Southwest Chief discussion Q4 2023 - 2024

[zephyr17]

Weird thing happened today (July 2) that I think (hope) is just a glitch in the matrix: I got an email alert and phone message from Amtrak that seems like another minor schedule adjustment alert - except it claims (emphasis mine): "You're now scheduled to depart on train #0004, the Texas Eagle, from Los Angeles Union Station on Thursday, August 1st at 5:22pm and arrive in Kansas City, Missouri on Saturday, August 3rd at 6:26am."

Train 4 is still the Southwest Chief, right?

It caught me off guard for a moment because I do have the Texas Eagle in part of my overall travel plans but certainly not how I'm planning to get from Los Angeles to Kansas City.

Well, 5:22 is the departure time of the SW Chief from LA (effective July 8th) and 4 is still its train number.

The wizards at Amtrak are having a hard time keeping train names straight now. They recently put out an alert for the Empire Builder and called it Empire Service.

 

[Sidney]

Congrats, but that's still pretty Pricey considering you can book nice Cruises, Fy to Australia,Asia or Europe RT with 7 day Packages for for Less, and in 1st Class on most LD Flights within the US!

To me $2000 and more for a bedroom from Chicago to Seattle,Portland,Emeryville or LA is insane. Yet people pay what Amtrak wants and that’s the bottom line. It’s basically a 48 hour or less trip . We paid $2100 earlier this year for a 12 day transatlantic cruise for two with superior food larger staterooms and entertainment.Yeah I know apples to oranges.

 

[Thechad0677]

Keep in mind if the fare drops below what you paid at any time you can call and get a refund for the difference. That goes for fares paid using money or points. This practice has saved me thousands over the years.

 

[Keith1951]

Keep in mind if the fare drops below what you paid at any time you can call and get a refund for the difference. That goes for fares paid using money or points. This practice has saved me thousands over the years.

Thanks.

 

[MennoRoger]

We are planning a trip on the Southwest Chief sometime in the coming year. On https://www.amtrak.com/track-your-train.html
I noticed that SW Chief Train 3 arrived in Albuquerque NM at 9:53 pm - 7 hr 2 min late on July 1, 2024.

Is there any way to find out why this delay occurred, and also how often do such delays occur?

Thanks in advance for any information.

 

[Eric in East County]

We are planning a trip on the Southwest Chief sometime in the coming year. On https://www.amtrak.com/track-your-train.html
I noticed that SW Chief Train 3 arrived in Albuquerque NM at 9:53 pm - 7 hr 2 min late on July 1, 2024.

Is there any way to find out why this delay occurred, and also how often do such delays occur?

Thanks in advance for any information.

There are so many things that can delay an Amtrak train that it is a wonder that any of them are able to run at all! Riding on the SWC, we’ve experienced significant delays due to extreme weather conditions, equipment breakdowns, medical emergencies, police activity, heat-related slowdowns, track work and other maintenance along the main line, signal issues, freight train interference, etc. Nor is there any way to predict how things are going to go. A train might arrive early one day and be 7 hours late the next day. Plan accordingly and if you have a same day connecting train, make sure you have a guaranteed connection. (Even considering all that could go wrong, we still prefer to take the train rather than fly.)

 

[niemi24s]

This. . . https://juckins.net/amtrak_status/archive/html/home.php . . .will answer the how often, but not the why.

 

[zephyr17]

We are planning a trip on the Southwest Chief sometime in the coming year. On https://www.amtrak.com/track-your-train.html
I noticed that SW Chief Train 3 arrived in Albuquerque NM at 9:53 pm - 7 hr 2 min late on July 1, 2024.

Is there any way to find out why this delay occurred, and also how often do such delays occur?

Thanks in advance for any information.

That particular train hit a vehicle of some sort near Raton. Then there apparently had to some kind inspection as well as being held for the normal police/coroner investigation. Such grade crossing accidents usually cause several hours delay, but this one was especially long for some reason.

