empire buider delays

[Tim]

So anybody know what happened to #8 out of Seattle today?

 

[oldtimer]

The Chicago Yards and Engine House are undergoing a massive reconstruction program. Tracks are taken out of service for construction daily and the program changes daily based on the contractors need and not the needs of servicing the trains. Not only are the tracks being rebuilt but also the water, air and electrical servicing points.

It is possible that a train is placed on a track where the water, air and electrical power have to be brought over from another tracks service point. This requires extra hoses and electrical jumper cables be used and moved as they are needed to service the train. This construction also causes switch moves and engine placement to be changed sometimes on a daily basis.

It is my understanding that the Service and Inspection building is out of service. This building is approximately 1/4 mile long with two tracks that have full length pits under them to allow the under-car work to be done. It also provided minimal heat and protection from the elements for the workers.

It is a true SNAFU 24/7 for the mechanical and transportation departments, to add to the confusion there was a fire in the car shop offices about 2 weeks ago.

 

[jmbgeg]

The Chicago Yards and Engine House are undergoing a massive reconstruction program. Tracks are taken out of service for construction daily and the program changes daily based on the contractors need and not the needs of servicing the trains. Not only are the tracks being rebuilt but also the water, air and electrical servicing points.

It is possible that a train is placed on a track where the water, air and electrical power have to be brought over from another tracks service point. This requires extra hoses and electrical jumper cables be used and moved as they are needed to service the train. This construction also causes switch moves and engine placement to be changed sometimes on a daily basis.

It is my understanding that the Service and Inspection building is out of service. This building is approximately 1/4 mile long with two tracks that have full length pits under them to allow the under-car work to be done. It also provided minimal heat and protection from the elements for the workers.

It is a true SNAFU 24/7 for the mechanical and transportation departments, to add to the confusion there was a fire in the car shop offices about 2 weeks ago.

Add to that neighboring road work and CUS is a real cluster...

 

[Tim]

Disregard my previous post. The EB experienced some sort of service disruption and left from Spokane rather than Seattle. I wonder if 7 was turned around in Spokane and left back east as 8 because it was so late.

 

[PRR 60]

Disregard my previous post. The EB experienced some sort of service disruption and left from Spokane rather than Seattle. I wonder if 7 was turned around in Spokane and left back east as 8 because it was so late.

That's what happened, with buses running from Seattle east to Spokane. It was the same deal with 28 from Portland.

 

[anir dendroica]

One would think they might elect to save such extensive work for the summer months, but then I am not privy to any of the details.

The Chicago Yards and Engine House are undergoing a massive reconstruction program. Tracks are taken out of service for construction daily and the program changes daily based on the contractors need and not the needs of servicing the trains. Not only are the tracks being rebuilt but also the water, air and electrical servicing points.

It is possible that a train is placed on a track where the water, air and electrical power have to be brought over from another tracks service point. This requires extra hoses and electrical jumper cables be used and moved as they are needed to service the train. This construction also causes switch moves and engine placement to be changed sometimes on a daily basis.

It is my understanding that the Service and Inspection building is out of service. This building is approximately 1/4 mile long with two tracks that have full length pits under them to allow the under-car work to be done. It also provided minimal heat and protection from the elements for the workers.

It is a true SNAFU 24/7 for the mechanical and transportation departments, to add to the confusion there was a fire in the car shop offices about 2 weeks ago.

 

[saxman]

Looks like all the western LD trains left late today. The Builder was no exception leaving 2:40 hours late from Chicago. Hopefully we don't have the Christmas meltdown again this year like we have in the past. I take the Texas Eagle out of the Chicago on the 28th!

 

[Tim]

Looks like all the western LD trains left late today. The Builder was no exception leaving 2:40 hours late from Chicago. Hopefully we don't have the Christmas meltdown again this year like we have in the past. I take the Texas Eagle out of the Chicago on the 28th!

I too am hoping that there isn't a Christmas meltdown this year...last year I got lucky and my trains (EB & Pere-Marquette) were running pretty much on time. This year I'm heading out on the EB on Wednesday (12/22) from Tomah, WI to Chicago and on the PM from Chicago to Holland, MI the same day....and my return trip will be the following Monday (12/27).

Two years ago they took us by bus from Tomah to Chicago as the EB was very late...we had good weather and were making good time until Rockford, IL where we hit a pretty moderate snow where we were going 25-35 MPH and ended up in CHI around 6 PM. There was no charter bus to Michigan and I ended up staying in CHI overnight, on Amtrak's tab, plus they gave me $30 meal money and $30 for a cab. I had food with me, so didn't use the meal money, instead bought a bus ticket from CHI to Holland. All ended well as Amtrak refunded my ticket in addition.

