Empire Builder discussion 2023 Q4 - 2024

[railiner]

Not sure, but they gotta get home as well. They can't work back on another train. 8(31)'s crew will turn on 7(3).

And Amtrak would have to pay 2 crews to deadhead home…more likely cheaper to fly them home…

 

[Steve's Wanderlust]

The LCA seemed stressed out, others were performing well enough I didn't notice.

 

[zephyr17]

The LCA seemed stressed out, others were performing well enough I didn't notice.

If you mean the cafe LSA, that position is on 27/28 and so is normally based out of Chicago, not Portland. Portland does not have an OBS crew base.

 

[Rasputin]

An Empire Builder bustitution is apparently in place between Shelby and Whitefish due to a derailment near Essex:

https://dailyinterlake.com/news/2024/oct/13/freight-train-derails-on-border-of-glacier-park/

 

[Amtrak25]

How much corn spilled ? Bears have been rumored to feast on derailed, fermented, spilled corn, get drunk, and act more unpredictably than normal.

 

[Siegmund]

How much corn spilled ? Bears have been rumored to feast on derailed, fermented, spilled corn, get drunk, and act more unpredictably than normal.

This Montana Free Press article characterizes it as "hundreds of tons," which is believable (for a fairly small value of 'several' like 2 or 3) if a number of loaded hoppers overturned.

Bears drunk on fermented corn is more than just a rumor, and is a perennial point of contention between BN(SF), Montana Fish and Game, and the Park Service. The railroad is required to clean up the grain now, but TBA how good of a job they do.

 

[zephyr17]

Bears drunk on fermented corn is more than just a rumor, and is a perennial point of contention between BN(SF), Montana Fish and Game, and the Park Service. The railroad is required to clean up the grain now, but TBA how good of a job they do.

A requirement driven in no small part from BNSF trains smacking into wasted bears foraging for their favorite intoxicant on the ROW.

 

[Amtrak25]

Positive food / alcohol reinforcement will encourage them to hang out by RR tracks. Bears are not stupid and reason by association.

 

[Palmland]

We got to witness bears at work at the site of a derailment on Ed Ellis' Rio Grande Scenic RR aka San Luis and Rio Grande in 2007. What a shame it sucummed to poor managaement as the train made the very scenic trip from Alamosa to La Veta, CO.

 

[whitepine]

Ah, yes; the bustitution. We were told through a very vague announcement, which many aboard did not understand, that there had been a freight train derailment blocking the track ahead and that the east and westbound trains would be both turned around and their respective passengers would be bussed between the two trains. This was about noon. The derailment actually occurred at 5:42am according to published news reports. Later we were told that the bus ride would begin at about 6pm, with no arrival time offered, and that dinner service for that evening had been flatly cancelled. We were told that Subway sandwiches would be provided--in lieu of a three course dinner in the dining car--and that water and potato chips would be waiting for us on the bus. Upon disembarkation in Shelby, Montana, I was tossed a stale 6-inch turkey sub, informed that there was no water and no chips available, and told to separate from anything I didn't wish to carry on my lap and board a waiting school bus. That is correct; a school bus--no seat belts; sticky, hard, cramped seats that are meant to be occupied by children for minutes, not adults for 4 hours; no water, no palatable food; driven at breakneck speed over mountain grades in the dark. We arrived at Whitefish at about 10pm, jostled to be reunited with our luggage which had followed by Uhaul, struggled with it onto the now eastbound train, and got underway toward Seattle at 11:07pm. By this time and possibly earlier, according to published reports, the blockage had been cleared and the track reopened.

As Amtrak does not own, nor control, nor maintain, nor govern the track upon which its trains operate, thereby leaving its passengers to suffer the consequences of cost-based decisions made by freight operations, decisions which shockingly often lead to train derailment, I hereby call for the Federal agencies that provide the funding for Amtrak to re-categorize its operations as a form of gaming--Vegas on rails, if you will. Nothin’ but a crap shoot, and the losses not even tax deductible.