Empire Builder Timekeeping Struggles

[montana mike]

Anyone know what happened to 8(15) today. It was plugging along just fine until right after WFH, now it's running well over 3 hours late and still in MT. I haven't heard anything from my BNSF folks.

 

[Aegis]

I would like to know also...I'm on the #8 next week..

 

[montana mike]

I am currently on 8(16) and the conductor on this train shared with us that the BNSF dispatching for Central and Eastern MT has really been poor lately. We lost about 2 hours to let 3 Z-trains thru this afternoon. Now in ND and apparently back up to track speed, but it was a slow go all afternoon.

 

[montana mike]

I am currently on 8(16) and the conductor on this train shared with us that the BNSF dispatching for Central and Eastern MT has really been poor lately. We lost about 2 hours to let 3 Z-trains thru this afternoon. Now in ND and apparently back up to track speed, but it was a slow go all afternoon.

Looks like we will arrive only about 90 minutes late in CHI this evening.

 

[montana mike]

8(19) really got clobbered with the BNSF freight breakdown in Washington. Looks like it will be around 7 hours late pulling into CHI very late tonight.

 

[tonijustine]

8(19) really got clobbered with the BNSF freight breakdown in Washington. Looks like it will be around 7 hours late pulling into CHI very late tonight.

We’ve had some pretty good dispatching, but then we sat outside Havre for an hour and a half waiting “to shuffle freight traffic”. The crew has been good and we sleeper passengers got an extra meal from the menu and the coach got AmStew.

 

[montana mike]

While we never like to arrive at our destination late, the fact that the crew went the extra mile to try to make everyone as comfortable as possible is a big plus. We were pleased to see how positive and friendly everyone on our latest EB journey was last week.

I got the distinct impression that BNSF was doing all they could to ensure their highest priority freights didn't lose any time on their journeys. Both the conductors on our EB and my local BNSF contacts confirmed that this is of great importance to the powers that be at BNSF. Overall, it would appear the EB's are losing, on average, less than 2 hours on their entire trek across the Hi-Line.