Help me understand the "Host Railroads" issues with Amtrak.

[George Harris]

Ha! The shortline I used to be involved with had mostly 80LB rail!

Yup. Didn't know how far to go in my explanations. The railroad company I worked for, now over 40 years ago, wow, had quite a bit of branch lines with 80 lb rail. Tie condition was not so great, either. Generally they did not let the 6 axle units loose on any line that had under 90 lb rail, but there was quite a bit of track in that, too. For their 90 lb rail, they bought the 90RB section. Why? Because they could connect the 90RB rail to 80ASCE rail without using compromise bars, so they could replace 80 lb rail one stick at a time if need be. You could not do that with the more common 90RA section. I have seen rail down to 60 lb in tracks still in use, but these were 10 mph tracks with weight restrictions. With good ties you could run happily at 25 mph on 70 lb rail. I have seen some of that also.

 

[Reality_Check]

More importantly if the siding is not long enough to hold the long freight train then it is the short Amtrak train that goes in the hole while the long freight train trundles by slowly or even at a moderate speed.

I thought the Amtrak train is always the one that the host railroad puts into the siding.

No. That is not true at all. Though it is true that when an Amtrak train gets placed in the siding, the uninitiated notice it, whereas when it thunders by freight trains parked in the siding very few notice it. The latter is the more common occurrence. Otherwise Amtrak trains would consistently be days late.

Nope. I think you're more into wishful thinking, than basing such on any kind of facts.

From my years of travel on Amtrak, I find that its the Amtrak train that gets the siding more often than not. I don't know if such is a matter of the host railroad keeping its own trains moving, and on time, vs. a train that just a mere guest. Or if its the reality that the short Amtrak train can fit into the siding easier than the typically quite long freight train. Or if its that the short Amtrak train can slow down, and even stop, easier than the heavy freight train.

Plus, its the freight train that thunders by, not because of speed, but rather its enormous weight on far more wheels.

 

[Allypet]

It is not very different than the way Amtrak treats other railroads on the NEC, like NJT.

 

[ehbowen]

Ha! The shortline I used to be involved with had mostly 80LB rail!

Yup. Didn't know how far to go in my explanations. The railroad company I worked for, now over 40 years ago, wow, had quite a bit of branch lines with 80 lb rail. Tie condition was not so great, either. Generally they did not let the 6 axle units loose on any line that had under 90 lb rail, but there was quite a bit of track in that, too. For their 90 lb rail, they bought the 90RB section. Why? Because they could connect the 90RB rail to 80ASCE rail without using compromise bars, so they could replace 80 lb rail one stick at a time if need be. You could not do that with the more common 90RA section. I have seen rail down to 60 lb in tracks still in use, but these were 10 mph tracks with weight restrictions. With good ties you could run happily at 25 mph on 70 lb rail. I have seen some of that also.

I remember seeing an article in one of the railfan magazines about 25 years ago on Schnabel cars, the special 16-wheel cars used to transport outsized and extremely heavy loads like large transformers. It seems that one electric company had to transport a very large transformer to a remote site, and highway transport wasn't an option. The only rail line to the area had been essentially abandoned in the 1950s but the tracks had never been taken up; it was laid in the 1880s with 56 lb rail and apparently the railroad thought it wasn't worth reusing. The railroad and utility finally decided that the cheapest option was to use the line as it was, with a wreck gang and a bridge gang accompanying the train for when the inevitable happened. The punch line of the story was that the transformer made it all the way to the end of track (at walking speed) without ever once going off the rails....

 

[Trogdor]

More importantly if the siding is not long enough to hold the long freight train then it is the short Amtrak train that goes in the hole while the long freight train trundles by slowly or even at a moderate speed.

I thought the Amtrak train is always the one that the host railroad puts into the siding.

No. That is not true at all. Though it is true that when an Amtrak train gets placed in the siding, the uninitiated notice it, whereas when it thunders by freight trains parked in the siding very few notice it. The latter is the more common occurrence. Otherwise Amtrak trains would consistently be days late.

Nope. I think you're more into wishful thinking, than basing such on any kind of facts.
From my years of travel on Amtrak, I find that its the Amtrak train that gets the siding more often than not. I don't know if such is a matter of the host railroad keeping its own trains moving, and on time, vs. a train that just a mere guest. Or if its the reality that the short Amtrak train can fit into the siding easier than the typically quite long freight train. Or if its that the short Amtrak train can slow down, and even stop, easier than the heavy freight train.

Plus, its the freight train that thunders by, not because of speed, but rather its enormous weight on far more wheels.

Actually, you're the one that's not basing this on any sort of facts (and the semantic argument over whether any given train "thunders" by another doesn't really help your position at all).

