Crescent canceled

[Chatter163]

My trip this evening from Atlanta to New York was canceled, due to the impending ice and snow storm in the northeast. The Crescent is terminating tonight in Atlanta and there will be no Crescent again until Monday. We changed our reservations to that day.

 

[Midland Valley]

So much for an all weather transportaton system.

 

[AlanB]

Actually the storm has only just started here in the Northeast. Here in NY City it started raining about 6:30 PM.

The cancellation of the Crescent is without a doubt do to the fact that the storm hit the mid-Atlantic states very hard. I'm hearing reports that there are over 450,000 people without power in the Carolina's and Viginia. There is even a report that says that parts of Georgia got hit by the ice, including Atlanta. Supposedly there were close to 35,000 people in the Atlanta area who lost power.

I wouldn't be surprised either to find out that the Silver Service has ground to a halt too.

 

[AlanB]

So much for an all weather transportaton system.

Well it's not because of ice on the tracks, it's due to lack of power for the signals and the crossing gates and related safety equipment.

 

[battalion51]

The ice on the rails doesn't help anything. That's not to say you can't operate when there's ice on the rails, you can. It's just very hard to maintain traction with ice on the rails. You will get a lot of wheel slips and braking can be a pain in the butt with those sorts of conditions.

 

[AlanB]

The ice on the rails doesn't help anything. That's not to say you can't operate when there's ice on the rails, you can. It's just very hard to maintain traction with ice on the rails. You will get a lot of wheel slips and braking can be a pain in the butt with those sorts of conditions.

Correct, I didn't mean to suggest that ice couldn't stop the trains itself.

But in this case I think that the far larger problem is the lack of power caused by the original ice storm. Much of the ice has already melted from what I understand, so it's the lack of power that I suspect has cancelled things.

I did however check Silver Service and at least so far it appears to be running, albiet with delays, but at least it has not been cancelled so far.

 

[PRR 60]

Crescent service will resume with the southbound NYC departure on Sunday, 12/18 and the northbound NOL departure on Monday, 12/19.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

Well, I am glad to find this explanatory post!

I spied a darkened set of equipment at 7:05 this morning from my #23 bus and wandered about it.

Sort of thought it had something to do with the melt down from the massive, massive delays of the last week which the Crescent has suffered.

So it is the ice related stuff instead. Yes, there certainly are some problems in the Atlanta area but most of it, so far as I can gather, is in Gainesville. That is, so far as Georgia is concerned. Not trying to speak for the rest of the country.

Some of you will know right off that Gainesville is the first stop north of ATL.

Once service resumes, on time, hopefully, we will see how long it takes to get all screwed up again. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[Sam Damon]

I have family in Gainesville; been trying to figure out how to work (financially) a trip there on the Crescent. I'll have to ring them and see how they're doing with all the ice.

 

[AMTRAK-P42]

I was coming home from a friends house last night at about 6am, there was literally ice on everything. My friends and I let our cars warm up for over 20 minutes just so that the ice would thin out enough to scrape off. After that it took an hour to travel 10 miles because there was so much black ice on the road.

In terms of trains, as I was coming home this morning I crossed under the NS main 2 miles north of the ATL station and happened to see a NS northbound freight headed through at full track speed with what appeared to be 3 C44-9W's on the head end. In terms of railroading, things down here in ATL don’t appear to be affected to much. I agree that most of the problems are further north.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

I was coming home from a friends house last night at about 6am, there was literally ice on everything. My friends and I let our cars warm up for over 20 minutes just so that the ice would thin out enough to scrape off. After that it took an hour to travel 10 miles because there was so much black ice on the road. In terms of trains, as I was coming home this morning I crossed under the NS main 2 miles north of the ATL station and happened to see a NS northbound freight headed through at full track speed with what appeared to be 3 C44-9W's on the head end. In terms of railroading, things down here in ATL don’t appear to be affected to much. I agree that most of the problems are further north.

What is the spot you refer to 2 miles north of the station? Is it the area around Piedmont and Lindbergh?

 

[AMTRAK-P42]

I was coming home from a friends house last night at about 6am, there was literally ice on everything. My friends and I let our cars warm up for over 20 minutes just so that the ice would thin out enough to scrape off. After that it took an hour to travel 10 miles because there was so much black ice on the road. In terms of trains, as I was coming home this morning I crossed under the NS main 2 miles north of the ATL station and happened to see a NS northbound freight headed through at full track speed with what appeared to be 3 C44-9W's on the head end. In terms of railroading, things down here in ATL don’t appear to be affected to much. I agree that most of the problems are further north.

What is the spot you refer to 2 miles north of the station? Is it the area around Piedmont and Lindbergh?

Bill, its the crossing over Roxboro by the Lenox MARTA stop. It is less then 2 miles from my house.

 

[Chatter163]

I changed my reservations on the Crescent last night on the phone with Amtrak. Though they said to come early on Monday to exchange the ticket, I know that there will be a huge crowd at that time, so I opted to drive into Atlanta today to exchange the tickets. I got them, but it took more than 45 minutes because they were confused by the fact that the tickets from last night had been obtained via Guest Reward points (yesterday was the last day before the holiday blackout period), and the system was telling them that the new ones needed to be purchased. Further complicating the matter was the fact that there are no bedrooms on Monday's train, so we were assigned two roomettes, across from one another. I finally got them, but one employee acted as if he were doing me a major favor.

 

[Guest_Amtrak OBS Employee]

I wouldn't be surprised either to find out that the Silver Service has ground to a halt too.

Nothing that I know of. We on "Silver Service" have been running, but catching the usual delays associated with icy travel. We have had a a couple of other instances in the last couple days. Our trains have been bypassing on the old mainline through Waycross Ga, being there was a freight derailment on the Nahunta Sub. That should be clear soon if not already. OBS...