 

[MeisterEric]

I'm catching the Empire Builder out of Seattle on Dec. 26th, going to Whitefish Montana(returning on the 30th)

hopefully won't be too delayed

 

[AC4400]

I'm catching the Empire Builder out of Seattle on Dec. 26th, going to Whitefish Montana(returning on the 30th)

hopefully won't be too delayed

EB's back to normal today. As westbound 7 departed on time from Chicago, and I think eastbound 8 would depart on time from Seattle as well.

 

[Guest]

I think eastbound 8 would depart on time from Seattle as well.

I am hoping this is true, and it stays relatively on time throughout the route. I am scheduled to board in Tomah, WI @ 11:26 AM Wednesday and need to get to Chicago by 5ish to catch my connecting train. Last time I took the EB, I ended up in Chicago with 12 minutes to spare, and it took me 10 minutes to get to the next train.

 

[MeisterEric]

Here's hoping for timely train service.....the return from Whitefish is at about 9:30 p.m., and there's been a couple recent 6 to 8 hour delays.....don't feel like hanging out at a trainstation all night long....

 

[Fritz]

Hmmmm, EB 8 is three hours late into Whitefish again today....was 4 hours late out of Seattle last night. Sure has been consistently late departing. The previous #7 was not that late this time either, so something is going on about turning those around. Will see if I can find out more once I get onboard in Whitefish.

 

[PennCentralFan]

I was on the EB on Tuesday the 21. I boarded on msp and train was one hour and 30 minutes late. Lost about an hour through St. Paul because of traffic. Lost 20 minutes in Winona, MN and lost about 20 minutes twice due to inspections that had to be made. So we rolled into Chicago 3.25 hours late. Caught my connecting wolverine only because it was three hours late. Made it to my destination 3 hours late. Now I like amtrak, but others weren't as kind to it. Heard quite a few negative comments.

I've checked train 8 and it's been horribly late on Wed and Today and since Saturday. There's something wrong here. I know the EB can have problems but this is getting out of hand. Is this just bad luck? I was really angry about the delays in St. Paul. We sat in Pigs eye and St. Paul yard for an hour total. Sure we can blame the freights, but is there something systematically wrong here? Considering the latest elections I'm worried amtrak ain't helping itself here.

 

[eagle628]

It's kinda weird that the EB seems to have the worst delays, considering it operates on BNSF and CP track, and they're generally the best freight railroads in terms of handling Amtrak on time.

 

[abcnews]

As I mentioned earlier - our Eastbound EB was so late on 12/14/2010 that we missed our Capital Limited Connection in CHI, which actually cost Amtrak for a lot of rooms, cabs and meal money. In our case it was all BNSF - we were simply treated like a slow coal drag. Low priority. No other reason, They just kept putting us in the hole for mixed freights and express frights. Once they even put us behind a mixed freight that was going in the same direction. Yes - here is what happened...we were sitting in the hole to allow two opposite direction trains to whiz past, and then after they passed, they actually held us in the siding while a mixed freight went by - ahead of us. I did not see this, but one of the folks we met who was on the same train was up late at night, and he turned on his scanner to check out why we were sitting...

Poor Amtrak gets the blame, but it was all BNSF. On another occasion he heard the BNSF dispatcher tell the Amtrak engineer to cool his jets for a while. That turned into 45 mins on that delay.

 

[PaulM]

It's kinda weird that the EB seems to have the worst delays, considering it operates on BNSF and CP track, and they're generally the best freight railroads in terms of handling Amtrak on time.

I won't call this is an old wives' tale, but for the last 4 weeks (the maximum available at http://amtrakdelays.onlineschedulingsoftware.com/cgi-bin/train.cg), the avg delay for #6 at DEN (delivered on the UP) was 13 minutes, compared to 62 minutes for #5 at DEN (delivered on the BNSF). In fact the 13 minutes for #6 was highly skewed by a single very late train.

Since these statistics don't give the cause of delays, you can't necessarily attribute the difference to BNSF interference. On the other hand, it seems to me that that equipment problems have overshadowed freight train interference during the last couple of years. You could just as easily infer that EMY does a better job than CHI of putting together a reliable consist.

 

[tim49424]

I've checked train 8 and it's been horribly late on Wed

I had a ticket for that train, and got a call Tuesday night that a bus would be provided...it picked us up in Tomah at the scheduled time and stopped at WI Dells, Portage and Columbus and headed SE to Chicago. We arrived at Union Station at 5:05 PM Central Time and the EB itself arrived there after 10 PM. I barely caught the Pere Marquette which departed CHI @ 5:20 PM.

I am hoping that the #7 on Monday departs on time, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Astat]

#8 eastbound was scheduled to arrive in St. Cloud at 5:14 AM today, latest update on the website is saying 8:51 AM, 3 hours and 37 minutes late. Yesterday's train apparently got into Chicago 4 hours late at 7:55 PM. Looks like there's no way I'm going to make my Capitol Limited connection...I know their standard procedure would be to put me in a hotel room and get me on the Capitol Limited the next day, but do you think there would be any chance they'd be able to squeeze me in on the Lake Shore Limited that departs later in the evening? I'd imagine with holiday travel, it's pretty booked solid, but I'd rather not spend my entire Christmas holed up in a hotel room by myself in an unfamiliar city.

