Empire Builder Summer Blues Started Early this year

[yarrow]

just got off 7(24)in spk and indeed it is going through to sea/pdx for very late departures of 8/28 today. briefly the saga of our lateness: problems with hep out of glenview and then mwk. lost about an hour. switched out our bad engine at msp for a bnsf which took a couple hours and made for a max speed of 70mph the rest of the way. slow orders in n. dakota, then a detector showed a hot bearing shortly before wtn which set us back only 30 min. freight congestion through e. montana and there you have our 8.5 hour delay into spk. it was great running in daylight along the kootenai river. all in all a fine trip with around 16 extra train hours and 2 extra dining car meals on the eb legs of our trip

 

[Fan_Trains]

7(26) got into RUG 1 hour 7 min late, left at 1 hour and 9 min late, got into MOT at 39 min late, left at 43 min late, got into STN at 1 hour and 49 min late, left at 1 hour and 52 min late, got into WTN at 1 hour and58 min late, and left at 2 hours late.

 

[Steve4031]

Wonder when 8 will leave Seattle? It's in service disruption now. And I will be departing Chicago in 3 weeks on 7. Should be interesting.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

8 (24) is screwed over now, 9:09 late and it's still in Columbus. 7 (25) lost about 90 minutes between Malta and Harve, so it's 5:14 late now. Looks like the summer delays will spill into October.

8 (26) and 28 (26) are still showing Service disruption, don't know what's going bad. Bad situation throughout the route.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Train 8 getting into Seattle today got in 39 mins early. Should be an on time departure out of Seattle today.

You mean Train 7 right? Indeed, 8 (25) departed on time today. So is the 28. 7 (24) is nowhere near as lucky, it's 6:39 late and getting wrose at every stop! The train may still need to get through some construction before battling train congestion. Definately will be an afternoon arrival in SEA/PUT. Passengers may miss connections to the Coast Starlight.

This is an Amtrak forum, please use Amtrak station codes, not Greyhound's.And I wish you would change your signature because I think it is inappropriate for a train forum. I feel like you're trying to sell tickets for Greyhound.

Most passengers wouldn't even know the station code. I never knew the station codes for where I was going on Greyhound...they do not use them on any public-facing media as far as I could tell. Even internal documentation (that I can find) usually uses the full town name whenever possible. (I've traveled Greyhound before, and until now I didn't know they had station codes!)
As for the signature, if it doesn't meet guidelines, I would report it to the admins. (I'm not reporting it because, in my personal opinion, it meets guidelines.)

It's just an operator tag and it's even smaller now that I editied it. I'm not telling you to buy Greyhound tickets or to ride Greyhound, it's just a tag on every bus that is mandatory to show that the unit is operated by Greyhound Lines. You can hide my signature if you don't want to see it.

PUT does stand for Portland Union Terminal, PDX stand for Portland International Airport, the "X" usually means International Airport. The train station is also Portland Union Terminal.

What would you say if Amtrak called CHI as "ORD" or NYP as "JFK"? There's people that call the former "CUS" for Chicago Union Station, but no one complains. This is the same matter.

 

[Ispolkom]

PUT does stand for Portland Union Terminal, PDX stand for Portland International Airport, the "X" usually means International Airport. The train station is also Portland Union Terminal.

What would you say if Amtrak called CHI as "ORD" or NYP as "JFK"? There's people that call the former "CUS" for Chicago Union Station, but no one complains. This is the same matter.

Where is this Portland Union Terminal you write about? The depot in Portland, Oregon, is called "Union Station." It says so, right on the building, all lit up and stuff. It's hard to miss.

 

[CHamilton]

The place where Amtrak trains stop in Portland, Oregon, is simply called Union Station (not Portland Union Station). It's listed on the National Register of Historic Places that way. It was never called a "terminal," although it was originally built by the Northern Pacific Terminal Company between 1890 and 1896, and was owned by the Portland Terminal Railroad until 1987.

I've heard residents of Portland call their city "PDX," along with such prosaic appellations as "the Rose City," "City of Bridges," and "the 503 [for the area code]." Of course, AU can create whatever unofficial abbreviations we want, like SCA, which I understand is not used within Amtrak. But as for me, I'm terminally bored by arguments over nomenclature.

 

[Fan_Trains]

7(25) got into SBY 4 hours 32 min late, left SBY 4 hours 35 min late. got into CUT 4 hours 30 min late, left CUT at 4 hours 31 min late, and got into GPK 4 hours 22 min late left GPK 4 hours 25 min late. it seems there will not be much to be seen at night.

 

[Ryan]

PUT does stand for Portland Union Terminal, PDX stand for Portland International Airport, the "X" usually means International Airport. The train station is also Portland Union Terminal.

What would you say if Amtrak called CHI as "ORD" or NYP as "JFK"? There's people that call the former "CUS" for Chicago Union Station, but no one complains. This is the same matter.

