6 hour delay between cities 200 miles apart is preposterous!

[railiner]

Here's one of the guy's most responsible for that brilliant engineering, over a century ago...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Cassatt
I recall when his statue shown at the end, was in Penn Station....

 

[neroden]

In the USA We put too much interest in shareholder profits than in the quality of the product.

You can say that again, except that it isn't really being driven by shareholders. It usually turns out badly for long-term shareholders. It is driven by looting CEOs who have devised self-payment schemes based on the short-term stock price -- or worse -- and by short-term stock market traders, who are not at all like long-term investors.

I echo everything MARC Rider said:

It's not all capitalists, it's a select group of "capitalist" crooks who are doing their best to destroy the "free enterprise system."

 

[neroden]

If that’s the case then I can give you a first hand account of one that was absolutely caused by freight interference.

I was on a Michigan train the summer of ‘19 that left Chicago dead on time, and was still running perfectly on time about 20 minutes from the point at which Amtrak tracks in Porter Indiana were to be reached.

Then the exact situation that jis described occurred. We were put in the hole by NS, and a fleet of five or six freight trains were prioritized as we sat there helpless.

This was NOT a case where we missed our slot.

We were not one minute late at the point we were sidelined, but we were over 3 hours late afterwards. NS just blatantly ignored their responsibilities and the law, because they could. That’s intentional criminal behavior in my opinion.

No one here says that all delays are caused by the Class I’s. Amtrak has a lot of work to do to get their house in order when it comes to maintenance and efficiency.

But anybody who defends the Class I’s actions is dead wrong. They have a responsibility they or their predecessors signed up for, and they are intentionally ignoring their responsibilities and in some cases flaunting it. They should have been called on the carpet years ago – and I only hope in my lifetime it actually happens.

Yes. I've seen this exact same criminal activity between Porter and Chicago more than once.

There are *plenty* of tracks in this area. This is not single-track territory. It's all double track *at least*. It's also short. The dispatchers could hold the entire track from Chicago to Porter clear for Amtrak if they needed to. Which they don't. They can hold westbound freights at Porter (which is normal, legal behavior). They simply choose not to because their bosses at NS have ordered them to commit crimes. What this saves them is merely that they do not have to stop and restart a freight train to let Amtrak through the junction. This is a tiny, tiny savings. And it's completely illegal, because by federal law, Amtrak has preference at junctions.

I don't blame the individual dispatchers; they probably don't know federal law so they don't know that their bosses have ordered them to commit crimes. The SUPERVISORS, however, are criminals.

I have also heard leaks from inside the railroad companies more than once that they were formally directing their dispatchers to dispatch freight ahead of Amtrak. If their emails and records were subpoenaed, I would expect to find smoking gun proof of criminal dispatching.

 

[neroden]

It could be the point.... without knowing why the dispatcher made the decision to put your train in the hole, you don’t know.

Does NS cross another railroads tracks to get to Amtrak owned tracks at that point?

No. It does not. Stop making excuses.