Empire Builder Delays and Service Disruption?

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montana mike

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Apr 21, 2012
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Location
Whitefish, Montana
The Empire Builder was doing quite well thru most of the spring but has had some challenges staying on time lately thru the Dakotas and Minnesota and I see this AM that after Grand Forks #8 experienced something that has caused a "service disruption" notice. Are all of these troubles related or is it just a string of bad luck again?
 
I enter in 28, and it shows it's running.

It arrived into MPLS at 8:30 this am. But departure is showing 2.5 hours later.. I think it's due to the flooding in SE Minn from last night's storm.. The track runs over the Cannon River, and looking at theriver chart, the river shot up 10' over night.
 
TraneMan said:
I enter in 28, and it shows it's running.

It arrived into MPLS at 8:30 this am. But departure is showing 2.5 hours later.. I think it's due to the flooding in SE Minn from last night's storm.. The track runs over the Cannon River, and looking at theriver chart, the river shot up 10' over night.
Click to expand...

Bummer. Yes, I now see that as well. Gosh, the EB can't buy a bit of good luck these days.
 
Two passengers to Chicago with "reserved coach seats" were told to go sit in lounge car as there were two seats too few for tickets sold. I actually spend a lot of time in the cafe under the lounge. A woman was playing s olitaire. I struck up a conversation. She said "This is my coach seat". She was one of the overbooked passengers.

One lousy thing the conductors did was serve an unplanned meal which the train was stranded but not order more food for the dining car for the dinner meal that was a RESULT of the train being 6 hours late. I talked about this with the dining car staff and the attendant in the lounge car. The "reasons" they gave weren't convincing at all. Instead of replacing the food they served while stopped in North Dakota, they ordered Subway sandwiches at Wisconsin Dells as a "take it or leave it" proposition. After they were all gone, THEN they reopend the Cafe and I was able to get a burger, a beer, and a Pepsi. But the "story" given out was "we're out of food". Sorry but to me, it sounds like an expeditious lie. I talked to the woman running the cafe, and she said anything she had left over was taken back by the private contractor at Chicago. They could easily have offered the choice of free food or even sold food instead of the Subway substitute. Bad taste in my mouth over this decision. Complaint posted at Amtrak.com and on Twitter.
 
montana mike said:
The Empire Builder was doing quite well thru most of the spring but has had some challenges staying on time lately thru the Dakotas and Minnesota and I see this AM that after Grand Forks #8 experienced something that has caused a "service disruption" notice. Are all of these troubles related or is it just a string of bad luck again?
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The Builder continues to be routinely quite late getting into Chicago (2 to 6 hours behind). Is the weather in MN and WI still the main contributor, or is additional freight traffic from the Dakotas causing these delays? I looked at the on time performance for the EB for May--under 10%--Ouch.
 
I've taken the EB westward from CHI without much delay but have booked a trip from SEA to CHI in August and I'm really getting concerned about the OTP. We're taking 2 older family members on their first long distance ride and hope it is not a disaster. We have to connect with the CL in CHI. What is going on?
 
Me 2 . ThInking bout adding empire builder to my list . I have 10 year service award with 3 weeks paid vacation so I'm thinking la to San francisco and then San francisco to Denver spend 3 to 4 and then hop on go to Chicago spend 4 days and on to minn for 2 days and then on to NY for a week ... Fly home
 
jccpbc said:
I've taken the EB westward from CHI without much delay but have booked a trip from SEA to CHI in August and I'm really getting concerned about the OTP. We're taking 2 older family members on their first long distance ride and hope it is not a disaster. We have to connect with the CL in CHI. What is going on?
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Hopefully things will clear up and becomes better. The bridge work in Red Wing should be done, Not sure about the time frame of the track work in Wis.
 
Thanks for the info. Hopefully the work will be done. I'm not going until mid August.

TraneMan said:
jccpbc said:
I've taken the EB westward from CHI without much delay but have booked a trip from SEA to CHI in August and I'm really getting concerned about the OTP. We're taking 2 older family members on their first long distance ride and hope it is not a disaster. We have to connect with the CL in CHI. What is going on?
Click to expand...
Hopefully things will clear up and becomes better. The bridge work in Red Wing should be done, Not sure about the time frame of the track work in Wis.
Click to expand...
 
The Devils Lake raise project was just announced in todays paper. The Empire builder will bypass the Grand Forks, Devils Lake, and Rugby stations and go directly to Minot on the Surrey Cutoff, a busy rail corridor adding to delays. Looks like the disruptions will start sometime in August to early September. Hopefully there will be alternative service to those stations, otherwise, there will be a major inconvenience for a long time for those ticketed passengers.

http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/239112/
 
There is no mention of an EB reroute in that article. Given that the EB goes through that area outside of working hours, I would bet that service will only be disrupted for a few days at the time of the bridge replacement. Last summer BNSF got pretty good at raising track while keeping the trains running.

