#2 bustitute out of NOL

[Tideman]

Here is the info on #2 Sunset Limited on 6/5/04....

We were about 12 hours late into NOL (left LAX 7.5 hours late after the #1 train was 16 hours late getting in from Orlando!).

I missed my connection to the Crescent, but had a guaranteed reservation, so I am in a hotel in New Orleans (I can think of worse places to be stranded on Amtrak's tab), and will go out on the Crescent tomorrow morning.

Others going past NOL will be bustituted. Lots of unhappy campers in the NOL Union Station this morning.

I'll have more info for folks when I get home tomorrow afternoon and get back on some broadband.

Tideman

James McKenzie

h34r:

 

[amtrakmichigan]

Just think, someone was complaining around Mothers Day that the Sunset was 7hr. and 10min. late

 

[engine999]

The sunset has to get better otp or it may be cut. I know alot of representitives want it gone. :angry:

 

[Guest]

I think the best policy might be to break it into two trains. One from Florida to NOL, the other from NOL to LAX.

 

[gswager]

I think the best policy might be to break it into two trains. One from Florida to NOL, the other from NOL to LAX.

I agree with you about it. The longer distance means greater chance of late arrivals, not in minutes, but hours.

NOL would be a good location because of other train from Chicago.

I'm curious if it requires additional train(s) for split route?

 

[gswager]

I think the best policy might be to break it into two trains.  One from Florida to NOL, the other from NOL to LAX.

I agree with you about it. The longer distance means greater chance of late arrivals, not in minutes, but hours.

NOL would be a good location because of other train from Chicago.

I'm curious if it requires additional train(s) for split route?

If Amtrak decides to go ahead and split the route, will it violate the Penn Station loan agreement (no new routes)?

 

[engine999]

It would probably require the same amount of equipment if the frequencies of the trains were not modified. They may want to add a few extra cars in nol, incase of some malfunctioning itiem.

 

[Tideman]

The problem isn't in NOL. There are always several extra pieces of Superliner equipment in the NOL terminal.

There isn't any extra stuff at LAX for the Sunset Limited, from what the Amtrak supervisor in LA told me on Wednesday night.

we had to wait for them to turn that equipment completely around to come back from LAX.

Tideman

James McKenzie

B)

 

[engine999]

Yeah, with 3 superliner trains going into Lax, and one needing to be turned this week in oakland, Lax has a superliner shortage. Its proof, that Amtrak is consistently late because of lack of equipment. If they had back upequipment, then another sunset could be set out and there would be little problem.

 

[AlanB]

If Amtrak decides to go ahead and split the route, will it violate the Penn Station loan agreement (no new routes)?

First off, just to be clear, the "no new routes" agreement has nothing to do with the mortgage of Penn Station. The "no new routes" clause is in the 100 million dollar loan that the transportation deptartment gave Amtrak in 2002.

As for violating the agreement, I would think that it wouldn't violate the nature of the agreement. They wouldn't be starting a new service, just improving a current service.

 

[IceColdMintJulep]

How about running the Eagle all the way to LA and turn the Sunset at SAS. Although SAS probably don't have the manning or ease of movement.

 

[AlanB]

Well since most of the Sunset's worst delays occur between SAS and LAX, all you'd be doing is to transfer the Sunset's poor performance to the Eagle.

Additionally if one considers the god aweful arrival time of the Sunset into SAS, there would probably be very little thru riders unless there were thru cars. At that point you might as well just send the whole train through.

SAS does have the facilities to turn the Sunset, as it currently turns the Eagle.

I think that the correct answer is that Amtrak needs permission to start billing UP big dollars, whenever the Sunset gets delayed.

 

[engine999]

The bills would pay for plenty of new equipment. The winter shortage will be a thing of the past.

 

[battalion51]

They ran a stub train out of Sanford today with Engine 15 a Sightseer Lounge and two coaches making up the consist. Bout the best thing you can say for that train is that it won't take long to get the train up to speed.

 

[engine999]

They ran a stub train out of Sanford today with Engine 15 a Sightseer Lounge and two coaches making up the consist. Bout the best thing you can say for that train is that it won't take long to get the train up to speed.

Its better then no train. I rather have that then be on a bus from orl-nol.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

As to breaking the train up in New Orleans.......We would then want to be able to transfer from the FLA-NOL train to the NOL-LA train......then there would be a problem about the connection always being missed.

