Transport Companys' handling of Daylight Saving Time

[TheTuck]

So if a train is scheduled to depart at 1:30 am, is it the first 1:30 am, or the 2nd one? And does it make difference whether it's the originating terminal or a stop en route?

Obviously the first one. If I was a passenger boarding at 130am, I'd make sure I was there at the first 1:30.

 

[Willbridge]

As a former airline operations analyst with considerable involvement in schedules, I disagree that airline schedules are more complex than railroads (well, in some ways they are but in others they aren't). First, at least at my carrier, schedules are based in UTC (aka GMT) and are then converted to local. So the time change gets incorporated into the schedule as viewed in local time automatically.

Second, flights are managed by segment - a segment being a departure to an arrival. Even if the flight has multiple segments, each segment is managed on its own (if Amtrak ran a train by segment, a NYP-WAS Acela would be managed as NYP-NWK, then NWK-PHL, PHL-WIL, etc.). So an airline flight segment is affected by a time change only if it occurred during that segment; with Amtrak, a time change on the first night of a two-night train affects every segment downline of it until the train reaches it's terminus over 24 hours later.

Third, the only flights affected by time changes are red-eyes. At least for my carrier, that's a relatively small number domestically. And as for international, North America and Europe don't change on the same dates. While the U.S. moves off daylight time tonight, Europe did it a week ago so for my carrier, we had temporary schedules for all this week (in the Spring, Europe changes on the last Sunday of March). And then some countries don't change at all and it's largely backwards in the southern hemisphere.

So for tonight, let's say there is a San Francisco-Chicago flight that normally departs SFO at 11:30pm (0630 UTC) and arrives Chicago at 5:30am (1030 UTC). Tonight, it would still be in the schedule as 0630 to 1030 except the arrival time at Chicago would translate to 4:30am and that's what the passenger would see. And if the were then connecting to a flight further east at 7:00am, it's still going to depart at 7:00am so just like Amtrak, they get to sit for an hour only they do it at their connecting airport rather than having their flight hold for an hour.

Now if this were March when we turn the clocks ahead an hour, that normal 5:30am arrival becomes 6:30am. Does the passenger risk missing their connection? No, because the reservation system builds legal connections on the fly and never offers the customer the illegal 6:30am to 7:00am connection (or schedule planning sees the problem in advance and moves that 11:30pm departure up to 11:00pm for one night to restore the connections - and most people won't even realize it was changed for one night as I don't think any airline publishes full timetables anymore).

Thanks for the details. One former colleague at RTD in Denver had worked at the (old) Frontier Airlines and he found that transit scheduling for a big system was far more complex than airline scheduling in terms of the possible connections and running time variations through the day but airline scheduling with its day to day variations had the unique complexities that you describe.

 

[UserNameRequired]

This got me curious, and looking at United 918 (IAD-LHR) has an entertaining loop or two every morning when she arrives in London (unless she's late):
View attachment 25356

Guessing a hold southeast OCKHAM VOR 140 radial?

 

[Steve4031]

Here is an example for the Empire Builder which was running 2 hours late and now will probably be on time into Minneapolis.

 

[Steve4031]

Here’s the link Train Details

 

[Hans627]

I'm the OP on this thread and thought I would give an update on what happened relative to DST. The train DID NOT stop and hold for an hour overnight. We arrived BAL almost 45 minutes early. We waited for our ride and it was not a big issue. They also departed early from BAL. Not sure how those getting on the train handled this. Perhaps they were notified the train was going to depart early.

What was somewhat of an issue was scrambling to get dressed and get a cup of coffee before we arrived in BAL.

I thought I would post this for future reference.

Thanks!

 

[AmtrakBlue]

I'm the OP on this thread and thought I would give an update on what happened relative to DST. The train DID NOT stop and hold for an hour overnight. We arrived BAL almost 45 minutes early. We waited for our ride and it was not a big issue. They also departed early from BAL. Not sure how those getting on the train handled this. Perhaps they were notified the train was going to depart early.

What was somewhat of an issue was scrambling to get dressed and get a cup of coffee before we arrived in BAL.

I thought I would post this for future reference.

Thanks!

What train were you traveling on? I'm guessing it was a long-distance train. Those trains are discharge/detrain only between WAS and NYP. So they can leave WAS early once they swap the engines and continue to be early all the way up to NYP.

 

[Hans627]

OK, I guess that makes sense. But it also left all the stations prior to WAS early as well (stations after DST ended at 2:00 AM).

I'm sorry as I should have mentioned it was train no. 98.

 

[jis]

OK, I guess that makes sense. But it also left all the stations prior to WAS early as well (stations after DST ended at 2:00 AM).

