Coast Starlight 14 delay into PDX 6/30-7/6

[Thirdrail7]

I wonder why the bus only operates three days a week.

I understand that because of the short notice, they were not able to obtain buses for each day.

I can understand that for the first phase of the disruption. Perhaps I can even understand it for the second phase even though I would consider it a stretch since you have more than two weeks to come up with something. However, the third phase is over a month away. That does not seem like short notice.

Perhaps the days without the buses are light days.

 

[bmjhagen9426]

I wonder why the bus only operates three days a week.

I understand that because of the short notice, they were not able to obtain buses for each day.

I can understand that for the first phase of the disruption. Perhaps I can even understand it for the second phase even though I would consider it a stretch since you have more than two weeks to come up with something. However, the third phase is over a month away. That does not seem like short notice.

Perhaps the days without the buses are light days.

Not always, as I have been on the CS during full train days (Thanksgiving, New Year's, spring break, and early summer) without being bustituted many times. Been on the CS 20 times, with the majority between the recently affected segment, and none of these times did I see buses for this purpose

 

[jdawg]

I'm taking the CS on July 4th and got hit with this delay .. I'm surprised they're doing trackwork on a holiday.

 

[peetah]

I haven't gotten an email yet for my trip in mid-July, and I have the Coast Starlight 14 to Empire Builder 28 connection in PDX - but poking on the Amtrak site the delay seems to extend all the way to July 22nd.

This will be a curious one to see how Amtrak handles it as its a pre-devaluation AGR resevation, 1 Zone DEN-GPK for a family bedroom (with 1 adult 1 infant). But post-devaluation to add another adult to my room I purchased in cash a seperate "open-ticket" that is linked to my AGR reservation.

Well after no call/email from Amtrak, figured I might as well be proactive and contacted Amtrak to find out my options. I HUCA through 3 "AGR Select Plus" agents before finding someone who understood the service advisory and in the process pulled these interesting tidbits:

• because this was a AGR reservation, they didn't auto contact us (curious @Steve4031 if you were proactively contacted?), as these reservations are coded differently in ARROW?
• apparently the service advisory seems to be poorly within ARROW, since the days the bus operates is different than the days the CS originates in Los Angeles two of the agents were really thrown off
• since I'm in a family bedroom, and was on CS 14 on a Tuesday - the best option they could provide was keep the original first two segments on CZ 5 and CS 14, to overnight (at my expense in Portland, and lose the family bedroom on the next day's EB 28). They also gave the option to move the entire reservation up one day or back one day so that I could get the Mon/Wed bustitution. However in both cases, we'd lose the family bedroom on not just EB 28, but also CZ 5 and CS 14. In otherwords there are no options to keep the family bedroom for the entire trip
• if I moved the reservation up a day or back - I would also be subject to the new AGR rates as it would be a new booking (but they would extend the "courtesy" of no 10% penalty)
• the linked open-ticket reservation I have would also need to be canceled-rebooked if I were to move up a day or back - however, in both cases I'd get a refund as it was $40 cheaper to go the day before and $60 to go the day after

Since this was a train-ride for the sake of a train-ride to cross off going west on the CZ and east on the EB, I ended up just dropping the CS segment and finding cheap airfare from Sacamento to Portland and will fly between this city pair so I could keep my original segments. The AGR agent was able to modify the reservation and remove just the CS leg while preserving everything else (including the record locator and room selection) - its now coded as a multi-destination reservation instead of a "through". But bizzarely they weren't able to do the same to my "open-ticket" - instead I had to cancel, and they had to issue a new multi-destination open ticket, annoying this was now $43 more.

So all-in now with this service adisory I'm on the hook for airfare for two, a night hotel in Portland or Sacramento, and $43 change to the open-ticket - all just to keep a family bedroom, and I'm actually losing a train segment (and missing the PPC too) <SIGH> I guess the silver lining is I won't have to worry about missing the 14->28 connection now...

 

[Steve4031]

I don't know why you were told that agr reservations were not being contacted. I was and my friend Mike was also on the list and we both had agr reservations. Our agent allowed us to stay overnight on the agr reservations.

 

[peetah]

I don't know why you were told that agr reservations were not being contacted. I was and my friend Mike was also on the list and we both had agr reservations.

<SHRUG> maybe it was an agent making up a response - as I was trying to explain why I was calling in.

Anyway its kind-a amusing, just morbidly curious to see how much the family bedroom that went back into inventory for CS14 would go for I lookat AmSnag for the next few weeks and there are a lot more bedrooms/roomettes showing up now that were previously sold-out, particuarly on the Sat/Tues/Thurs/Sun train.

 

[Steve4031]

Anyway its kind-a amusing, just morbidly curious to see how much the family bedroom that went back into inventory for CS14 would go for I lookat AmSnag for the next few weeks and there are a lot more bedrooms/roomettes showing up now that were previously sold-out, particuarly on the Sat/Tues/Thurs/Sun train.

I think that's how I got lucky and got two roomettes for my friend and I.

 

[acelafan]

Kind of a side note, but #14(01) left LAX an hour late yesterday; I think it may have been held for the late-arriving #3, which got in at 10:24 AM.

In any case it lost more time and arrived at Klamath Falls (KFS) 1 hour and 48 minutes late. But given the track work and a scheduled layover at KFS, it departed on time:

* KFS 2 807A 2 817A 955A 1017A Arrived: 1 hour, 48 minutes late. | Departed: On time.

So, a success story of a train making up a huge delay enroute...not that it's any consolation to those passengers missing their connection to #28 or to other trains.

 

[D.P. Roberts]

We were on there yesterday (I think, the days are running together) and we did indeed wait 2.5 hours in Klamath Falls. It's not so bad when you're in a town and can get out and walk around. We had been getting 3 different answers onboard as to when, where, and how long we were going to stop, and it turned out that the original Amtrak information was correct.

However, we also stopped for another 1.5 hours in the middle of nowhere - in a forest near the vicinity of Chemult, allegedly due to more UP track work. Of course they could not let us off for that one. So, we ended up a little over 4 hours late into PDX.

 

[acelafan]

We were on there yesterday (I think, the days are running together) and we did indeed wait 2.5 hours in Klamath Falls. It's not so bad when you're in a town and can get out and walk around. We had been getting 3 different answers onboard as to when, where, and how long we were going to stop, and it turned out that the original Amtrak information was correct.

However, we also stopped for another 1.5 hours in the middle of nowhere - in a forest near the vicinity of Chemult, allegedly due to more UP track work. Of course they could not let us off for that one. So, we ended up a little over 4 hours late into PDX.

Interesting....I see today's #14 has run into a similar issue north of KFS. Late again by 90 minutes.

 

[D.P. Roberts]

Strangely enough, as we arrived in PDX the conductor came on the overhead announcements and suggested that we call Amtrak to get some recompense for the lateness. Perhaps UP reimburses Amtrak for scheduled lateness like that, and Amtrak can pass some of that on to its passengers? I didn't think Amtrak would do much for a 4 hour delay.

 

[acelafan]

Yeah, a 4 hour delay by Amtrak standards isn't terrible! I don't know if there is an arrangement by host RRs to compensate Amtrak. If so, I'd venture to guess it's minimal.

 

[CHamilton]

Today's 14 was late enough that the Trails & Rails guides took 516 back to SEA. I heard them arranging the change in the PDX Met Lounge.