I’m on the TE/SL that’s having mechanical issues UPDATE: We are about 14 hours late

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iliketrains

iliketrains

Lead Service Attendant
Joined
Aug 19, 2018
Messages
252
I am in Texas Eagle/ Sunset Limited headed to California. We left San Antonio and about 30 miles later the brakes began to fail. We are moving backwards slowly to the San Antonio station. The conductor explained that the train can’t safely go forward but can safely and slowly go backwards. The conductor explained that Amtrak is going to get a freight engine to attached to this train. So I’m guessing the brake problem is confined to the engine. I see the following alert posted by Amtrak.

Texas Eagle Train 421 which departed Chicago (CHI) on on 1/2 is returning to San Antonio (SAS) due to mechanical problems. Updates to come.
 
Theoretically, if the engineers brake control was not functioning, but the conductor rode in the rearmost coach, with the rear door open, he could operate the brake from there, by opening the brake air line aircock.
More likely a different fault with the engine entirely, maybe time will reveal all...
 
The freight engine has arrived, We were scheduled to leave San Antonio at 2:45am. We are very close to the San Antonio station now. That means we are about 5 hours behind schedule. I’m so glad I’m not in a hurry. My seat mate is absolutely wonderful person and the Amtrak staff is very friendly and helpful. When I boarded there was no window seat. The attendant noted I wanted a window seat and ensured, that the next major stop as passengers de-boarded, I had an opportunity to get a window seat. The conductor took the time to walk the train to sit and explain what’s happening with mechanical problem.
 
AmtrakMaineiac said:
I would be curious to know what defect in a braking system would cause a train to be unsafe moving forward but perfectly safe to move backward slowly.
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I’m definitely not a train engineer! I’m only explaining what I heard the conductor say. Hopefully I understood correctly.
 
iliketrains said:
The freight engine has arrived, We were scheduled to leave San Antonio at 2:45am. We are very close to the San Antonio station now. That means we are about 5 hours behind schedule. I’m so glad I’m not in a hurry. My seat mate is absolutely wonderful person and the Amtrak staff is very friendly and helpful. When I boarded there was no window seat. The attendant noted I wanted a window seat and ensured, that the next major stop as passengers de-boarded, I had an opportunity to get a window seat. The conductor took the time to walk the train to sit and explain what’s happening with mechanical problem.
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Good for him and Amtrak. Pax know things can go wrong, just tell them and its easier to deal with.
 
It may not be that the brakes worked fine going backward but did not work going forward ... it may be more along the lines of, going forward would require a long journey to someplace the train could get help and doing so at a safe speed that the train could coast to a stop may not have been practical. Reversing at a slow speed was not that far to get help and the train was most likely moving at a speed that it could slow to a stop simply by decreasing the throttle and allowing the train to stop rolling.
 
I think the key word is slowly. You can operate a restricted speed, usually defined as not more than 10 to 15 mph with a lot of deficiencies. However if you have run a reduced speed for a long distance and allow additional stopping distances you would lose a lot more than 5 hours between San Antonio and the west coast, plus being the slow train on what is a heavily used high speed freight line.
 
If changing out the locomotive is the fix, it almost sounds like a dynamic braking issue, with air still available. You would be able to go slowly stopping with air only, not sure why not in both direction, so what is covered in above posts would make sense.
 
Well you all won’t believe this. We arrive last evening 6 hours late in El Paso. We left El Paso and shortly afterwards we stopped and have not moved since. It’s 4:36am and we have not moved since about 8:00pm. I went to sleep and woke up thinking we were in Cali. Wow was I wrong! They did announce have we had mechanical issues.
 
One of the attendants just told me we are stalled now because the conductor has ran out of permissible hours. Therefore we are waiting for a replacement conductor to arrive.
 
iliketrains said:
One of the attendants just told me we are stalled now because the conductor has ran out of permissible hours. Therefore we are waiting for a replacement conductor to arrive.
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You know, maybe some of these trains should have a spare operating crew onboard, sleeping when they're not on duty, so that if the other crew runs out of hours, a fresh crew is immediately available. They do something like that on those long overseas nonstop flights so the plane doesn't have to land at intermediate points and pick up a fresh crew.
 
MARC Rider said:
You know, maybe some of these trains should have a spare operating crew onboard, sleeping when they're not on duty, so that if the other crew runs out of hours, a fresh crew is immediately available. They do something like that on those long overseas nonstop flights so the plane doesn't have to land at intermediate points and pick up a fresh crew.
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You cannot staff a train every day assuming that it will be delayed days on any crew district. When bad weather is predicted one could arguably do some additional staffing/positioning, but whether you are able to or not depends on the depth of the extra board in the district involved.

It's complicated, as they say.
 
jis said:
You cannot staff a train every day assuming that it will be delayed days on any crew district. When bad weather is predicted one could arguably do some additional staffing/positioning, but whether you are able to or not depends on the depth of the extra board in the district involved.

It's complicated, as they say.
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You're right, but a train doesn't need to be delayed days for crew members to time out. It's after they time out that the train starts getting really delayed if they can't get fresh crew. And if a train is delayed by bad weather, it's going to be hard in any case to bring a fresh crew to wherever the train is stranded.
 
David, an attendant in the train is best I’ve seen on an Amtrak trip!! He has been super friendly and has done anything within reason for passengers. He came through with a vacuum and cleaned up some messes left behind by people getting off the train. He has made sure trash bins are emptyed. He brought food to passengers in coach who have problems walking to the cafe car. He even showed us how to use Air Drop on our iPhones to send pics to one another aboard the train. He is needs to be awarded Employee of the Year!4C844C0A-87F2-4F3E-913D-CA905EF2A3CE.jpeg
 
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Rather than trying to travel with excess crew "just in case" - why not just allow the crew that is onboard to work "emergency hours" until the emergency is over. There is no real "need" to hold a train in distress just because the crew "timed out".
 
iliketrains said:
David, an attendant in the train is best I’ve seen on an Amtrak trip!! He has been super friendly and has done anything within reason for passengers. He came through with a vacuum and cleaned up some messes left behind by people getting off the train. He has made sure trash bins are emptyed. He brought food to passengers in coach who have problems walking to the cafe car. He even showed us how to use Air Drop on our iPhones to send pics to one another aboard the train. He is needs to be awarded Employee of the Year!View attachment 26615
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Were you on the Tucson railcam?
 
Qapla said:
Rather than trying to travel with excess crew "just in case" - why not just allow the crew that is onboard to work "emergency hours" until the emergency is over. There is no real "need" to hold a train in distress just because the crew "timed out".
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In what way is it an emergency? Are the staff or passengers in harms way?

joelkfla said:
Does FRA allow that?
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Nope, and where do you stop once you've said the rules do not really matter?
 
Some very extreme cases may require allowing a very brief override. For example, if the train is standing on a trestle which is starting to burn, they would probably allow a dead crew to pull the train to safety. But as you can see, it has to be extreme danger with high probability of loss of life, unless acted upon, not just because some people are feeling angry.
 

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