Empire Builder turnaround at Portland

[Cal]

I don't know any easy spotting feature from a distance between sleepers and coaches. I cheat and depend on position. Sleepers are forward on the Seattle section of the EB and the diner marks the end of the sleepers. Anything following the diner is a coach.

Coaches have windows on one side of the door on the lower level. Sleepers have them on both sides (besides the transdorm I think on one side?)

 

[Triley]

Coaches have windows on one side of the door on the lower level. Sleepers have them on both sides (besides the transdorm I think on one side?)

That's correct. Well, for the most part. As mentioned, if it's a bag/coach, there will be no windows on the lower level (aside from on the door).

This can look very similar to a diner at a quick glance. However, on the upper level, a diner will have a big gap in between the windows towards the center of the car (this is where the galley is). A coach car will have no windows blocked/removed on the upper level.

 

[Cal]

This can look very similar to a diner at a quick glance. However, on the upper level, a diner will have a big gap in between the windows towards the center of the car (this is where the galley is). A coach car will have no windows blocked/removed on the upper level.

I have all consists (with superliners, minus the AT) more or less memorized. So I only look at the downstairs windows if I'm unsure if its a coach or sleeper (like when the Starlight consist was wacky with business behind the transdorm)

 

[Triley]

I have all consists (with superliners, minus the AT) more or less memorized. So I only look at the downstairs windows if I'm unsure if its a coach or sleeper (like when the Starlight consist was wacky with business behind the transdorm)

That typically works, but a dorm would look very similar to a standard coach car on the lower level. But obviously most would expect the first car on the trainset to be a transdorm.

 

[Cal]

That typically works, but a dorm would look very similar to a standard coach car on the lower level. But obviously most would expect the first car on the trainset to be a transdorm.

Well I distinguished the transdorm from the upper level windows, but was comparing the business class car to the regular sleepers around jt

 

[Ryan]

Coincidentally, a relative just posted a picture of today's Empire Builder as they were visiting Glacier National Park and know that I'm a train fan.



I read it as (front to back) Trans-Dorm, sleeper, sleeper, diner, coach in the SEA section, followed by SSL, coach, coach-bag, sleeper for the PDX portion.

 

[Cal]

Coincidentally, a relative just posted a picture of today's Empire Builder as they were visiting Glacier National Park and know that I'm a train fan.

View attachment 23872

I read it as (front to back) Trans-Dorm, sleeper, sleeper, diner, coach in the SEA section, followed by SSL, coach, coach-bag, sleeper for the PDX portion.

Is that 184 (Phase 4 heritage unit?)

 

[Ryan]

They posted a second, more zoomed, lesser quality version. Sure looks like it! Good eyes!

 

[Cal]

They posted a second, more zoomed, lesser quality version. Sure looks like it! Good eyes!

View attachment 23873

It’s the foamer in me

 

[WWW]

St. Paul Union Depot
Train Cam #1
Cell Phone copy
Consist of EB #8 arriving MSP July 17 - departing to CHI

L- L - B - TD* - S - S - D - C - SSL - C C&B - S --- 261 SUPERDOME - OSCAR HAZARD PERRY tail car
*note small square window forward not found on other cars

 

[Siegmund]

The present consist as I see it thru MSP is the two locomotives - a baggage car - 5 cars and a Lounge car - All this designated to/from Seattle ---
the end 3 cars are switched off at Spokane {where 8 & 28 - 7 & 27 junction} for Portland needing only an locomotive to finish the PDX trip.
What compounds this is if private cars for Seattle are attached on the end - a double movement

As others have said, the lounge goes to Portland, as it always has.

Private cars for Seattle (and deadhead cars for other Amtrak trains in Seattle) are carried ahead of the baggage car. Private cars for Portland are carried behind the Portland sleeper. Never double switching in Portland: the lead loco pulls out of the way; the second (and third, if there was one) locos depart straight ahead with the Seattle section; the lead loco recouples to the Portland section.

 

[WWW]

OK that was easy and makes sense - - -

However the EB #7 & #8 transit thru MSP {almost} always have the Private cars on the end of the consist ?
At MSP the assembly {consist} point is the old Amtrak facility in the Midway of St. Paul.
Where this assembly point is at other Amtrak stations is ? ? ?
At Chicago obvious the Amtrak yard (under Roosevelt Road) south of the Union Depot
At Spokane the consist must be reshuffled prior to the split to make this easy ?

 

[frequentflyer]

As others have said, the lounge goes to Portland, as it always has.

Private cars for Seattle (and deadhead cars for other Amtrak trains in Seattle) are carried ahead of the baggage car. Private cars for Portland are carried behind the Portland sleeper. Never double switching in Portland: the lead loco pulls out of the way; the second (and third, if there was one) locos depart straight ahead with the Seattle section; the lead loco recouples to the Portland section.