 

[abcnews]

When we missed the Capital Limited we did try to get them to allow us on the LSL to NYP, and then connect to Washington, DC. They were more than happy to make the change, but their were no Roomettes or Bedrooms. We were on a free Roomette ticket (AGR 20,000 Award) for two people, so they said we could get two coach tickets, but we declined and waited one day for the next Cap Limited.

The problem with the coach tickets is that it takes so long to get to DC on the LSL and I thought that the next day would be rather rough in coach on such a long route. I would have gladly taken a Roomette (with meals in the diner too). So we opted for a hotel and $44 cash from Amtrak - and a family Room on the next Cap Limited.

 

[bretton88]

It's kinda weird that the EB seems to have the worst delays, considering it operates on BNSF and CP track, and they're generally the best freight railroads in terms of handling Amtrak on time.

I won't call this is an old wives' tale, but for the last 4 weeks (the maximum available at http://amtrakdelays.onlineschedulingsoftware.com/cgi-bin/train.cg), the avg delay for #6 at DEN (delivered on the UP) was 13 minutes, compared to 62 minutes for #5 at DEN (delivered on the BNSF). In fact the 13 minutes for #6 was highly skewed by a single very late train.

Since these statistics don't give the cause of delays, you can't necessarily attribute the difference to BNSF interference. On the other hand, it seems to me that that equipment problems have overshadowed freight train interference during the last couple of years. You could just as easily infer that EMY does a better job than CHI of putting together a reliable consist.

Well, the denver comparison is a poor comparison because the tracks in Iowa are single track, and in poor shape, so there's always delays due to slow orders on the marshy track, hence why Iowa is spending 17milliion to help it. And the manual switches on the crossovers to pass the freights don't help.

 

[abcnews]

You can't help but wonder, has BNSF changed the dispatch priorities? Perhaps due to being pushed by the new owners (Warren Buffett & Co.), maybe their dispatchers are having to let go of their heritage/tradition, and become more like a CSX.

I hope that is not the case. And actually, CSX seems to be working well with Amtrak in these parts. I know that they have a very busy "A line" (old ACL double track), that is now single track from Richmond to Savannah, but even with 5 daily Amtraks - there are not too many CSX delays (Auto Train, Silver Star, Meteor, Carolinian, Palmetto). Compared to BNSF and the "High Line" with only one daily Amtrak train.

 

[mwmnp]

You can't help but wonder, has BNSF changed the dispatch priorities? Perhaps due to being pushed by the new owners (Warren Buffett & Co.), maybe their dispatchers are having to let go of their heritage/tradition, and become more like a CSX.

Out of all the Class 1s, CN has caused the most delay, proportionally speaking, over the last year according to the most recent data available from Amtrak. CSX is more or less tied with CP and NS for second place in this regard while UP is in third place. BNSF has been responsible for the least amount of delay, though the amount has gone up compared to 2008-2009 levels.

You can't really blame BNSF for all of the problems the EB has had in the last month, though. Major delays from origin, the typical wintertime locomotive problems, a vehicle collision, and a bad order coach car that had to be set out in Wolf Point, MT are some examples of non-BNSF issues that have contributed to the train's tardiness.

 

[The Cardinal]

I have to agree with the poster "abcnews" on this one. As I was thinking the exact same thing this past fall when I was on an east bound Empire Builder that was over 3 hours late getting into CHI, which caused myself and others to miss their connection to the CL. We all got a free night in Chicago, courtesy of AMTRAK. But the reason we were so late was solely the fault of BNSF. We were doing well until we got into the Havre area. Things rapidly went down from there and did not improve. First we got stuck behind a broken down BNSF freight, single tracking, so we had to wait for a rescue engine to get there. That was only about an hour wait, but after that BNSF kept sticking us in "the hole" for the remainder of the trip. Things slightly improved once we got onto CN trackage. I've been riding the EB since the mid 90's. Usually take it once a year from Portland all the way to Chicago and this is the first year that I have had this kind of experience with BNSF pulling a UP. I couldn't help but think that it has something to do with Warren Buffet, as this type of thing didn't use to happen very often, if at all. Now it seems to be the norm. In all the years I've ridden the EB I had NEVER, EVER missed my connection in Chicago. This was a first for me....

 

[tim49424]

From looking at the status map, it seems that a Christmas miracle has happened and the 8 is running on time for today, at least as far as MSP. Tomorrow's is still relatively on schedule, only slightly late....I still am holding out hope that 7 will straighten out timewise by or on Monday.

Merry Christmas everyone!