Stop Tweeting About Us OR ELSE! NS vs. Amtrak

[Acela150]

In an article on WSJ's webpage. NS recently not so shockingly and in true NS Fashion threatened Amtrak over Amtrak's tweets stating that certain trains are delayed "Due to Norfolk Southern Freight Train Interference".

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amtrak...476b860bf19d1db10da3&mod=share_mobilewebshare

Amtrak over the past year has become much more rider friendly by publishing "Tweets" on Twitter to communicate delays and the reason.

It appears that Norfolk Southern in a not so shocking fashion has taken offense to being called out in public as being the reason that Amtrak trains are delayed, and in true NS fashion sent Amtrak letter saying "Stop blaming us in public" or we'll see you in court if one reads the article in between the lines.

Simple terms... NS hates bad publicity, their answer is to take the other party to court. NS has a long and storied history of suing the employees who have Stop Signal Violations and an incident occurs.

Personally I'd like to see NS take this to court. Why? I'd love to see a Judge look at the NS lawyer and tell them to grow up and tell the company to accept responsibility for their actions.

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

Is this Norfolk Southern Attorney name Michael Cohen by any chance?


Seem the shareholder of NS might be getting word that there investment is having trouble moving freight trains. That always been a sneaky way to see how the railroad is doing.

 

[neroden]

Yeah, I don't think NS wants to argue this in court! They'd lose.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Amtrak may indeed win a final judgement, but how confident are you that Amtrak can fully fund a protracted legal battle to reach that point?

 

[wwchi]

it's ridiculous - I mean it's the TRUTH...I am delayed more often than not due to NS traffic! So, given that as supporting facts I doubt any judge could render a favorable verdict for them! ugh.

 

[neroden]

NS clearly has some other strategy planned. This is not a winnable court case on their side -- Amtrak has truth, evidence, and good faith and NS has nothin' -- so they will not sue Amtrak. Instead, perhaps the "read between the lines" threat is that they'll be uncooperative or obstructive in some OTHER way.

 

[jis]

When they are just being their incompetent selves they are this bad. Maybe that incompetence will work in our favor when they try to be bad? [emoji849]

 

[west point]

Now the CSX delays at ATL for the Crescent should be posted as well!

 

[fredmcain]

Well, I can cite an experience we had recently.

Back in mid January, my wife and I took Amtrak from Elkhart, IN to Los Angeles and back. The westbound Capitol Limited (on NS rails) was running two hours late at Elkhart. No worries, that just gave us less downtime in Chicago anyways and, besides, the Elkhart Depot is a GREAT place to watch trains! We then rode the Southwest Chief to L.A. and return and it was completely, 100% flawless. We arrived in L.A. almost 30 minutes early. The return trip was the same. I would notice where the BNSF dispatcher would hold hot, intermodal freights for us (some of them actually headed in the SAME direction) so that we could run around them!

On the very last lap of the trip we boarded the E.B. Capitol to our final destination in Elkhart. Back on NS rails again, we were on time all the way to the west end of the Elkhart yard where we ground to a halt. We sat there for 30 minutes waiting for an W.B. “s___ freight” to snake its way out of the yard with a long drag of hoppers, gons, and tank cars. Then we sat there for 30 more minutes until another W.B. (stack train this time) cleared.

What in the world? What the heck had this D.S. been smoking? I can kinda see him holding us for a really hot intermodal train but a drag? Then the intermodal headed west behind the drag so that it, too, was delayed.

The icing on the cake was that my ride had called “Julie” and was told that the train was “on time” but since this happened just west of the depot, he wound up sitting there for over an hour !

Regards,
Fred M. Cain,
Topeka, IN

 

[Anderson]

Amtrak currently has a lot of cash and short-term investments on hand. Also, I'm wondering if there isn't a serious risk that if they tried this NS would wind up having to pay costs.

 

[Thirdrail7]

I'm not sure Amtrak wants to have a battle when they are dependent on NS for so many things. They could easily adopt the attitude of CSX of the 1990s and make things worse.