I think both locomotives stay with the Seattle section now and a third locomotives brings in the Portland section and returns to Portland.
If only the Eagle/Sunset switching was so easy. Yes, I know they are facing opposite directions in San Antonio.

 

[Siegmund]

I think both locomotives stay with the Seattle section now and a third locomotives brings in the Portland section and returns to Portland.

They do not.

You can see the Seattle section on the Skykomish webcam daily, and it is routinely pulled by a single locomotive, even when it carries one private or deadhead car in addition to the baggage+5 superliners that has been this summer's standard consist.

The days that I have seen two locomotives on the Skykomish webcam, I have seen three if I saw it when it passed Whitefish. So far as I know, this tends to be because when there is an unreliable unit that isn't sent out alone. This happens perhaps once a week.

There was one one day last month when the consist included two private cars and a deadhead, and supposedly a second unit was actually required for the Seattle section. On this date, 8 had *three* units on the Skykomish webcam. (But I didn't get up early enough to see whether it had three or four when it passed Whitefish the next morning - I can see 7 any day I take the dogs out in the evening, but rarely see 8 unless it is very late.)

I have heard persistent rumors of this "2 units Chicago-Seattle, one Spokane-Portland" thing, but I confess to being skeptical that it has *ever* happened for an extended period; it would, theoretically, make sense, in a world where 7 Superliners went to Seattle and 4 to Chicago -- but in a normal year, Seattle gets 4 in winter and 6 in summer. This year the 2nd coach has been MIA.

 

[Cal]

This video is several years old, and they don't always run with a third locomotive.

but I confess to being skeptical that it has *ever* happened for an extended period

IT probably has, but not often

 

[Trogdor]

They do not.

You can see the Seattle section on the Skykomish webcam daily, and it is routinely pulled by a single locomotive, even when it carries one private or deadhead car in addition to the baggage+5 superliners that has been this summer's standard consist.

The days that I have seen two locomotives on the Skykomish webcam, I have seen three if I saw it when it passed Whitefish. So far as I know, this tends to be because when there is an unreliable unit that isn't sent out alone. This happens perhaps once a week.

There was one one day last month when the consist included two private cars and a deadhead, and supposedly a second unit was actually required for the Seattle section. On this date, 8 had *three* units on the Skykomish webcam. (But I didn't get up early enough to see whether it had three or four when it passed Whitefish the next morning - I can see 7 any day I take the dogs out in the evening, but rarely see 8 unless it is very late.)

I have heard persistent rumors of this "2 units Chicago-Seattle, one Spokane-Portland" thing, but I confess to being skeptical that it has *ever* happened for an extended period; it would, theoretically, make sense, in a world where 7 Superliners went to Seattle and 4 to Chicago -- but in a normal year, Seattle gets 4 in winter and 6 in summer. This year the 2nd coach has been MIA.

The actual power consist rotation has changed so many times over the years. Operationally, the Seattle section keeping the locomotives is simplest because it requires the least amount of switching in Spokane (a single cut of the main consist, rather than cutting at both ends). It also requires an extra engine.

There have also been times where BNSF has required Amtrak to run three engines on the Builder across North Dakota and Montana because P42 reliability was so poor, and in those cases, they did use one of the three to run to PDX, in part because running a third locomotive on the Builder uses up five locomotives from the pool, and when serviceable power is in short supply (which it has been, off and on, for years), you don’t have the luxury of spending an extra unit just on SPK-PDX. Back in 2010/2011, the official consist was two engines CHI-SEA, and the PDX-SPK engine turned back to PDX. That’s the most recent official consist book I have, but anecdotally, I can say that every time I rode the Builder to/from Seattle before that, the train had two locomotives on the Seattle section.

I’d almost venture to guess that the single locomotive SPK-SEA may have been a development from the Richard Anderson era, when they were running lean on resources beyond what was needed.

 

[Siegmund]

I appreciate the 'official' confirmation that 2 units through to Seattle did happen regularly for a while. (I was in Alaska until 2011, and in Idaho 2011-2016, so didn't see it on a daily basis during that timeframe.)

Unlike you, I have yet to ever ride a Seattle Builder with 2 locomotives. I rode behind one F40 in the 80s and early 90s, and one P42 a number of times in the last 5 years, and saw it behind single units in the 00s when visiting Seattle.

Do you happen to know if BNSF has ever required two P42s between Portland and Spokane? I'd think that if it was a generic "all-Geneses" restriction they might have required 2 on each section and 3 on the combined train. I gather that was a temporary thing, and went away when Amtrak learned to send out reliable units alone and untrustworthy units in pairs.