Yes, I realize that the longer trip causes more time for delays to happen(though it also allows more time for delays to be made up).

Amtrak struck gold IMHO when it took the imagination by the horns, acted like the truly national corporatrion it is meant to be, unlike the private railraods before it, and extended the Sunset back to Miami.

It would seem retrograde to me, to now chop it up again at NOL.

Interestingly, something else "imaginative, taking the bull by the horns" which Amtrak did was create for the first time ever one solid through train from Seattle to Portland to SF to LA to(yes, originally) San Diego.

Of course the "Starlate" is frequently late also. But I just can't see going back on the progress we have made, speaking as one who remembers the days before(what was bad as well as what was good) Something's has to be done about the UP, etc.

And when one reads reports such as those which began this thread and then l realizes that scenarios such as this happen MORE OFTEN THAN NOT, it is really inexcusable. There has GOT to be away out of this hell.

 

[AmtrakWPK]

It does make some sense to have Sunset originate and terminate at Orlando because they actually park and service the train overnight at the Autotrain yard in Sanford, which is only a half hour by rail from the Orlando station, and Autotrain uses the same superliner (bi-level) equipment as Autotrain so they can have a common cache of equipment there (and trained maintenance personnel, and parts stocks) there for both trains. Miami, on the other hand, does not have any bi-level equipment, as the three trains that originate and terminate in Miami (Silver Star, Meteor, and Palmetto), are all Atlantic Coast Service trains, which use viewliner single level equipment, and therefore cannot act as an equipment cache for anything other than ponies and baggage cars. And I would imagine that it would require additional maintenance and repair personnel, or maybe just training, for the folks who would be doing maintenance and repairs on the bi-level equipment in Miami, plus the additional stocks of repair parts for the bi-level equipment, none of which is currently required in Miami, and all of which are on hand at Sanford. If Amtrak could just massage the schedule of Sunset (and get even the smallest cooperation from the freight railroads to enforce it) so that it arrived in the morning in Orlando, then pax heading to Miami could continue on down to Miami the same day, on either 91 or 97. Or, cynically, just slow it down a little more and it WILL be in Orlando in the morning and they can transfer to 91 or 97.

Sanford already is a mid-trip repair location for Silver Star and Silver Meteor; It is not unusual for those trains (Northbound, anyway) to stop for a few minutes to over half an hour at Sanford to fix or fiddle with air conditioning or other equipment on those trains on their way North. Each one of the last few Northbound trips we have made from WPK we have stopped at Sanford for quite a while to have something fixed on at least one car.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

AMTRAK WPK, your ideas about originating in Orlando rather than Miami do, of course, make sense. Equipment utlization, availability, parts, etc.

All I am going on is that at one time, for a few magic months or years, it really was extended all the way from NOL back to Miami.

As I recall, the reasons for cutting it back to Orlando from Miami were very much to do with punctuality.

As to a long route causing more delays, I have been on long routes, like CHI to CALIf so many times when a train would accumulate a delay of an hour or two en route, only to make it all or mostly up by end point. The problem with the SL is that it's freight problems extend so much of the way.

The same thing happened with the Coast Starlight. When it was first positioned as a through train form Seattle to San Diego, the reason they cut it back at LA is that local passengers from LA to SD could not depend on it being reasonably on time.

But we ought to be able to fix the delay, not be a prisoner of it....so that everything has to work around enormous delays........something wrong with this picture......very worng.......

 

[Guest_Bob]

Wouldn't it make more sense to take the City of New Orleans, have its trainset continue to California and then Crescent's set would continue to Florida?

That would put the superliners on the west coast and the viewliners on the east.

Call one the Sunset limited and the other the Sunrise limited.

 

[AmtrakWPK]

Or maybe have sunset be a NOL-LAX train and have the CONL become a Orlando-NOL-Chicago Daily. Hmmmmmm.....? Why not?? That would give daily service from Miami to Chicago. Or even make CONL Chicago-NOL-JAX daily. Assuming they did the schedule properly, that would give daily connex in both directions MIA-ORL-JAX-NOL-Chicago, and 3 times per week NOL-LAX. It would also give you a daily connex to NOL (and points north of NOL) from JAX for southbound pax on all three Atlantic Coast Service trains. Given the current abysmal performance of sunset, it should help sunset a little, and I think it would help transportation OTP east of NOL tremendously.