That your experience comes from years of traveling on Amtrak rather than from the front seat of a locomotive or a dispatcher's desk, where your view is limited to what you might be able to notice outside the window, if you happen to be looking (and only while awake) actually is what jis was talking about. It's a lot more likely for a passenger to notice the train they're riding slowing down/stopping than the train they're not riding. Some of it is a matter of you actually being able to feel what is happening to the speed of your own train. Some of it is just a matter of visual illusion (when you're traveling at 50/60 mph, it's hard to tell if something next to you right out the window is stationary, or moving slowly in one direction or the other). And some of it, as I said, is a matter of the passenger simply not looking out the window 100% of the time to see when you pass other trains.

The statement that Amtrak gets the siding "more often than not" is simply a false statement. If you have data that show otherwise, let's see it.

As for another common theme on this thread, I find the siding length argument to be rather irrelevant. There are some situations on Amtrak routes where some freight trains can't fit in the siding, but in general, that's not that big of a factor. After all, Amtrak is passing a given siding a couple times per day, whereas freight trains on these lines may be passing that same siding a dozen or two (or more) times per day. If a railroad's freight trains couldn't fit in their own sidings, then in many cases they wouldn't be able to run anything, since (and again, a passenger would almost never see this) a freight train meets another freight train far more often than it meets passenger trains. This is obvious given the sheer difference in the number of freight and passenger trains.

Now, to get really nit-picky about the topic, not every train that waits for another does so on a siding. Plenty of trains hold the main track waiting for the other train. There are plenty more examples of trains in multi-track territory waiting for other trains, for any number of reasons. Often the question of who has to wait is simply decided by who gets there first. Now, the dispatcher could hold a freight train further back so that it's tucked away by the time he passenger train gets there, but that could actually tie up the railroad even more (particularly when there are other trains behind it).

Main point being, it's generally not possible for a passenger on the train to get the lay of the land as far as what's happening around him/her on the railroad.

 

[battalion51]

Siding length can most definitely come in to play. Let's say for example you have six 10,000 foot long sidings and six 2,500 foot long sidings alternating with each other, each siding 10 miles apart. The host railroad could use those 2,500 foot long sidings for local jobs, light power, short transfer jobs, Amtrak trains, etc. Meanwhile the 10,000 foot siding can handle just about anything thrown its away. So when it comes to lining up a meet with a long hot UPS train and an Amtrak train, if both trains clear 10,000 foot sidings at about the same time headed for a meet at a 2,500 foot siding, the Amtrak train should make it to the 2,500 foot siding first since it is running faster. So you stick Amtrak in the hole, let the UPS train blast by, and then both trains are on their way. You very easily could have let the UPS train sit at the 10,000 foot siding and not delayed the Amtrak train, but with this meet both trains have minimal delay whereas the UPS train would've had a huge delay if it sat back at the 10,000 foot siding. Similarly, you could've left Amtrak on the main and let the UPS train run through the siding, but this is only going to delay both trains since Amtrak will be sitting on the main waiting for the whole UPS train to slow down and run by it. Better to just put Amtrak in the siding and let UPS scream by.

 

[jis]

Good observations Trog and Battalion. I have a bit more to say about siding lengths in support of the point that Battalion makes, near the end of this post.

The main issue is, sitting in the comfort of a Superliner Lounge one simply does not have the visibility into what is being held for the train to go through.

Just as a random example, when the Southwest Chief heading west comes up the Mendota Sub past Galesburg and does the crossover from Ottumwa Sub to Chillicothe Sub at Cameron Jct, Someone sitting in the train has no way of knowing how many freights are being held on Chillicothe Sub east of Galesburg just to allow the Southwest Chief to get ahead of it/them. What one gets to see in the way of something waiting in a siding or not is but a small part of the whole story. Actually it is advantageous to let the Southwest Chief to lead the way for a bunch of hotshots behind it under many circumstances.

I do know a few dispatchers on the NEC and have seen the sort of issues that they have to deal with. One common complaint one hears is that Midtown Directs coming to Swift are held for NEC trains. This is a commonly quoted example of how Amtrak mistreats NJT. But the fact of the matter is typically the hold there is to get the train in the right sequence going into Penn Station further down the line, and also make sure that a train that is stopping at Secaucus does notg et ahead of one that is not (within reason) to prevent problems further down the line.

Incidentally it is not just railroad dispatchers who do this. Air traffic control does it all the time in typical terminal approach situations and also in departures. In FAA controlled US domestic airspace dispatch there is an entire separate "Flow Control" desk in departures to get clearance from to get the slotting in sequence, reducing potentially the need for placing planes in holding patterns at the arrival end, and then if your slot is far away, you get parked in the so called ball park until your sequence comes. In the air you get put in a holding pattern. Happens a lot on approach to London Heathrow for example.