 

[WWW]

?
Is one locomotive enough to satisfy the needs of the operation - namely transport and electrical power ?
If two - one is for moving the mass of the train and the other strictly electrical power (10 or more coaches has to be a big current draw) ?
And a back-up to the contractual obligations with BNSF (CP) ?
With the locomotives disengaged from the consist - does the power to the cars go dead or does each car have its own power (generator) source ?
Don't need 4-5-6 locos it is not a heavy weight freight train 130 cars in length.
Except for the mountain tracks the EB operates on level track of no grade concern requiring extra power assist ?
So are the P42 locos a lightweight junior version of freight locos ? Reliability suspect operating under load ?

Every now and then I see extra cars (and a 3rd loco) in the consist - Amtrak just ferrying repositioning equipment for maintenance servicing needs ?

 

[frequentflyer]

The times I looked at the Skymosh cam I saw two locomotives so I assumed they just ran the C:HI power to SEA. As stated it would be the simplest and quickest way to handle the switching. With Genesis being pulled from some of the Midwest trains, I figured it gave Amtrak some breathing room when it comes to Genesis LD assignments. Of course that is under the assumption majority of the fleet is in good running order.

 

[oregon pioneer]

My trip in 2018 was (for Amtrak, at least -- I got lots of train time, LOL!) the trip from hell. Eastbound, our PDX section loco fried just out of Vancouver WA. I was waiting at WIH in the Gorge, and just kept getting texts from Amtrak putting off the arrival, till the train finally arrived 3 hours late, led by a BN loco. Hubby was at home watching it on a train tracker, and updated me when it finally started moving again. We kept that BN loco even past SPK, till the end of BN territory (I think it was MSP when they finally took it off). Here's a photo of our leaders in Montana or North Dakota:


On the return trip, we were already quite late due to a flat wheel on a coach in North Dakota, then a blizzard in the Rockies, and then our lead loco had electrical issues alongside the Flathead River in western Montana (it was full daylight by then). We limped into Spokane, and they spent quite a while deciding what kind of unit to give us to get the PDX section going. Here's a photo of our leaders as we arrived in SPK, with (I think) the switching engines on the right:


Here they are attaching the loco that ultimately got the Portland section going again:


So, yes, at that time we had two Amtrak locos east of SPK, one from each section. In the case of this trip, though, they were not two RELIABLE locos.

Edit note: it was 2018, not 2015.

 

[Cal]

My trip in 2015 was (for Amtrak, at least -- I got lots of train time, LOL!) the trip from hell. Eastbound, our PDX section loco fried just out of Vancouver WA. I was waiting at WIH in the Gorge, and just kept getting texts from Amtrak putting off the arrival, till the train finally arrived 3 hours late, led by a BN loco. Hubby was at home watching it on a train tracker, and updated me when it finally started moving again. We kept that BN loco even past SPK, till the end of BN territory (I think it was MSP when they finally took it off). Here's a photo of our leaders in Montana or North Dakota:
View attachment 23899

On the return trip, we were already quite late due to a flat wheel on a coach in North Dakota, then a blizzard in the Rockies, and then our lead loco had electrical issues alongside the Flathead River in western Montana (it was full daylight by then). We limped into Spokane, and they spent quite a while deciding what kind of unit to give us to get the PDX section going. Here's a photo of our leaders as we arrived in SPK, with (I think) the switching engines on the right:
View attachment 23900

Here they are attaching the loco that ultimately got the Portland section going again:
View attachment 23901

So, yes, at that time we had two Amtrak locos east of SPK, one from each section. In the case of this trip, though, they were not two RELIABLE locos.

What an experience! YOu got to see Western Montana in daylight, AND you were led by a Surfliner Unit (what the heck was it doing on the EB??) AND a heritage unit (822 or 145, do you know?). A foamers dream!

 

[west point]

Heavy snow times on the EB changes the loco situation. The DC traction motored P-42s have often been 3 very occasionally 4 . Then sometimes BNSF required one of their ACs to lead

 

[oregon pioneer]

What an experience! YOu got to see Western Montana in daylight, AND you were led by a Surfliner Unit (what the heck was it doing on the EB??) AND a heritage unit (822 or 145, do you know?). A foamers dream!

Well, I know enough to appreciate western Montana by daylight. But I know next to nothing about locos, so anything you glean from my photos is just luck! I am learning I should take more careful photos when anything unusual is going on up front in the future, though.

For those who've never seen it in daylight, here are a few more photos of the Flathead River:

 

[Cal]

But I know next to nothing about locos, so anything you glean from my photos is just luck!

Well, I don't know all that much about the mechanics. But I can spot an Amtrak heritage unit pretty easily.

 

[Siegmund]

For those who've never seen it in daylight, here are a few more photos of the Flathead River:

Just a slip of the finger, I am sure, but for anyone not familiar... the rare daylight scenery pictured is the Kootenai River, between Bonners Ferry and Libby.