Coast Starlight

[denmarks]

Since i'm going on the CS next april I decided to look at a few arrival times. It is never on time. The arrival time in Chico is usually 2-5 hours late and Seattle 2-11 hours late. Why not change the schedule to show a more realistic time?

I'll be staying overnight in Seattle to catch the Empire Builder the next day. At least it doesn't leave until around 5 pm but I might miss my exploration of Seattle.

 

[battalion51]

Well if they changed the Sunset's schedule to something realistic it'd take 5 days to do the trip. The schedule is approximately what it should take with an average train. They can't and shouldn't plan to sit on a siding for a couple of hours while Double Stacks dominate the main since they're "short on time."

 

[Trogdor]

Exactly. One problem with changing the schedule to be "realistic" is that you don't know where the delays are going to occur. If they added a few minutes to each stop, then the train might go without delays for the first quarter of the trip, and waste all that time sitting at the station waiting for the schedule to catch up. Further on, they might get severely delayed, and still be late for the rest of the trip.

The other option, which Amtrak does to some extent, is to put recovery time at certain locations. However, one can only go so far with this. I mean, how ridiculous would the schedule look if its time at Tacoma, WA, was 7:05 pm and its time at Seattle, WA (39 miles later), was 2:30 am?

And while such a schedule pad might make the train perform better on paper, it still wouldn't address the issues that cause such delays in the first place. Amtrak's experience with the Sunset Limited (which had its westbound schedule stretched by four hours, and its eastbound by eight hours in March) is that the freights (Union Pacific) will just take this as even more excuse to throw even more junk in the way.

Another consideration is that, if Amtrak stretches the schedule of the Starlight too much more, then they will require a fifth trainset. Since they don't have enough cars to field a fifth set right now, the other four sets would have their consists reduced. This is what happened with the Sunset Limited.

It's also harder to market a 2:30 am arrival at the terminal than an 8:30 pm arrival, regardless of when the train actually gets in.

 

[MrFSS]

And while such a schedule pad might make the train perform better on paper, it still wouldn't address the issues that cause such delays in the first place. Amtrak's experience with the Sunset Limited (which had its westbound schedule stretched by four hours, and its eastbound by eight hours in March) is that the freights (Union Pacific) will just take this as even more excuse to throw even more junk in the way.

Is this why there is a 6.5 hour layover in NO for the eastbound Sunset?

 

[AMTRAK-P42]

Yea, exactly. I mean the sunset is a testament to this padding. They give the sunset 1 hour 55 minutes to get from Pomona, CA to Los Angeles, CA (a distance of 32 miles on primarily straight, fast track). #1 is also given 4 hours to get from Bay St. Louis, MS to New Orleans, LA (A distance of 57 miles; we talked about this another post).

 

[denmarks]

Has there been any consideration in passing a law that passenger trains have priority? At least on routes where they only run daily.

 

[IceColdMintJulep]

Hopefully Caltrain and Metrolink will creep further to the north and south and eventually meet with California building some more track to do so. And maybe Oregon and Washington will invest/expand the Cascades and help out on that end. And maybe the Cubs will win the world series :lol:

 

[AMTRAK-P42]

Hopefully Caltrain and Metrolink will creep further to the north and south and eventually meet with California building some more track to do so.  And maybe Oregon and Washington will invest/expand the Cascades and help out on that end.  And maybe the Cubs will win the world series :lol:

haha, ill put money on that :lol: And at the same time UP will respect Amtrak.

 

[battalion51]

Has there been any consideration in passing a law that passenger trains have priority? At least on routes where they only run daily.

Actually that law is already in place. It's just not enforced for some reason or another.

 

[AMTRAK-P42]

Hey B-51, on an off topic question, I am looking at some colleges down in FLA for next year. I am looking at Nova, Lynn, and Tampa. I toured each one, but what do you think?

 

[sechs]

Has there been any consideration in passing a law that passenger trains have priority? At least on routes where they only run daily.

Actually that law is already in place. It's just not enforced for some reason or another.

