Capitol Gains?

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capltd29

capltd29

Lead Service Attendant
Joined
Jun 27, 2004
Messages
340
Location
Richmond, VA
Since the beginning of the new year, it seems that Amtrak Trains 29 and 30 have made extreme improvements in their on time performance. For example train 29 arrived 5mins late today (1/6) as opposed to 5 hours late, as it had not been too far off from for the past several months.

In the last week, the trains have not been more than an hour late in either direction, according the Amtrak Website. What's going on? Is NS finally getting its act together in N-NW Indiana, is this a fluke, or is there some other extenuating(sp??) circumstance the trains have been....GASP!...making it on time to their destinations?

Any info?

Thanks, and by the way, this post is offically UNJINXED!

Jon Parker
 
Was wondering the same thing. During the holidays it could be explained by the freight rr's being largely shut down, and just before the holidays they had some rotten luck with bad weather/broken rails, if memory serves.

Still, the trend has continued after the holidays, and can't be overlooked. Regardless of Amtrak's performance, one would have to think a supposedly well-run railroad like NS would have "figured it out" eventually on one of their main routes. Surely their freight wasn't running well before, either.

JPS
 
Well, 30 is an hour and a half down today(1/7) , but left Chicago late, i guess, u cant blame that on NS...
 
I seem to see cycles on timelyness with all the trains. For several months a route will always be ontime or within an hour. Then it'll go into a period of many hours late.

I just rode the Texas Eagle to Chicago and it was ontime, as was my Lake Shore to NYP. Thats what i notice anyways.

Chris
 
capltd29 said:
Since the beginning of the new year, it seems that Amtrak Trains 29 and 30 have made extreme improvements in their on time performance. For example train 29 arrived 5mins late today (1/6) as opposed to 5 hours late, as it had not been too far off from for the past several months.
In the last week, the trains have not been more than an hour late in either direction, according the Amtrak Website. What's going on? Is NS finally getting its act together in N-NW Indiana, is this a fluke, or is there some other extenuating(sp??) circumstance the trains have been....GASP!...making it on time to their destinations?

Any info?

Thanks, and by the way, this post is offically UNJINXED!

Jon Parker
Click to expand...
Nice try.

29(7) is wicked late as of this writing; from the lack of updates this evening on Amtrak.com, it would appear either:

o We've had some sort of derailment between Martinsburg and Cumberland

o There's been some sort of critical mechanical failure on 29(7).

"State of Good Repair," perhaps?

As for the timekeeping after Christmas 2005, my take is that the dispatcher that hates Amtrak had the time off. <_<
 
Any further update? That is, as to what the delay was. Of course, one can head to Amtrak.com to see just how late 29(7) ran.
 
FWIW, both #29(8) and #30(8) were OT into Pittsburgh.

This is A Good Thing. Let us give credit where it's due. We certainly can't blame CSX and NS when Amtrak's "State of Good Repair" is not maintained.

Even so, I'm still curious to see how long the good fortune for the Capitol will last.
 
As things have worked out, NS seems to be stabbing #29/30 these past few days. OTP into PGH and out of PGH on NS have been dreary, to say the least.

CSX, at least, is not losing more time than NS has lost. Surprising, actually.
 
The past couple days, NS seems to have improved its handling of #29/30 out of PGH.

I've only kept track of it on an informal basis; nothing like recording the times from Amtrak.com. I suspect much of the timekeeping improvement has to be owing to the lack of MOW crews in the winter. They certainly can't rehab ballast, for instance.

Just as we slam them for lousy performance on this forum, so we should compliment the freight RRs when they perform to the standard.

I still wonder what's so difficult about running one train per day on time. It's not like it's a unusual occurance.
 
So much for NS handling of #29/30.

#29(25): OT into PGH (thank you CSX), 1:50 late by South Bend.

#30(25): 45 minutes late to PGH. CSX has lost another half hour or so at this posting.

UPDATED: 29(25) ended up 2:12 late into CHI. "We can handle it" -- oops, that was UP's slogan at one point. Guess the Amtrak-hating dispatchers are back on duty at NS... <_<

30(25) ended up 1:20 late into WAS.
 
Gotta give CSX credit where it's due.

29(29) was 15 minutes early into PGH. Thank you, CSX! We'll see what NS does for it the rest of the way.
 
Ahh, yes. NS, according to a recent article in Forbes, "knows how to run a railroad."

Let's take a look at Amtrak #29, the Capitol Limited. In fact, let's look at 29(7).

CSX brought that train into Pittsburgh ten minutes late -- 11:43p, according to Amtrak.com.

NS took that train out of Pittsburgh, and proved the adage, "late trains get later." As of posting time, Amtrak.com estimates 29(7) will be one hour 39 minutes late. That's 1:39, folks.

Looking at 30(7)... it departed on-time from Chicago Union Station. According to Amtrak.com, by Toledo, it was ten minutes late. By the time it made Pittsburgh, it was one hour late.

In fairness to NS, Amtrak.com right now does not have the time CSX has made up or lost on 30(7).

Nothing like late trains to drive business away!
 
Final numbers, according to Amtrak.com for 29(7) and 30(7):

29(7): arrived CHI 10:30a, 2:00 late. NS lost another 1:50 from its arrival in PGH.