It wasn't railroad dispatching in this instance, but an accident beyond anyone's control, except for the idiot, and possibly Darwin Award winning, driver of that vehicle

Severe delays happen to Amtrak trains for various reasons, grade crossing accidents involving the Amtrak train, grade crossing accident involving a freight train ahead of it. Freight train breakdown or accident ahead it of such as a pulled drawbar. Severe weather, dispatchers generally stop train movements for tornado warnings for example. Flooding The list goes on and on.

No one can predict when and where another moron will attempt to beat a train to a crossing "sometime in the coming year" other than there will certainly be quite a few around the country. Same thing for severe weather and freight breakdowns and a host of other reasons beyond anyone's control.

While most of my long distance Amtrak trips have been without such incidents, arriving at most a few hours late, there have been more times that I count that I have encountered severe delays, 8 to 16 hours late, on various Amtrak western LDs.

If the possibility of such delays, which can happen on any trip on any train, unnerve you, long distance Amtrak travel probably is not for you. Many of us just regard it as more time on the train for the money.

 

[lrh442]

We are planning a trip on the Southwest Chief sometime in the coming year. On https://www.amtrak.com/track-your-train.html
I noticed that SW Chief Train 3 arrived in Albuquerque NM at 9:53 pm - 7 hr 2 min late on July 1, 2024.

Is there any way to find out why this delay occurred, and also how often do such delays occur?

That train was severely delayed just west of Raton, NM by a vehicle that crashed into the side of the train with sufficient force to cause separation of two of the engines. You can see Amtrak's updates at the bottom of this page:
https://dixielandsoftware.net/cgi-bin/gettrain.pl?seltrain=3&selyear=2024&selmonth=06&selday=30

You can look up any train that is no longer on the map by adjusting the URL to for the proper train number (seltrain=3), month (selmonth=6), and day of origination (selday=30).

 

[jshell]

We are planning a trip on the Southwest Chief sometime in the coming year. On https://www.amtrak.com/track-your-train.html
I noticed that SW Chief Train 3 arrived in Albuquerque NM at 9:53 pm - 7 hr 2 min late on July 1, 2024.

Is there any way to find out why this delay occurred, and also how often do such delays occur?

Thanks in advance for any information.

Sometimes this forum is the most likely place to maybe find out why there are big delays. But it's hard to know unless it's a major news story or an obvious major storm.

This is a good train tracking map, based on the same data as Amtraks but easy to bookmark and works well on mobile - https://asm.transitdocs.com/

If you click/tap on a train it will bring up its timeline and you can click on individual stations to get a station summary board like this for Albuquerque - https://asm.transitdocs.com/station/ABQ

In the 'status' column there's an icon of a line chart kind of thing. If you click on that, you get to this amazing page of a particular train's arrival/departure history at a particular station. Here, again, is train #3 in ABQ: https://juckins.net/amtrak_status/a...tart=05/04/2024&date_end=07/03/2024&sort=d_dp

You can use the form on that page to do things like look at the history in the month you'll be traveling. It's a great tool and at the bottom it gives both an average and median arrival or departure delay for the timespan.

 

[MennoRoger]

Thanks to all who responded to my question about the Southwest Chief today. I will be studying all responses to collect helpful webpages for future research.

 

[jshell]

Are there any "smoke break" (or longer) type stops along the route between LA and Kansas City that are good photo stops? I always like the scenery and/or train / platform shots I've gotten along the Zephyr in places like Winter Park/Estes and Glenwood Springs Colorado, and even Ottumwa Iowa.

Are there similars spots of cool scenery (like Winter Park/Estes) or cool old station / cool old buildings along the Chief route going east?

Part of me is wanting an excuse to pick up and bring along a kind of ridiculous film camera.

