10 Minute boarding rule?

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Royal, I went looking on Amtrak.com for those stations and couldn't find a link. Where is it, please?

Also on this topic, airlines are very clear about being at the gate by a certain time, and it's in their literature as such. Is Amtrak as firm and clear?
 
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Royal, I went looking on Amtrak.com for those stations and couldn't find a link. Where is it, please?

Also on this topic, airlines are very clear about being at the gate by a certain time, and it's in their literature as such. Is Amtrak as firm and clear?
I don't know where he found 16 stations, but under Station Advisories on the Service Alerts and Notices page, there are a few stations that list rules similar to this.
 
Also on this topic, airlines are very clear about being at the gate by a certain time, and it's in their literature as such. Is Amtrak as firm and clear?
Indeed, airlines actually have different cutoff times at different airports too, and they are very clearly spelled out. Also, the cutoff time sometimes changes based on security status and such. For example, around Republic Day in India with heightened threat of terrorist attack specially in large cities, the checking cutoff was extended to one hour before departure and boarding cutoff was extended to 20 mins before departure, from the normal 45mins and 15 mins. I got a frantic email from Lufthansa two days before my flight informing me of this at Delhi.
 
Well, if it is an all reserved train, and everyone that has reservation is already known to be on the train and gates giving access to the train shut 10 minutes before departure, then it is not clear what the harm is for the train to leave a few minutes earlier than the advertised departure time, specially if it helps it keep its slot in the flow on the congested main line.

Airlines do this quite often these days and it helps them keep their slot in congested airports and airways.

The harm in running before time is that trains get to interlockings before they are expected, and potentially delay other trains expected at the interlocking at the same time. This applies whether it runs early because it leaves early or because the train is ran faster than necessary to keep to time.

Of course running late (even by a minute or two) can often not be made up and can result in delays snowballing. But surely five minutes is more than long enough to get passengers on board. If necessary, tell passengers to board by the closest available door and move to the right car after departure.
 
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Well, if it is an all reserved train, and everyone that has reservation is already known to be on the train and gates giving access to the train shut 10 minutes before departure, then it is not clear what the harm is for the train to leave a few minutes earlier than the advertised departure time, specially if it helps it keep its slot in the flow on the congested main line.

Airlines do this quite often these days and it helps them keep their slot in congested airports and airways.
A train will not leave earlier than the timetable allows, trouble if they do leave early. But there is a rule that allows the dispatcher to permit a train to leave earlier than the timetable time. It is rare but it happens. They will qualify it with.... if expected passengers are boarded or something like that. The reason that the dispatcher would do that is to facilitate another move.

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palmetto, on the Amtrak web sight go to "service alerts and notices, and then "Station Advisories". My mistake, daybeers is right, there are 7 stations listed (CHI, DEN, KCY, MKE, PDX, STL, and WAS), the other 9 notices pertain to other matters.
 
My policy is to plan my arrivals to airports and train stations with 30 minutes more than I need. I even tell my customers and my managers departure times that are 3 minutes earlier because they always squeeze you as tight as possible. As a project Manager I am conditioned to look for all possible scenarios that could cause a problem and plan accordingly. Solution is to plan for delays so you are through the gate with plenty of time before it closes.
 
To quote a remark by a host railroad when an Amtrak train showed up at the same time as one of their trains, "tie goes to the home team!"
I assume that was a passenger railroad host. Because if it was a freight railroad host, that quote could get the freight railroad fined.
 
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