30(7): arrived WAS 2:06p, 2:07 late. CSX lost another 1:07 from its arrival in PGH.

But, according to Forbes, NS "knows how to run a railroad"!
 
FWIW, 29(13) arrived in PGH 24 minutes early, and departed on time. Thank you, CSX!

Meanwhile, 30(13) is running 40 minutes late, as of Sandusky. Rock on, NS. I'll avoid the cheap shots for a night.
 
<snip> Nothing like late trains to drive business away! <end of snip>

Not sure if this will add or not to "capitol gains" but here goes.

I rode last week's #30 2/5-6 arrived at WAS at 3.52PM (3:53 late ouch)! It didn't help departing Chgo at 7:16PM.

However, on the other side of the coin (a gain?) I returned on #29 2/10-11 with practically OT running on CSX and NS arriving in Chgo at 8:22AM (including the wye turnaround at 16th St)! :D

Amtrak29
 
Here's yet another example of over-the-road performance that drives folks away from considering Amtrak. Let's look at 29(15), 30(15), 29(16), and 30(16), shall we?

29(15): WAS, OT. PGH, arrive 10 minutes late, depart 11 minutes late. CHI, arrive 5 minutes early(!).

30(15): CHI, depart 8 minutes late. PGH, arrive OT, depart 4 minutes late. WAS, arrive 7 minutes late.

29(16): WAS, OT. PGH, arrive 1:40 late, depart 1:42 late. CHI, arrive 5 minutes late(!). Thank you, NS, for making up the time CSX lost (this occasion).

30(16): CHI, OT. PGH, arrive 2:26 late (rock on, NS!), depart 2:32 late. WAS, down 2:42 as of now, Amtrak.com thinks 30(16) will arrive 1:59 late.

Lots of room here for finger pointing. NS probably says: "CSX does it!" CSX probably says: "It's NS's fault!" Can't we all just get along?
 
Final toll on 30(16): 4 hours, 43 minutes late into WAS.

How the crud can the railroads go from 7 minutes late one day to 4 hours, 43 minutes late the next? Makes no sense.
 
Easy. All you need is for the equipment that is being turned for it to be late, or a bad ordered car or engine, for a ripple effect of several such from other trains, (none of those were the case this time, though, because it left CHI on time) or Amtrak or a freight using the same trackage had a crossing accident, a track problem somewhere on the route, or a medical emergency, or a freight that went on the law on single track, or some equipment problem or ................... "the possibilities are endless", as they say. Being February it probably wasn't a hurricane. That's about as far as I'd be willing to go. Leaving MIA one day on a Silver Service train, when we got to about Boynton Beach, the rectifiers blew in the engine and we had HEP but no traction motor power. The Tri-Rail commuter following us pushed us into Boynton Siding, and we sat there until the next Amtrak came up from MIA with an extra engine for us. That cost us about 4 hours, if I recall. The resulting voltage spike also blew the microwave in the diner. Boy, did that stink! Nothing like sitting there on the Boynton siding watching the I-95 traffic, and Tri-Rail commuters, go whizzing by you for several hours. At least we did have HEP and weren't sitting there stewing in our own juices for four hours on a summer day in South Florida. THAT would NOT have been fun.

If it was the Sunset, I'd be inclined to say "Yippee!!!" at being less than 5 hours late, having been over 12 hours late on that train once and 4 - 8 hours late several times. And 5 MINUTES EARLY, ONCE. I don't know how we survived the shock!
 
Hokey smokes, Bullwinkle! #30(16) was 35 minutes early into Pittsburgh!!!

Obviously, the NS dispatchers weren't sticking freights in front of it. As of this posting, CSX has #30(16) running two minutes late, but it hasn't hit Cumberland yet.
 
FWIW, a derailment on NS near Elkhart, IN has things snarled. No #29/30 for a day or so...
 
btw we arrived washington on 4/17(30 of the 16th) 10 minutes early-1149am!

ryan
 
though this doesn't have to do with the Capitol or LS Limited, train 22(NB Texas Eagle) actually arrived on time for the first time in ages this week! it arrived only 3 minutes late yesterday(Monday), and arrived 2 minutes early today(despite me thinking that it'd be 50-70 minutes late, according to what i saw last night on amtrak's site).

on the other hand though, i won't quite give all positive props to Union Pacific, as train 324 has been averaging 20-60 minutes late the last 2 weeks, and has only arrived on time like once or twice. not to mention one day last week when it ran about 2 hrs late, so maybe UP is still trying to spite Amtrak(even if their CEO did change). :( lol, i'm surprised a new thread hasn't been created to compare on-time performance of various Amtrak trains throughout the system...
 
What we need is the Great Amtrak Traffic Flow Experiment.

Get a bunch of passenger rail enthusiasts to pick one LD train, one station. Log the arrival time for several months. Post the data on a web site. At the conclusion of a set time frame, present the data to anyone with an interest, but mostly congresscritters and railroad management. Endpoint arrivals tend to be skewed by the fudge factor present in all current Amtrak scheduling. This would give people an idea of where the real choke points are in the US railroad system.

T'would be interesting to see some of the reactions you get. Even UP would be hard pressed to ignore this sort of data.
 
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