EB mess

[Rob Creighton]

...and when you arrive in Chicago after midnight, be assured Amtrak Police will be there to greet you and kick you out of the station into the street because "station closes at midnight." Happened to me on one of the coldest Chicago nights this winter on a very late train from Michigan. Missed my connecting Burlington Northern train by two minutes. Saw it's tail lights depart the station.

 

[montana mike]

#8 arrived 1:37 AM today!!! well over 9 hours late. Wow, that must have been a heck of an adventure!

 

[Ryan]

I disagree. Having the same conversation across a bunch of different threads is a time consuming pain in the neck.

If a newbie (or non-newbie in Dennis' case) has a question, they can ask it and get it answered before the thread lock. Dennis' question was answered, and the other thread was just covering the same ground we've already discussed here.

I think the staff got it exactly right letting the other thread live long enough to get the specific question answered and then locking it up.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

This thread has as much irrelevant and outdated information as it does useful advice. How is someone who shows up today supposed to know where the outdated information ends and the useful information begins? It just makes the subject more confusing than it has to be. Which wouldn't be that big of a deal if other threads weren't being locked so all such discussions could be dumped back into this unmanaged mess. Either curate it or allow it to fade away. Keeping this tired old thread on life support isn't making anything easier for newbies, which is who I thought we were trying to cater to.

 

[montana mike]

A challenge to be sure. The EB's troubles won't go away any time soon, and as we saw last night, aren't really getting much better, so do we start an "Empire Builder-Part II-The Sequel" or just continue to report and discuss the trials and tribulations on the original thread?

 

[rusty spike]

Since this "EB Mess" is going to carry on into the forseeable future, perhaps the Empire Builder should have its own forum.

 

[dlagrua]

In view of the logjam on the BNSF segment I just wonder why Amtrak has not requested an adjustment to he EB schedule to better insure the connections at CHI. The #8 leaves SEA at 4:40 PM. If the departure time at SEA can be move to say 1:00 PM this would save a whole bunch of travelers a lot of grief. Re-scheduling could offer a short term solution.

The other question not addressed was at what point in the Eastbound trip does it become evident that the train will be X hours late? It would probably be in Montana but it could be at another point on the line. If you know the train will be late, it allows you to call Amtrak to change your travel schedule and/or to try and find hotel accommodations for the evening.

I wish that we would have known about all this 8 months ago when we booked this trip. This is our first trip West on the EB and it appears that it may be a challenging one. At least the scenery will be nice!

 

[JayPea]

They did adjust, supposedly temporarily, the eastbound departure times from both Seattle and Portland to 3 hours earlier.

 

[greatcats]

You must have been away from this website for awhile. That is what has been done ( 1:40pm ) but it does not seem to have helped much. It is still a mess. I am interested in what may have come out of Boardman's visit last week. Probably got yessed to death by some corporate hacks.

 

[JayPea]

And the trains are still hours late.

 

[montana mike]

And I see today that #8 has managed to lose around two hours in eastern MN and WI-and area where it historically was able to do a decent timekeeping job in the past. It lost about three hours in this area yesterday. Must be track work going on there.

Bummer.

 

[Henry Kisor]

Yesterday's No. 7 arrived at Seattle FIVE MINUTES EARLY. Therefore this thread is now outdated and can be locked. Right?

 

[montana mike]

Yesterday's No. 7 arrived at Seattle FIVE MINUTES EARLY. Therefore this thread is now outdated and can be locked. Right?

LOL-And today's #7 is running over 3 hours late!!!!

 

[MrFSS]

All the non-topic stuff is now over in the Random Discussion Forum

 

[montana mike]

In looking at what is happening to the eastbound EB's over the past several days they appear to be losing almost as much time from MSP to CHI (2+ hours) as the dreaded MT-ND corridor. Has anyone been on an EB during this time to ascertain if this is traffic congestion or track work?

 

[gn2276]

It is probably a little of both.

 

[neroden]

In looking at what is happening to the eastbound EB's over the past several days they appear to be losing almost as much time from MSP to CHI (2+ hours) as the dreaded MT-ND corridor. Has anyone been on an EB during this time to ascertain if this is traffic congestion or track work?

No, but it's also likely to be abusive, illegal dispatching. Remember, E. Hunter Harrison recently took over CP. When at CN, CN was especially prone to delaying Amtrak by illegally running freights ahead of Amtrak; now he's at CP, and suddenly the OTP for Amtrak running on CP crashes to new lows? Suspicious to say the least.

 

[Phil S]

Last time I was on it, a few weeks ago, we had to back out of maybe 4 sidings in a row. I think this was all CP track, at least all of it was S of MSP. It has to be track work, no? Not that I don't believe CP would ever be nasty.

 

[neroden]

Harrison was also known at CN for running trains too long for the sidings without lengthening the sidings.

Let's hope there's track improvements going on. :-(

 

[andersone]

The PHMSA/USDOT has new tank car rules driven by the Bakken ,,,,

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

Sorry no law changes, just urges the shipper to use better and new design cars. No enforcement. All the USDOT 111 railcars are not permitted in Canada are now been used to move crud oil here in the US.

How many more derailments before the USDOT 111 cars are banned is the question of the day.

New policy and the emergency order by the FRA is a waste of paper.

 

[montana mike]

At least part of this mess could be solved by the darned pipeline. Lesser of two evils by far........

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

Keystone not designed for Bakken crude oil, prime reason was to ship oil sands tar "crude" from Canada for export. Would help some, but not much.

Oil companies like the "one night stand" with the railroads. Pipe lines required long term commitment "we build, you must ship by us".

Nobody knows how long before this boom bust.

As a side note I really don't get why Keystone "North" has yet to be approved. I would not invest myself, however not sure why this pipe line has a political hold on it. Then again still don't understand why Amtrak is attack by the political party that formed it.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

At least part of this mess could be solved by the darned pipeline. Lesser of two evils by far........

Source?

 

[Ispolkom]

At least part of this mess could be solved by the darned pipeline. Lesser of two evils by far........

Source?

Here's a table from the North Dakota Pipeline Authority. It shows how much quicker railroad capacity can be ramped up, compared to pipelines.

Note that the Keystone XL pipeline would only handle 100k barrels per day. Enbridge's projects, which don't require State Department approval and seem to not attract much notice, will move much more Bakken oil. For me one very interesting aspect of this table is the size of railroad projects not yet online. I know that some of them are on the former Northern Pacific line or the Soo Line (now CP), but there are lots of planned transhipping projects still being built on the Hi Line.