I spend a lot of time listening to road and dispatch channels for CSX through here, and the (CSX) AA dispatchers have always, at least when I have been listening, tried very hard to expedite the Amtraks. They make sure their work crews know when the next amtrak train is due through their work order, and to have that order clear for the amtrak train, and I hear them orchestrating the moves of their freights so as not to delay the pax trains. From what I gather of UP and others, CSX puts them to shame in that regard.

 

[AlanB]

I spend a lot of time listening to road and dispatch channels for CSX through here, and the (CSX) AA dispatchers have always, at least when I have been listening, tried very hard to expedite the Amtraks. They make sure their work crews know when the next amtrak train is due through their work order, and to have that order clear for the amtrak train, and I hear them orchestrating the moves of their freights so as not to delay the pax trains. From what I gather of UP and others, CSX puts them to shame in that regard.

Actually CSX may do pretty good by the Sunset, but they aren't that great with the Silver Service and the Lake Shore Limited.

From my observations and from other things that I've read and seen, it would appear that the best two class I RR's to Amtrak are BNSF & NS.

Oddly enough the absolute best RR to Amtrak, which is not a class I RR, is Guilford Freight. They have done wonders for the Downeaster's OTP. Of course that may well be due to the fact that they didn't want to give Amtrak more ammunition in the 79 MPH battle.

 

[Save Our Trains Michigan]

I spend a lot of time listening to road and dispatch channels for CSX through here, and the (CSX) AA dispatchers have always, at least when I have been listening, tried very hard to expedite the Amtraks.  They make sure their work crews know when the next amtrak train is due through their work order, and to have that order clear for the amtrak train, and I hear them orchestrating the moves of their freights so as not to delay the pax trains.  From what I gather of UP and others, CSX puts them to shame in that regard.

Actually CSX may do pretty good by the Sunset, but they aren't that great with the Silver Service and the Lake Shore Limited.

From my observations and from other things that I've read and seen, it would appear that the best two class I RR's to Amtrak are BNSF & NS.

Oddly enough the absolute best RR to Amtrak, which is not a class I RR, is Guilford Freight. They have done wonders for the Downeaster's OTP. Of course that may well be due to the fact that they didn't want to give Amtrak more ammunition in the 79 MPH battle.

BNSF is by far the best RR to Amtrak for sevral reasons we look at Amtrak as a money maker for us plus we use it to DeadHead on when the train can be close to ontime .We take pride in getting Amtrak over the road and not delaying them.

 

[AmtrakWPK]

Well, I listen to CSX AA dispatch desk, through the Orlando area, which means trains P001-P002-P091-P092-P097-P098, and sometimes I hear a ittle auto-train stuff as well, but they are a little ways north of me. Through the Orlando area, AA dispatch really does seem to try hard to not delay the amtraks. I can't speak for other CSX dispatch desks, but through Orlando they do seem to try pretty hard. Almost always, the only time amtrak has to wait is for another amtrak, which does happen pretty frequently (not right now, though, with the 91-97 and 92-98 consolidations). I've been at WPK or ORL at least a half-dozen times waiting for another amtrak train to clear one of those stations so the second train can enter and do their station work. It must have the station agents about ready to pull their hair out having to service all those pax and all those bags from two complete trains one right after the other, especially at WPK where they only have one or two people there anyway. And WPK only has one baggage golf cart, I believe. They've even had three trains within a short time when slightly late P098, a P001, and a late P091 all converge on one of those stations.

 

[AlanB]

Wouldn't it make more sense to take the City of New Orleans, have its trainset continue to California and then Crescent's set would continue to Florida?
That would put the superliners on the west coast and the viewliners on the east.

Call one the Sunset limited and the other the Sunrise limited.

An interesting idea, that does have several good points.

The biggest drawbacks that I see is the fact that it eliminates the run-through service from LA to Florida and the other issue is that it makes the trip from endpoint to endpoint far longer than needed for the average traveler. Only a railfan would want to go from Chicago to Miami via New Orleans.

Plus you now have two trains that have longer journeys that could be subject to further delays. The average traveler would want a shorter route through say, Atlanta, to Florida. With the west coast service, you know add another overnight on the train for people, vs. the shorter ride on the Texas Eagle. Plus you also leave the Texas Eagle run-through service hanging in San Antonio with nothing to connect to now.

 

[Guest_Bob]

It doesn't have to be the same train, just the same equipment. Think National Limited.