Amtrak Cancels Auto Train on Tues & Wed.

[amtrakwolverine]

So what are the chances that the train will be up and running by 11/28? I booked my parents and son on that train and am really hoping that they don't have to drive all the way from NJ!

well you could find a freight railroad company who for $$$$$ will ship your car and you fly down. or take greyhound. or take some other amtrak trains and forget the car.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

well you could find a freight railroad company who for $$$$$ will ship your car

This raises an interesting question: what stops Amtrak from leasing autoracks from the freight railroads to put on the Auto Train while they do this work?

(Amtrak might need to store most of their autoracks somewhere else while doing the inspection / repairs if they suddenly temporarily found themselves in possesion of double the usual number of autoracks; and I'm not sure if there's anything different in the brakes, couplers, and loading/unloading mechanisms between Auto Train autoracks and standard freight railroad autoracks.)

 

[Green Maned Lion]

I'd guess its something involving compatibility with either Amtrak's FRED/EOT equipment or braking system.

 

[VentureForth]

Keep in mind that the Autotrain has a speed limit that sits right inbetween freight and passenger - ie: 59 Freight, 69 Autotrain, and 79 Passenger. I would suppose that using a regular car carrier would mean going the 59. That all being said, it takes forever in the rail industry to stage any sort of equipment. Not to mention, no where to park the Autotrain car racks while they bring in the frieght ones to load up, then cost, then what GML said, then then then....

Anyone know what cracked in the first place? Was it a bogey? Was it structural inside?

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

They knew they had this problem on Tuesday. I would think that if Amtrak had decided on Tuesday to rent autoracks that normally lived in California, they could have been in Lorton or Sanford by now. How long does it normally take to arrange temporary trackage rights after a natural disaster?

A normal freight EOT shouldn't care what's on the intermediate cars, AFAIK, since it's battery powered and uses a radio, and I thought it had been said that some P42s were set up to deal with a freight EOT because that is what was used with ExpressTrak.

They could also run the auto train in two sections, with a passenger section and an autorack section if there is some insurmountable technical problem with using normal freight railroad autoracks on the Auto Train coupled directly to the Superliners, assuming they could get permission from the host railroad.

I'm sure they could find somewhere to temporarily store Amtrak's autoracks given a bit of motivation.

 

[AlanB]

As noted in the other topic on the AT, service will resume tomorrow.