as of the 7th at around 4PM.

 

[anilou]

Whats interesting is they moved it west to Oxnard not east closer to Ventura like in metrolinks Moorpark layover yard or directly into LA shop complex. If I got time I'll see if its still sitting in UP yard on the 5th

Umm, from Moorpark, Oxnard is closer to Ventura

 

[TheMalahat]

Did service start getting restored today? I am not Amtrak-literate enough to figure it out! And I can't access Twitter where it seems like Amtrak posts the updates?