LSL Michigan Reroute Rumors & Speculation

[Just-Thinking-51]

Generally you don't have to pay for a change of times due to a Amtrak timetable change. You are asking about a change of route, that is a different ball of wax. Call Amtrak find out what changes have occurred and what options you may have.

 

[jis]

That message is about schedule change of the Emeryville to San Francisco Thruway Bus. Where is Chicago mentioned in that message?

 

[PRR 60]

That message is about schedule change of the Emeryville to San Francisco Thruway Bus. Where is Chicago mentioned in that message?

I agree. There are wholesale changes with the bus schedules in and out of San Francisco staring August 22, although the #5005 bus for the Zephyr appears unchanged. It is possible that Amtrak simply splashed out this message to everyone with a San Francisco bus segment on their reservation regardless of whether their reserved bus segment was changed or not.

As of this morning, Amtrak.com does not show any changes for Lake Shore service in October.

 

[Rincewind]

That message is about schedule change of the Emeryville to San Francisco Thruway Bus. Where is Chicago mentioned in that message?

I agree. There are wholesale changes with the bus schedules in and out of San Francisco staring August 22, although the #5005 bus for the Zephyr appears unchanged. It is possible that Amtrak simply splashed out this message to everyone with a San Francisco bus segment on their reservation regardless of whether their reserved bus segment was changed or not.

As of this morning, Amtrak.com does not show any changes for Lake Shore service in October.

I was woundering the same. The time for the Thruway bus is the same as in my ticket from may. I was unsure about all the

You will depart on Amtrak number from on at : and arrive in on at :.

lines below. Or is this normal?

 

[jis]

No it is not normal, but it has been known to have happened in the past. The automation script for generating those messages screwed up somehow.

 

[jis]

Credible rumor now has it that the proposed rerouting of the LSL will not take place in October and may happen at some later time if issues can all be worked out.

There goes the chances of my rare mileage run OTOH, the chances of making the connection to the CZ in Chicago increases enormously.

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

Which begs the question of why?

Why was there going to be a short notice reroute.

Do we passengers have no meaning to Amtrak?

 

[rrdude]

Crap I was gonna take it to ARB, from the east coast, "just to say I took a sleeper to/from Ann Arbor". I don't think I ever got on a sleeper, when I was a wee toddler, for the trip to Ft. Dodge, IA. Prolly woulda just been MC to Chicago, and then switch over to IC (?)

I do hope they give this an experiment though, maybe when the ENTIRE track (owned by the State) in Michigan is "at speed", would make more sense.

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

I would have made a few posts but I really haven't had anything that I can affirmatively add to any of the threads. The dates and locations for the Charger's NEC testing have been penciled and you already know about the Lake Shore...which is odd since I thought they were moving the Capitol. Then again, I can see there may be another change down the road which may explain this move.

Above a post from Off-Topic

A post from early in this topic:

Succeed how?

What the goal?

Simple run a train on a different route?

Ridership improvement?

How many customer are going to lose out with a short notice change of routing? If Amtrak plug in a reroute 11 months ahead, that would be great, but the short notice change will impact how many customers?

.

 

[Thirdrail7]

Which begs the question of why?

Why was there going to be a short notice reroute.

Do we passengers have no meaning to Amtrak?

To be fair, we don't know for certain if there was going to be a short notice reroute or if there will be one in the feature. Perhaps there was a cut off date for all aspects of the proposal to come together to ensure execution. That date could have been at the beginning of August for anyone in this thread actually knows.

That's because all we have in this thread is a bunch of leaked information that was never (to my knowledge) officially confirmed, denied or even acknowledged by Amtrak.

 

[ScouseAndy]

Perhaps the rumour was true and the reroute will still be October and nothing has changed. After all the original post never specified the year...

 

[Thirdrail7]

Perhaps the rumour was true and the reroute will still be October and nothing has changed. After all the original post never specified the year...

Yes...it is obviously timed to change just after the release of the VL IIs. They're coming out in September, remember?

 

[jis]

That's because all we have in this thread is a bunch of leaked information that was never (to my knowledge) officially confirmed, denied or even acknowledged by Amtrak.

Yup, and the first one coming from you know who - on Facebook

There has never been even a whiff of anything official or even semi-official from Amtrak. It is just that Amtrak Chicago area staff and a bunch of folks in Toledo apparently leaks like a sieve.

 

[neroden]

Credible rumor now has it that the proposed rerouting of the LSL will not take place in October and may happen at some later time if issues can all be worked out.

Someone realized the connections at Chicago didn't work.

Hopefully they're going back and coming up with a scheme which would work, and will try it if they come up with one.

 

[rrdude]

Yeah, but it was fun to fantasize about taking a sleeper to ARB, at least.