 

[Anderson]

I'm not sure Amtrak wants to have a battle when they are dependent on NS for so many things. They could easily adopt the attitude of CSX of the 1990s and make things worse.

I agree, but it doesn't help when NS is the single worst-performing Class I in terms of OTP. From what I understand of Anderson, if NS decided to start "behaving badly" on top of the current situation? Anderson might be itching for that fight.

Of course, the idea of programming a Twitter bot programmed to factually indicate delays on NS tracks without context comes to mind as well.

 

[Ryan]

Of course, the idea of programming a Twitter bot programmed to factually indicate delays on NS tracks without context comes to mind as well.

It most certainly does.

 

[neroden]

Wow, NS is the worst now! A big change from a few years ago. The "robo-dispatcher" failure must still be echoing.

What ever happened to the Amtrak lawsuits and STB filings against CN, which used to be the worst until Hunter Harrison left? I haven't heard any updates.

 

[wwchi]

Right now sitting on 352 Chicago to New Buffalo...left the station on time and were moving for maybe 10 minutes. Left 1:25 pm central, stopped about 1:35 pm central. It is now 2:22 pm central...STILL SITTING!! The crew has been great with updates but this is UN F'ING REAL! Over the many years I've ridden the Michigan trains we've had issues like this but it has gotten better but now again WORSE consistently. ABSOLUTE BS and now I am going to get on Twitter and mention them again! UGH!

 

[Acela150]

Wow, NS is the worst now! A big change from a few years ago. The "robo-dispatcher" failure must still be echoing.

What ever happened to the Amtrak lawsuits and STB filings against CN, which used to be the worst until Hunter Harrison left? I haven't heard any updates.

Robo Dispatcher is called "Auto Router". Or as I and many others at NS called it.. Auto Slower.

 

[dgvrengineer]

One thing that seems to have improved since this dispute started is the Cresent has mostly less than an hour late at Washington and Atlanta. Much better than the 8 to 10 hour lateness before. Maybe it's just a coincidence.

 

[Thirdrail7]

The tweets also seem to leave out the name of the railroad. Prior to the article:

https://twitter.com/AmtrakAlerts/status/1106700229255069699

After the article:

https://twitter.com/AmtrakAlerts/status/1108839313595424768

Maybe there has been an exchange.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

The tweets also seem to leave out the name of the railroad. Prior to the article:

https://twitter.com/AmtrakAlerts/status/1106700229255069699

After the article:

https://twitter.com/AmtrakAlerts/status/1108839313595424768

Maybe there has been an exchange.

Did anyone really expect Amtrak to prevail in this dispute?

 

[neroden]

Amtrak's letter to Norfolk Southern was *nasty*. I mean, totally fair, very reasonable, but *nasty*. Good for Amtrak. I think NS executives probably called up super apologetic.

Read the letter:
https://www.railpassengers.org/happening-now/news/blog/amtrak-takes-the-fight-against-delays-online/

Source letter posted by WSJ:
https://www.wsj.com/public/resource...etoNorfolkSouthern2019.pdf?mod=article_inline

Here's the snarkiest bit -- it's the last paragraph before the signature:

In your letter, you indicated if Amtrak fails to cease tweeting information regarding delays, Norfolk Southern "will be forced to consider further action." We urge Norfolk Southern to live up to that promise by taking immediate action to improve the on-time performance of Amtrak trains on your railroad.

That letter is a thing of beauty. It went not only to NS's General Attorney who wrote the original letter, but to NS's General Counsel of Markets & Regulation, their General Director -- Pasenger Policy, their Senior Director -- Interline Management, their Vice President -- Strategic Planning, and their Vice President -- Law.

The letter outright states that NS is breaking the law. This amounts to "Bring it on".

I absolutely do NOT think it's a coincidence that handling of the Crescent has suddenly improved.

 

[wwchi]

LOVED the letter - first time in many many years riding Amtrak that I've seen them say "bring it on!"