Really, I've always given to the impression that there, in fact, was no such law.

Even if there was such a law, I'm sure that Amtrak probably signed away such rights in its contracts with the railroads.

 

[Trogdor]

I don't know if such a law exists or not, but, how could it be enforced? Railroads are private property and private businesses. Further, how can we actually prove that passenger trains are or are not given priority.

Union Pacific, for example, is in perpetual *meltdown* mode, on practically every line that it operates. CSX has its own problems (such as a quick, weekend crossover project in Virginia that wound up screwing up three days worth of Amtrak and VRE commuter service during the work week). Are they not giving passenger trains priority, or are they just generally incompetent?

When Amtrak is stuck behind a broken down freight train with a dead crew, then has to wait for three other trains to clear a single track line before it proceeds at restricted speed due to slow orders (which, on the Coast Starlight's route, amount to 2-3 hours worth of delays alone), priority isn't the problem.

That said, Amtrak negotiated with individual railroads for access, priority, on-time incentive payments, etc., after the initial Amtrak legislation expired in 1996. While I'm not a lawyer, and have not seen the contracts in question, I get the impression that Amtrak's ability to pursue any sort of damages against the host railroads is quite limited, and they probably stand to lose more than they gain if they were to try anything today (such as file a lawsuit against one of them). That is the most likely reason why they haven't done so by now.

 

[Sam Damon]

The Amtrak reauthorization bill of 2005, Senate Bill 1516, otherwise known as the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2005, is supposed to address such things. You can find a complete copy of it on Thomas here .

 

[Midland Valley]

Union Pacific, for example, is in perpetual *meltdown* mode, on practically every line that it operates. CSX has its own problems (such as a quick, weekend crossover project in Virginia that wound up screwing up three days worth of Amtrak and VRE commuter service during the work week). Are they not giving passenger trains priority, or are they just generally incompetent.

What would happen if the UP and CSX were to spin off some of its lines, relieving labor, equipment and dispatching issues? They could call them the MOP, SOP, CNW, WP, B&O, C&O, RF&P, L&N. Just a thought.

 

[AmtrakWPK]

If the new ligislation actually allows FRA to have "teeth" re OTP, there may be some hope. If the bonus Amtrak pays for expediting their trains were to have the corollary of penalties for NOT expediting them, say a penalty that doubles with each additional hour of delay, then even an initially modest amount becomes pretty darn large pretty quick, and just might be enough of an incentive for UP and CSX to actually give Amtrak the priority it's supposed to have. So a $20,000 bonus for on time (no delays by freight) for a particular length of travel, is lost if it's an hour late, $20,000 penalty for two hours late, $40,000 for three hours, $80,000 for four hours, $160,000 for five hours, etc., or about $1.3 million for 8 hours, $5.2 million for 10 hours, and so forth. If UP still didn't clean up it's act, at least it would help Amtrak's bottom line with the SL and some of the other perennially late trains. 18-19 hours late would garner almost Amtrak's annual budget Of course this would have to be only delays because of dispatching decisions (ibcluding repair crews, etc.) by the freight RR, rather than "Acts of God", assuming no negligence by the freight RR.

 

[MrFSS]

In the 20's - 30's - 40's - 50's, when each railroad ran its own passenger trains, what was the OTP like in that era, I wonder? Wouldn't you think the PRR wanted the Broadway Limited to run on time, no matter what it did to its own freight schedule? Same with the others. Any thoughts on this anyone has are appreciated.

 

[Midland Valley]

I think the PRR had as its #1 priority the on time arrival of the Broadway Limited. Not only as concerning its competition with the 20th Century Limited, but as a matter of pride. The Rock Island ran the Golden State, Imperial, and Rocky Mountain Rocket as priority trains, and the same was true of the Chiefs on the AT&SF; they might not have laways been exactly on time but they were NEVER put into a siding for a freight; at least untill the last few years when they were trying to get out of the passenger business. Now, even though only hosting their respective trains, (though many still carry legendary names) the pride is gone in executive and management levels anyway.