 

[MikefromCrete]

Well, well, well. Much to do about nothing. Of course, we should all have known that, since there never was any kind of official announcement from Amtrak. The whole thing belongs in that fantasy thread at the top of the page.

 

[Rincewind]

OTOH, the chances of making the connection to the CZ in Chicago increases enormously.

For me this is great news. So I still have the option to try an original Chicago style Pan pizza during the stopover early October!

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

Credible rumor now has it that the proposed rerouting of the LSL will not take place in October and may happen at some later time if issues can all be worked out.

Someone realized the connections at Chicago didn't work.

Hopefully they're going back and coming up with a scheme which would work, and will try it if they come up with one.

Leave New York/Boston earlier. How hard is that to figure out? The LSL leaves NYP before the evening rush hour, how much different will be if it leaves at 12:40pm rather than 3:40pm?

 

[AmtrakBlue]

Credible rumor now has it that the proposed rerouting of the LSL will not take place in October and may happen at some later time if issues can all be worked out.

Someone realized the connections at Chicago didn't work.
Hopefully they're going back and coming up with a scheme which would work, and will try it if they come up with one.

Leave New York/Boston earlier. How hard is that to figure out? The LSL leaves NYP before the evening rush hour, how much different will be if it leaves at 12:40pm rather than 3:40pm?

Availability of slots comes to mind.

 

[jis]

Credible rumor now has it that the proposed rerouting of the LSL will not take place in October and may happen at some later time if issues can all be worked out.

Someone realized the connections at Chicago didn't work.

Hopefully they're going back and coming up with a scheme which would work, and will try it if they come up with one.

Leave New York/Boston earlier. How hard is that to figure out? The LSL leaves NYP before the evening rush hour, how much different will be if it leaves at 12:40pm rather than 3:40pm?

The armchair solutions do not include the really hard part, which is getting agreement from CSX and NS. Do you really believe that the scheduling folks at Amtrak are unable to figure out a modified theoretical timetable and that is what is holding things up? It is not just a question of shuffling the time for LSL, but adjusting times of Empire Service, and making sure that Albany does not have a glut of trains while trying to handle the LSL - a problem with its current westbound schedule to some extent.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

Credible rumor now has it that the proposed rerouting of the LSL will not take place in October and may happen at some later time if issues can all be worked out.

Someone realized the connections at Chicago didn't work.

Hopefully they're going back and coming up with a scheme which would work, and will try it if they come up with one.

Leave New York/Boston earlier. How hard is that to figure out? The LSL leaves NYP before the evening rush hour, how much different will be if it leaves at 12:40pm rather than 3:40pm?

The armchair solutions do not include the really hard part, which is getting agreement from CSX and NS. Do you really believe that the scheduling folks at Amtrak are unable to figure out a modified theoretical timetable and that is what is holding things up? It is not just a question of shuffling the time for LSL, but adjusting times of Empire Service, and making sure that Albany does not have a glut of trains while trying to handle the LSL - a problem with its current westbound schedule to some extent.

The fact that the "proposed" schedule change threatened the western connections tells me they may not necessary know what they are doing.

 

[jis]

We don't even know whether that so called "proposed schedule" came from anyone in the Amtrak planning department or if someone just cooked up their own and posted it.

As far as I am concerned we have so far heard nothing from Amtrak. We have heard stuff conjured up by some Amtrak employees based on something they were asked to consider as possibility, and then communicated by people, who when challenged told us that they may have heard wrong. That suggests that it is possible that actually no one in a position of any ability to do anything was seriously planning to use any so called proposed schedule that we saw. AU is a major rumor mill, and yes I do participate in it, but each time stating clearly that it is hearsay, and we need to treat it as such. It is fun to discuss various rumors and pontificate about it. but the leap from there to start believing that Amtrak officially was about to do something on a specific schedule at least for me is a bridge too far.

So consider who exactly is the "they" you speak of, and how did you validate that the said "they" had anything to do with anything. It is always some usually trusted source that said something that someone from here interpreted their own way and posted here, until we hear officially from Amtrak. Just a cautionary note.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

It's not like all of the currently running Amtrak schedules are perfect either. Obviously there are a ton of constraints that Amtrak has to deal with (stations/host railroads) but certainly some negotiation can be done to improve them.

 

[jis]

It's not like all of the currently running Amtrak schedules are perfect either. Obviously there are a ton of constraints that Amtrak has to deal with (stations/host railroads) but certainly some negotiation can be done to improve them.

Yes, but the issue still remains as to how important are those minor tweaks in the bigger scheme of things when what you are fighting for is an existential issue, not a scheduling issue?
While your roof is caving in, how important is it to spend time fine tuning your air-conditioner settings?

 

[reppin_the_847]

Oh well. Was a fun rumor for folks with ties to Michigan. Probably not so much for the folks in Northern Indiana or near Bryan, Ohio. I guess we'll see if anything comes to fruition eventually.