 

[zephyr17]

Are there any "smoke break" (or longer) type stops along the route between LA and Kansas City that are good photo stops? I always like the scenery and/or train / platform shots I've gotten along the Zephyr in places like Winter Park/Estes and Glenwood Springs Colorado, and even Ottumwa Iowa.

Are there similars spots of cool scenery (like Winter Park/Estes) or cool old station / cool old buildings along the Chief route going east?

Part of me is wanting an excuse to pick up and bring along a kind of ridiculous film camera.

Fresh air/smoke stops between LA and Kansas City are Flagstaff, Gallup (sometimes skipped and short if they do it), Albuquerque (very long), Raton (usually short) and La Junta (long) Flagstaff, Gallup and Raton have cool old buildings. La Junta has a late 50s/early 60s era station that is architecturally fully intact that I think is very cool.

 

[Willbridge]

Fresh air/smoke stops between LA and Kansas City are Flagstaff, Gallup (sometimes skipped and short if they do it), Albuquerque (very long), Raton (usually short) and La Junta (long) Flagstaff, Gallup and Raton have cool old buildings. La Junta has a late 50s/early 60s era station that is architecturally fully intact that I think is very cool.

And sometimes in ABQ a commuter train is also in the station.

 

[BlackDiamond]

Fresh air/smoke stops between LA and Kansas City are Flagstaff, Gallup (sometimes skipped and short if they do it), Albuquerque (very long), Raton (usually short) and La Junta (long) Flagstaff, Gallup and Raton have cool old buildings. La Junta has a late 50s/early 60s era station that is architecturally fully intact that I think is very cool.

Raton station


La Junta

 

[BlackDiamond]

Albuquerque is nice too.

 

[jshell]

Those are some nice shots. I like La Junta especially. It reminds me a bit of Burlington and Ottumwa, Iowa. I'm excited to finally be seeing some new things!

 

[Rasputin]

Albuquerque and La Junta are crew change points so they are longer stops. Albuquerque seems to always be a half hour to an hour and they wash the train windows there. Take a short walk to the city bus station and look at the panels explaining the history of the Alvarado Hotel which was at that location. I assume that they are still there. La Junta seems to be about 10-15 minutes in my experience.

Raton is usually a five to ten minute stop and passengers are encouraged to step outside and enjoy the air. In my experience Gallup is a short stop and I have never heard passengers encouraged to step outside. However, in looking at the Gallup webcam from time to time it appears that Gallup is sometimes a smoke stop with passengers outside.

Lamy and Las Vegas tend to be very short stops and I have never heard of passengers being encouraged to step outside there.

Of course the situation on your train may be different. Hope you have a great trip and will post a report.

 

[Eric in East County]

Lamy and Las Vegas tend to be very short stops and I have never heard of passengers being encouraged to step outside there.

When we arrived in Las Vegas last May, someone radioed “Out on a quick” and we departed one minute later.

 

[MennoRoger]

We are planning a trip on the Southwest Chief from Fort Madison Iowa to Albuquerque NM next January. But on June 14, 2024, There was a “Service Disruption: As of 10:05 am CT Due to equipment issues. Train 3 is now canceled in its entirety. With no alternate transportation provided. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience in advance.”

When a Service Disruption happens, do passengers receive a refund from their ticket purchase?

 

[Rasputin]

We are planning a trip on the Southwest Chief from Fort Madison Iowa to Albuquerque NM next January. But on June 14, 2024, There was a “Service Disruption: As of 10:05 am CT Due to equipment issues. Train 3 is now canceled in its entirety. With no alternate transportation provided. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience in advance.”

When a Service Disruption happens, do passengers receive a refund from their ticket purchase?

If service results in a cancellation of a train or of a particular service, such as the cancellation of a sleeping car, passengers affected by that cancellation are entitled to a refund.

 

[Eric in East County]

If service results in a cancellation of a train or of a particular service, such as the cancellation of a sleeping car, passengers affected by that cancellation are entitled to a refund.