I'm sorry as I should have mentioned it was train no. 98.

I suspect somehow your station time records got muddled somehow....

According to Amtrak it departed Richmond and Fredericksburg on schedule. It left Alexandria early. I am not certain but it is possible that Alexandria is a discharge only station.

Prior to that it left Fayetteville 1:57 late at 1:34am, and then left both Rocky Mount and Petersburg on time at respectively 2:09am and 3:33am. So it made good use of that one hour to make up time

It did arrive Washington DC 38 mins early and depart 46 mins early, which is par for the course if it gets clear track north of Fredericksburg. Has happened to me many times even without DST change in the mix. It arrived Baltimore 51 mins early and departed 53 mins early which is par for the course.

Looks like it got a good run all through north of Fayetteville NC.

 

[Barb Stout]

Here’s the link Train Details

Looks like Amtrak considered 1:55 am to be good enough to be called 2 am. For sure 1:58 am has to be good enough to be called 2 am.

1383	DVL	Devils Lake, ND	11/6			11:37P	1:33A 1:34A	Arrived 1 hour 56 minutes late. Departed 1 hour 57 minutes late.	Station History
1468	GFK	Grand Forks, ND	11/7			1:02A	1:55A 1:58A	Arrived 53 minutes late. Departed 56 minutes late.

 

[saxman]

Looks like Amtrak considered 1:55 am to be good enough to be called 2 am. For sure 1:58 am has to be good enough to be called 2 am.

1383	DVL	Devils Lake, ND	11/6			11:37P	1:33A 1:34A	Arrived 1 hour 56 minutes late. Departed 1 hour 57 minutes late.	Station History
1468	GFK	Grand Forks, ND	11/7			1:02A	1:55A 1:58A	Arrived 53 minutes late. Departed 56 minutes late.

It left Devils Lake at 1:34 AM. Soon after that 2 AM came and the time became 1 AM between DVL and GFK. So it left GFK at 1:58 AM, after the time change had occurred. Instead of being nearly 2 hours late, it became only 1 hour late. It didn’t need to dwell in the station anywhere.

 

[lstone19]

According to Amtrak it departed Richmond and Fredericksburg on schedule. It left Alexandria early. I am not certain but it is possible that Alexandria is a discharge only station.

According to the last PDF timetable I could find, all stops from Fredericksburg north are discharge only so an early arrival at any of them is a possibility any day of the year.

Prior to that it left Fayetteville 1:57 late at 1:34am, and then left both Rocky Mount and Petersburg on time at respectively 2:09am and 3:33am. So it made good use of that one hour to make up time

...
Looks like it got a good run all through north of Fayetteville NC.

There's something wonky with the schedule reported for 98-6, probably related to the time change. Normally, 98 is scheduled at Fayetteville at 12:37am. But on 11/6, it was shown as 11:37pm. So between the time being moved an hour earlier at Fayetteville plus the hour time change, easy to see why it lost 1:38 between Florence and Fayetteville (with the normal 12:37am, it would only have been 0:57 late at Fayetteville) and them make up the entire 1:57 between Fayetteville and Rocky Mount.

 

[Danib62]

So, all the train will be late for 1 hour when DST begins?

This would actually be an improvement for most long distance trains.

 

[alpha3]

As a former airline operations analyst with considerable involvement in schedules, I disagree that airline schedules are more complex than railroads (well, in some ways they are but in others they aren't).

LoL. Glad you realized how silly that sounded. The Americans, Deltas, and Uniteds of this world have far more complicated ops. The bottom line is schedules are managed , to account for the vagaries of DST. Some flights operate, with times massaged, others are canceled to save crew usage, positioning, and other stuff. Trains could do the same. A buddy of mine in Germany just told me the overnite long distance Deutsch Bahns just keep going; he also said they don't operate many of the S-Bahns (intercity locals).

 

[pennyk]

MODERATOR NOTE: please keep your comments on the topic of Daylight Saving Time as it relates to Amtrak and also please post in a friendly manner focusing on ideas and not on the individual presenting those ideas. Thank you.

 

[west point]

Duty time limits can become a problem when going back to standard time. Airlines can have the problem also. The RR 12 HOS can rear its ugly head. Since most scheduled on duty times are much less cannot imagine much problem except with the usual freight train interference that happens to passenger trains.

 

[jis]

MODERATOR'S NOTES: A very large number of posts which had nothing to do with trains or transportation but are about Daylight Saving Time and Time Zones have been moved to their own thred in The Lounge:

https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/daylight-saving-time-and-time-zones-general-discussion.81483/
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