Trains running fine despite snow/wind?

[Phil S]

As best I can tell, it all looks remarkably good. Cardinals got in trouble on the always pathetic Buckingham Branch, and #20 is running a little late, but overall it looks really good. Maybe cold enough that the snow was light and thus little tree damage?

Airlines cancelled about 2000 northeastern and CHI flights yesterday and another 300 so far today:

http://flightaware.com/live/cancelled/yesterday

 

[AmtrakBlue]

We didn't get snow in DE (orig prediction was for 4-8" in northern DE), but I believe what snow there was to the south was heavy, wet stuff as that was what we would have gotten if the rain had turned to snow. Not sure about what New England got/is getting.

Also, I heard D.C. didn't get nearly what they were expecting, so I'm guessing the mid-atlantic was spared the worst.

 

[jb64]

I live in the vicinity of the Buckingham Branch and we did have tree damage from both the heavy snow and high wind. Many folks still without power, too. So while DE and DC were spared, we got close to 20 inches. Glad the trains are running well, though, since I begin a transcontinental loop tomorrow morning.

 

[Phil S]

We didn't get snow in DE (orig prediction was for 4-8" in northern DE), but I believe what snow there was to the south was heavy, wet stuff as that was what we would have gotten if the rain had turned to snow. Not sure about what New England got/is getting.
Also, I heard D.C. didn't get nearly what they were expecting, so I'm guessing the mid-atlantic was spared the worst.

NE got a fair bit, WVa up to 2 ft. But it sounds like the airlines just cancelled a lot of flights pro-actively. I.e., there might be problems so let's just cancel the fllights and let the passengers cope as best they can. Not our problem, after all.

 

[afigg]

As best I can tell, it all looks remarkably good. Cardinals got in trouble on the always pathetic Buckingham Branch, and #20 is running a little late, but overall it looks really good. Maybe cold enough that the snow was light and thus little tree damage?

The #20(3/05) Crescent got blocked as well from trees down on NS north of Lynchburg. According to trainorders, it had to backtrack to Greensboro, east to Raleigh, and then north to DC. It got into NYP 14 hours late. So it was not just the Buckingham Branch. The Lynchburg-Charlottesville region got a lot of heavy wet snow, much more than DC and the Northern VA suburbs. The Cardinals, #50 and #51 were stopped and turned around. Which puts a dent in the on-time performance for the month.

 

[TimePeace]

I live in the vicinity of the Buckingham Branch and we did have tree damage from both the heavy snow and high wind. Many folks still without power, too. So while DE and DC were spared, we got close to 20 inches. Glad the trains are running well, though, since I begin a transcontinental loop tomorrow morning.

Have a great trip!

 

[Nathanael]

The #20(3/05) Crescent got blocked as well from trees down on NS north of Lynchburg. According to trainorders, it had to backtrack to Greensboro, east to Raleigh, and then north to DC. It got into NYP 14 hours late.

Well, one cheer from me for alternative routings! This is why bustitutions were rare in the days of private railroads -- they did stuff like this when there was trouble. There are a lot of routes where there are no diversionary routes now, but thanks to North Carolina's reconstruction of the NCRR route, this was viable in this case.

 

[kentuckian1977]

Anyone have a guess as to whether 51(3/10) will be running? I see Virginia should have temps in the 50s on Saturday so hopefully between now and Sunday morning when the train is to leave NYP things will get cleaned up enough on the BB for it to run. Tonight's 50 out of Chicago is cancelled and evidently so is tomorrow morning's 51 as it is showing as sold out. I'm supposed to be on 51(3/10) from Ashland, Ky to Chicago to connect to the Chief and I'm REALLY hoping I don't end up having to go to "plan B," which would be drive to either Carbondale or Champaign Sunday night, spend the room there, and then catch the early Monday Saluki/Illini train to make my connection.

 

[Acela150]

You should be fine. The last update on the Cardinal was it was turning at Huntington, WV. I wouldn't worry about a cancellation. If you have to change make sure you call Amtrak directly missing a leg would result in a cancelled trip.

 

[jb64]

I live in the vicinity of the Buckingham Branch and we did have tree damage from both the heavy snow and high wind. Many folks still without power, too. So while DE and DC were spared, we got close to 20 inches. Glad the trains are running well, though, since I begin a transcontinental loop tomorrow morning.

Have a great trip!

Thanks!!

 

[kentuckian1977]

You should be fine. The last update on the Cardinal was it was turning at Huntington, WV. I wouldn't worry about a cancellation. If you have to change make sure you call Amtrak directly missing a leg would result in a cancelled trip.

Thanks for pointing that out to me. Sure enough, a quick check shows that it is running to and from Huntington tonight/tomorrow so I should be fine even if for some reason it isn't resumed east of there by Sunday night.