 

[NSC1109]

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

The fact that Amtrak was able to identify the very train that kept causing delays is great, and I hope it sends a message to the other Class I's that Amtrak isn't about to back down anymore.

 

[jis]

Indeed that letter is amazingly precise and well written. Hats off to Anderson for pressing NS on this issue.

Incidentally, time keeping on CSX was excellent on the several Amtrak trips I took over the last weekend. Except for one frozen switch incident which caused a delay of over half an hour, things ran pretty much on time on CSX.

It was Amtrak that had issues with a bridge problem on the LAB bridge in Albany, and a bridge strike in Havre de Grace. In the absence of those I suspect even those delays would have been avoided.

CSX in particular arranged to put us on the left track to overtake a hotshot that was ahead of us, that we caught up to as a result of the switch issue. It was all in all good dispatching.

OTOH, CSX has been having issue with PTC, and systems requiring reboots, which can take half hour or more. But hopefully those teething troubles will be a thing of the past as the systems get debugged.

 

[daybeers]

The tweets also seem to leave out the name of the railroad. Prior to the article:

https://twitter.com/AmtrakAlerts/status/1106700229255069699

After the article:

https://twitter.com/AmtrakAlerts/status/1108839313595424768

Maybe there has been an exchange.

Not sure if that was just a fluke, but at least the latest tweets are back at calling out the railroads.

Amtrak's letter to Norfolk Southern was *nasty*. I mean, totally fair, very reasonable, but *nasty*. Good for Amtrak. I think NS executives probably called up super apologetic.

Read the letter:
https://www.railpassengers.org/happening-now/news/blog/amtrak-takes-the-fight-against-delays-online/

Source letter posted by WSJ:
https://www.wsj.com/public/resource...etoNorfolkSouthern2019.pdf?mod=article_inline

Here's the snarkiest bit -- it's the last paragraph before the signature:


That letter is a thing of beauty. It went not only to NS's General Attorney who wrote the original letter, but to NS's General Counsel of Markets & Regulation, their General Director -- Pasenger Policy, their Senior Director -- Interline Management, their Vice President -- Strategic Planning, and their Vice President -- Law.

The letter outright states that NS is breaking the law. This amounts to "Bring it on".

I absolutely do NOT think it's a coincidence that handling of the Crescent has suddenly improved.

I agree: that letter is amazing! Way to go Amtrak!

 

[Acela150]

Indeed that letter is amazingly precise and well written. Hats off to Anderson for pressing NS on this issue.

Incidentally, time keeping on CSX was excellent on the several Amtrak trips I took over the last weekend. Except for one frozen switch incident which caused a delay of voer half an hour, things ran pretty much on time on CSX.

It was Amtrak that had issues with a bridge problem on the LAB bridge in Albany, and a bridge strike in Havre de Grace. In the absence of those I suspect even those delays would have been avoided.

CSX in particular arranged to put us on the left track to overtake a hotshot that was ahead of us, that we caught up to as a result of the switch issue. It was all in all good dispatching.

OTOH, CSX has been having issue with PTC, and systems requiring reboots, which can take half hour or more. But hopefully those teething troubles will be a thing of the past as the systems get debugged.

Bridge strikes and related incidents happen frequently. But those delays are avoidable. So you are spot on. And a frozen switch is another frequent event that will cause a delay. Even on Freight only lines. During my time in freight service it happened a few times. Sometimes it's a quick fix, sometimes it takes longer. There are a whole bunch of variables involved.

As to being run around a hotshot train and good dispatching, there are some great dispatchers in the railroad industry. But I've also had my fair share of god awful ones too. A few months ago on 660 to NYP we got held at swift for a Transit train to come on the corridor and instead of putting NJT on A track at Secaucus they left them on the Main that Amtrak uses to pass by. To the point where the Engineer got on the radio and said "I thought A track was so we could pass Transit". That is a bad dispatching move. Or commonly referred to as "PPD" P*** Poor Dispatching.