 

[Chatter163]

Oh, Brother. Amtrak called to say that a "mechanical problem" in New Orleans caused tonight's train--the first northbound Crescent out of Atlanta since last Wednesday--to run six hours late. Will I ever get to New York? :blink:

 

[AlanB]

Oh, Brother. Amtrak called to say that a "mechanical problem" in New Orleans caused tonight's train--the first northbound Crescent out of Atlanta since last Wednesday--to run six hours late. Will I ever get to New York? :blink:

Well the other question is, do you really want to get to NY at this point?

It's looking pretty certain that there will be a transit strike as of Midnight tonight. That will mean no subways and no buses anyplace within the 5 boroughs of NY City.

 

[AmtrakFan]

Yea The Train had no Heat the Power pooped out.

 

[Chatter163]

Train 20 finally left New Orleans at 1:30PM Monday and initially was expected to be into Atlanta shortly after midnight. Unfortunately, that delay grew longer for unexplained reasons (I suspect more freight interference) and the train did not arrive in Atlanta until shortly before 6AM Tuesday. We departed at 6:18AM. We had always expected to go to the dining car as soon as the conductor checked our tickets, but had expected it to be for dinner and not breakfast!

The remainder of the journey was without incident. We enjoyed a truly outstanding turkey dinner Tuesday evening, which was offered for the holiday season. Put simply, this was one of the finest meals that I have ever had on an Amtrak train, and one of the finest turkey dishes that I have eaten in many years. It went a long way toward refreshing me as we arrived in New York at 12:15AM Wednesday, some three and a half days after we were originally scheduled to do so.

A mixed blessing was that the Club Acela was closed at that hour. (I typically wait there while the luggage is unloaded.) But on the upside, we were able to miss the incredible crowd and confusion that was at Penn Station earlier in the day, due to the transit strike, and we had no difficulty getting a cab. Amtrak had made no announcement on the train regarding the strike--something that I felt should have been done as we approached the city. We knew about it before we had boarded, but I suspect that, given the delays we already faced, the crew opted not to be the bearers of even more bad tidings.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

Chatter I am glad that certain things, like the delicious turkey dinner, caused some good to come of your trip.

One advantage I can think of during this time, will be to ride a day trip (ATl- northward) through scenery I have usually gone through at night....if these tremendous delays keep on for awhile.

Wow! I can't stop thinking about that turkey dinner--bet you can't either! Reminds me of the extremely dellicious roast chicken dinner they cooked on it years ago, under Southern R.R.

I usually want steak or seafood on the train but that chicken was the hard to beat on the older Crescent.

 

[AMTRAK-P42]

One advantage I can think of during this time, will be to ride a day trip (ATl- northward) through scenery I have usually gone through at night....if these tremendous delays keep on for awhile. .

Yea, exactly. I too have been trying to find a trip to take. Its possible I could break my all-time late record if I could get a ride during this time period.

Just FYI, the last 2 days straight have left ATL over 10 hours late. This is just crazy. For the record guys, right now....for the first time that I can remember, the Crescent basically is the latest Amtrak on the system. Atleast in the last 7 years, the crescent has NEVER run this late consistently.

 

[EmpireBuilderFan]

The remainder of the journey was without incident. We enjoyed a truly outstanding turkey dinner Tuesday evening, which was offered for the holiday season. Put simply, this was one of the finest meals that I have ever had on an Amtrak train, and one of the finest turkey dishes that I have eaten in many years.

Chatter163,

Sorry you had such a hassle getting to New York. It's bad enough waiting for a train that's running late, but waiting for one that won't come for a couple of days could be very frustrating!

I have to agree with your sentiment about the turkey dinner. I was on the Empire Builder on Wednesday and had the turkey special for supper. It was absolutely fantastic! The turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce were delicious. Very satisfying meal to eat on the train.

 

[railfangns]

I live in Gainesville and i can tell you the ice storm was terrible.My power was off from 845 am thursday until 400 am saturday.We had huge tree limbs covering my entire yard.The problem was as soon as Georgia power could restore power in one location a tree limb would fall and knock it off again in the same spot.I live near the NS main line and i am sure the signals were out most of the time.Gainesville suffered extensive storm damage.The city still hasnt cleaned up all the mess,it will take a long time to get the city back to normal.

 

[AmtrakWPK]

We had that kind of problem after Charlie (hurricane) last year down here in the Orlando area - lots of weakened trees that a minor storm would then bring down on power lines and kill power again. There is a greenbelt on the edge of our subdivision, and right after they finally got power back (after a week!), a small storm came through and knocked power out again because of a couple of trees coming down on the line. That night Progress Energy brought a large team in and all we heard for several hours was a choir of chainsaws out there. They cut down every tree that could possibly hit their power line if it were to fall. We still lost power in the next 'cane, but not from anything in that greenbelt.

 

[AmtrakFan]

The remainder of the journey was without incident.  We enjoyed a truly outstanding turkey dinner Tuesday evening, which was offered for the holiday season.  Put simply, this was one of the finest meals that I have ever had on an Amtrak train, and one of the finest turkey dishes that I have eaten in many years.

Chatter163,

Sorry you had such a hassle getting to New York. It's bad enough waiting for a train that's running late, but waiting for one that won't come for a couple of days could be very frustrating!

I have to agree with your sentiment about the turkey dinner. I was on the Empire Builder on Wednesday and had the turkey special for supper. It was absolutely fantastic! The turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce were delicious. Very satisfying meal to eat on the train.

Was the Turkey meal the only thing they had on the Menu?

 

[Chatter163]

No, the full menu was offered at each meal.