For what it’s worth, in 2022, the SWC sleeping car with the bedroom we’d reserved and paid for was cancelled. Rather than requesting a refund, we contacted Amtrak Customer Relations, and they re-booked our trip to a future date and at no extra cost to us. Also, to compensate us for the inconvenience we had been caused, we received a $300 credit voucher good for future travel. By the time we did travel, the cost of a SWC bedroom had gone up by $600.00, yet it only ended up costing us what we’d originally paid for it.

 

[pi314]

That train was severely delayed just west of Raton, NM by a vehicle that crashed into the side of the train with sufficient force to cause separation of two of the engines. You can see Amtrak's updates at the bottom of this page:
https://dixielandsoftware.net/cgi-bin/gettrain.pl?seltrain=3&selyear=2024&selmonth=06&selday=30

You can look up any train that is no longer on the map by adjusting the URL to for the proper train number (seltrain=3), month (selmonth=6), and day of origination (selday=30).

That is pretty wild. I rode the SWC back in March and I was in the front of the second sleeper car on the left side.

You get used to the cadence of the long, long, short, long each individual engineer uses for grade crossings. I'm just staring out the window coming down the back of the Raton Pass and I see we're paralleling some dirt road in the middle of nowhere, and we're gradually gaining on a car that is just hauling butt.

You could kind of see the road converging with the tracks, and then the engineer, obviously aware of the car, blows long, long, short, loooooooooooooooooooooooong holding it for like 15 seconds and we get to the grade crossing (no gates or lights) at the same time this car skids to a halt in a cloud of dust a couple feet from the train.

Later I found the conductor and I said please thank the engineer for preventing that idiot from plowing into us. His eyes got real big and he says, "You saw that? That's as close as it gets. We actually set the brakes."

Toward the end of the trip approaching LA we had to sit at the bottom of the Cajon Pass for about an hour because of a disabled car on the tracks ahead. WTH is wrong with people...

 

[Eric in East County]

That is pretty wild. I rode the SWC back in March and I was in the front of the second sleeper car on the left side.

You get used to the cadence of the long, long, short, long each individual engineer uses for grade crossings. I'm just staring out the window coming down the back of the Raton Pass and I see we're paralleling some dirt road in the middle of nowhere, and we're gradually gaining on a car that is just hauling butt.

You could kind of see the road converging with the tracks, and then the engineer, obviously aware of the car, blows long, long, short, loooooooooooooooooooooooong holding it for like 15 seconds and we get to the grade crossing (no gates or lights) at the same time this car skids to a halt in a cloud of dust a couple feet from the train.

Later I found the conductor and I said please thank the engineer for preventing that idiot from plowing into us. His eyes got real big and he says, "You saw that? That's as close as it gets. We actually set the brakes."

Toward the end of the trip approaching LA we had to sit at the bottom of the Cajon Pass for about an hour because of a disabled car on the tracks ahead. WTH is wrong with people...

Perhaps something similar is what caused the accident on July 1st.

 

[zephyr17]

We are planning a trip on the Southwest Chief from Fort Madison Iowa to Albuquerque NM next January. But on June 14, 2024, There was a “Service Disruption: As of 10:05 am CT Due to equipment issues. Train 3 is now canceled in its entirety. With no alternate transportation provided. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience in advance.”

When a Service Disruption happens, do passengers receive a refund from their ticket purchase?

If your trip is cancelled without alternate transportation you are entitled to a full refund. You might want to do what @Eric in East County did and get a future trip for a locked in price, depending on your plans, though.

If you are bustituted you will be entitled to at least a partial refund of the accommodation charge. You might be able to get most or all of it depending on the circumstances.

If you are severely late by more than a few hours, you can usually negotiate a substantial voucher.

In all cases but the first, full refund due to cancellation, it is best to work through Customer Relations by calling between 8-8 ET, M-F, getting a live agent, and asking the agent to be connected to Customer Relations. Customer Relations is empowered to do more than front line Customer Service agents.