You mean like LAX? BWI? EWR? ATL? (I can go on if you like). Also the "X" = international airport bit is horse manure.
CUS/WUS annoy me personally, but they are 1)the abbreviation for the stations full name and 2)commonly used by enough here that there's no point in tilting at windmills and trying to get people to change. PUT is neither of these 2 things.

 

[The Davy Crockett]

it was great running in daylight along the kootenai river. all in all a fine trip with around 16 extra train hours and 2 extra dining car meals on the eb legs of our trip

As I tell people on a late train: More value for your money!

 

[jis]

PUT does stand for Portland Union Terminal, PDX stand for Portland International Airport, the "X" usually means International Airport. The train station is also Portland Union Terminal.

What would you say if Amtrak called CHI as "ORD" or NYP as "JFK"? There's people that call the former "CUS" for Chicago Union Station, but no one complains. This is the same matter.

PUT may stand for Portland Union Trerminal, but since there is nothing that exists with that name in Portland Oregon that has anything to do with trains, what is the point of belaboring the point? PUT has very little to do with the station called Union Station in Portland OR. It appears to be important to just one participant here, and so be it. But when the citizens of Portland themselves call their entire city PDX from time to time, I see absolutely nothing wrong with Amtrak using PDX as the official code for their station in said city. So calling Union Station in Portland as PUT is not at all the same matter as Chicago union Station being abbreviated as CUS.
Why would Amtrak call CHI as ORD? Is the station at a location formerly occupied by the Orchard Field? What is wrong with CHI? And Amtrak does call the appropriate station EWR in Newark. OTOH Penn Station in Newark in NWK, and no one even tries to call it NPS. Calling New York Penn Station JFK would simply be confusing. They could call it FDR too just for the heck of it. JFK is an appropriate code for an airport that is indeed called JFK, not for every other terminal in New York. And this business about X suffix meaning international? Where did you get that from?

So all in all if someone tries to call Chicago Union Station ORD, or New York Penn Station JFK or Union Station in Portland PUT, I'd say the same thing to all..... "Get reconnected back to normal practice"

BTW, what does this have to do with EB and its summer woes other than of course that one of its terminal points is the said Union Station in Portland?

 

[Slasharoo]

Personally, I find using station codes in correspondence insufferable. I can accept the major stations like Chicago, New York or Portland but Sturtevant??? Nope

 

[Steve4031]

Let's get back on topic. In riding 7 in 3 weeks and could care less about station codes. Just use the ones used by Amtrak. Or spell it out. Keep life simple.

 

[amamba]

Sounds like the EB is still suffering from its summertime woes.

 

[amtrakmichigan]

#8 just rolled into Sandpoint down 5:44 with one P42 and #502 Dash-8. At least the consist looked better then the Cascade engine that was being used a few times last week

 

[Fan_Trains]

7(25) just left SPK 3 hours 26 min late, and 27(27) just left SPK 3 hours 25 min late

 

[EB_OBS]

#8 just rolled into Sandpoint down 5:44 with one P42 and #502 Dash-8. At least the consist looked better then the Cascade engine that was being used a few times last week

Trail loco is actually #507. It's a P32. This loco is based out of LAX and usually runs on the Coast Starlight.

 

[John]

This may seem like a dumb question but does anyone know why 7(27) left CHI 6 minutes down? Only reason I ask is that a friend and I saw it around 2:21 when we we're walking back to CUS.

 

[EB_OBS]

This may seem like a dumb question but does anyone know why 7(27) left CHI 6 minutes down? Only reason I ask is that a friend and I saw it around 2:21 when we we're walking back to CUS.

There are no comments in ARROW as to the reason for the late departure.

 

[montana mike]

WHoo, hooh!!! It looks like #8 has a shot at being less than an hour late into CHI today!!!! Yeah. A couple of the BNSF projects have wrapped up for the season (to be continued next April btw), so this appears to be having a positive impact on the EBs. Let's hope this trend continues.........

 

[Steve4031]

I'll be riding 7 in about 10 days. What improvements would I likely notice from all of this construction?

Thanks

 

[montana mike]

Much of the effort was to improve road beds and rails (resurfacing, replacement) in parts of eastern MT and a good part of far eastern ND. Another aspect of the work is to add additional, traffic control systems, sidings and spurs to handle the increase in freight traffic along the hi-line. My guess is the areas where the tracks were notorious for being rough, especially in eastern MT, MAY be a better ride now.

 

[Steve4031]

Should be fun checking it out. Most of day two will be spent checking out the fruits if these efforts. Thanks.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Cool, glad to see the EB doing better. Most of the trains are close to on-time, but 8 (30) just suffered a two-hour dip near Williston. Everything else is going fine.

 

[montana mike]

Yup, #8 now almost 4 hours behind. I have asked my BNSF folks about this, since this type of delay is exactly in line with what was experienced this summer. Bummer.