As for the siding length issue, the poster child of this problem is Buckingham Branch RR between Charlottseville and Clifton Forge for the eastbound Cardinal, which gets stuck in short sidings while coal empties which are too long to fit in the sidings head westwards. On the days that the Cardinal runs eastbound, BBRR has to basically hold its entire flow for the Cardinal to make schedule. The State of Virginia is helping by funding a siding lengthening project on that segment. Siding lengths specially when they are insufficient to handle all trains dispatched on the route are a major source of headache for dispatchers.

I have found it quite pointless to try to explain these things to people who have apparently completely made up their minds about the matter and selectively collect examples that support their own theories to exclusion of all else. That is why I did not respond to the message that Trog responded to.

 

[MIrailfan]

why were lines abandoned then if we are needing more?

 

[Paulus]

why were lines abandoned then if we are needing more?

Because then is not now.

 

[MIrailfan]

well then maybe Amtrak should buy and rehab some of them.

 

[John Bobinyec]

well then maybe Amtrak should buy and rehab some of them.

And where would Amtrak get the money to do that with? They can't get the money that they need to run things as it is.

jb

 

[Devil's Advocate]

why were lines abandoned then if we are needing more?

Because then is not now.

Thanks for that helpful reply?

At various times tracks all over the country have been abandoned as a result of overzealous pruning, shortsighted revenue padding, track mile taxation, emergency capitol selloffs, post consolidation rerouting, selective maintenance budgeting, and even anti-competitive repurposing. What's left is a tiny shell of what once existed that is almost entirely focused on single purpose unit trains serving high volume shippers. The days of small and medium businesses receiving a handful of rail cars directly from a class one manifest appear to be coming to an end.

 

[jis]

There were perfectly good business reasons to do the pruning, unfortunately. One was the odd tax laws in various states which taxed the railroads based on how many tracks they had on the ROW. When they could make do with one, there was a huge incentive for them to get rid of the other one and reduce their tax bill.

The slow demise of carload business is not peculiar to the US. It is almost universal across the world.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

There were perfectly good business reasons to do the pruning, unfortunately.

Everything I mentioned above was presumably seen as a good business decision for the company that owned those tracks at the time they were abandoned. However, in the context of responsible ownership and efficient use of national infrastructure it's unfortunate to see so much of our former rail network lost to the ages, probably forever at this point.

 

[jis]

..... it's unfortunate to see so much of our former rail network lost to the ages, probably forever at this point.

That is certainly true.

 

[Crescent ATN & TCL]

In a perfect world every route would be double track with bi directional running but with the huge infrastructure dump from the regluatory days everyone is missing out. Freight trains and Amtrak now fight for limited space. In the NEC Amtrak runs the Acela around freights and regionals on a double track, but no matter how well a freight railroad wants to run Amtrak its not always feasible or possible.

Before traffic picked back up on the Crescent Corridor NS used to call out 30 mins ahead of the Crescent and throw everything into the siding for it, thats not the case now NS is packed full of trains fighting for space. Now Amtrak getting into NOL or NYP no more than an hour late is a miracle. I don't blame any of the freight railroads, its a simple business decison based on who can and will pay for priority. IPods, IPads, Mac Books and other electronics are more important than people, so we have to accept it and deal with it.

 

[NW cannonball]

There were perfectly good business reasons to do the pruning, unfortunately. One was the odd tax laws in various states which taxed the railroads based on how many tracks they had on the ROW. When they could make do with one, there was a huge incentive for them to get rid of the other one and reduce their tax bill.

The slow demise of carload business is not peculiar to the US. It is almost universal across the world.

Just as, over a hundred years ago, in the "American Railroad Bubble" there were (more or less) good business reasons to build rail lines to most of the mid-size towns, and often competing lines to even smaller towns. Many reasons, including the Great Depression, led to the abandonment of many of those lines.

Changes in tax law and subsidies (think FDR's Federal Highways, and later, deregulation) changed the railroad's incentives. In Minnesota, railroad property was exempt from real-estate tax (they paid a gross revenue tax instead) at least into the 1960's. Other states, other taxes, different results.

Technology, taxes, competition, all the rest of the economy -- time changes everything -- not just for railroads. Sometimes the change is slow, sometimes faster.

jis mentioned carload business as an example - shrinking for decades, mostly replaced by intermodal containers. But intermodal container traffic also booming by replacing long-haul trucking, and by the ongoing upswing in global sea traffic.

Which changes the railroads economics and tech yet again - lots more faster intermodal trains that need long sidings but seldom take them and run almost as fast as passenger trains on the straight.

Lots to consider, for us who wonder "why?" and more so for railroad execs.

 

[NW cannonball]

..... it's unfortunate to see so much of our former rail network lost to the ages, probably forever at this point.

That is certainly true.

Indeed.

But overbuilding, followed by over-cutting, seems to be the way things go. Boom and bust. Unfortunate, but thats how it is.