Mark
 
I just happened to look at the status of EB #7 from yesterday (6-25). Does anyone know what happened to the train that would cause a 6 hour delay in Montana and a service disruption? Things had settled down somewhat on the delays from last week (averaging only a couple hours late heading eastbound), now the westbound train must have run into a significant problem.

Bummer.
 
montana mike said:
I just happened to look at the status of EB #7 from yesterday (6-25). Does anyone know what happened to the train that would cause a 6 hour delay in Montana and a service disruption? Things had settled down somewhat on the delays from last week (averaging only a couple hours late heading eastbound), now the westbound train must have run into a significant problem.

Bummer.
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BNSF had a derailment near Snowden, MT.
 
montana mike said:
Thanks. I see it effected the train that was supposed to depart from Seattle today as well.
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According to a thread on another website, that's because the severely delayed train was "turned" in Spokane,

and passengers were bus bridged between Seattle/Portland and Spokane. But it does appear that the

Builders are now getting through the derailment area, albeit with some delays.
 
This was due to the train running 8 hours late into Spokane due to a 2 car derailment that took out the Saco West switch. Saco is about 25 mile east of Malta Montana.
 
I'm on 8 out of Seattle this afternoon. I called and it's back to the train again, touch wood all goes well.
 
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there are no more service disruptions for the EB until AFTER our trip early next month!
 
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We're booked from SBY to MOT early Sept. simply to enjoy the train and we're renting a car from there to complete our trip to SD but if EB continues running this late we will consider cancelling and driving the entire distance. We're not on a tight schedule other than arrival and departure days and an hour or two late isn't an issue, but when it's becoming 4 - 6 hours that's a bit more than we want to experience. Really disappointing if we have to cancel because we loved our EB trip from SBY to OLY last year and wanted to repeat the train experience. Any opinions from those who may have an 'educated guess' on chance of things improving by Sept.? Or opinions on the chance of scheduling getting worse if more work is starting then in ND?

I know one shouldn't expect perfect scheduling from Amtrak and true train buffs can get a bit defensive when that's criticized, but not all of us want to sit in a station for 4 - 6 hours waiting for a train, regardless of how much we enjoy the ride. Hoping to see improvement before the end of August so we don't end up cancelling!
 
albertaborn said:
We're booked from SBY to MOT early Sept. simply to enjoy the train and we're renting a car from there to complete our trip to SD but if EB continues running this late we will consider cancelling and driving the entire distance. We're not on a tight schedule other than arrival and departure days and an hour or two late isn't an issue, but when it's becoming 4 - 6 hours that's a bit more than we want to experience. Really disappointing if we have to cancel because we loved our EB trip from SBY to OLY last year and wanted to repeat the train experience. Any opinions from those who may have an 'educated guess' on chance of things improving by Sept.? Or opinions on the chance of scheduling getting worse if more work is starting then in ND?

I know one shouldn't expect perfect scheduling from Amtrak and true train buffs can get a bit defensive when that's criticized, but not all of us want to sit in a station for 4 - 6 hours waiting for a train, regardless of how much we enjoy the ride. Hoping to see improvement before the end of August so we don't end up cancelling!
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First of all, I'd check to see how the train's doing before leaving home! No need to spend 4-6 hours at the station in most cases. Note that the current spate of delays stem from a pair of derailments, one in Washington and one in Montana. It's pretty unlikely that those will continue. Keep in mind that yesterday's Builder was 1-1.5 hours the whole way, including into Chicago, despite leaving Seattle late. It's definitely possible for the Builder to run well, God and BNSF willing. I'd book it, and then check back in late August to see how things are going. Amtrak lets you cancel without a penalty until almost the very last minute anyway.
 
Thanks for the encouraging reply! To clarify our position, we're aware of a good chance of delays with Amtrak and know there are many factors causing delays, it's just a matter of tasking all factors of our trip into account, and for us, much more than 2 hours departure delay doesn't make the fun of the train ride worth it. I wish we lived where we could catch a train from home easily and not have the added issue of added driving , hotel reservations and car rental! Also have some concern with talk of work starting in ND later this summer as well affecting schedules negatively. .

Because we have to drive to SBY from Alberta to catch the train we want a comfortable cushion of time for that leg of our journey,. On the return we'll be turning in a rental car in MOT the night before our scheduled morning departure and checking out of the hotel, so yeah, we are looking at sitting at the station at both ends should EB be running terrible late, as well as having a late drive home to Alberta once we arrive in SBY. If it was just going to station from our house, not as much an issue, for sure. Since the train portion of our planned trip was just for the fun of riding the train and we can actually drive for less money, we unfortunately may be cancelling Amtrak portion and driving the entire way if long delays continue. Don't want to start and end what should be a fun trip with frustration. Will be watching status closely for the next while!
 
The high heat is cause for significant delays of 2+ hours as well as quite possibly causing the derailments due to kinks in the rail. Also track work to correct heat kinks is going on daily.

By September the temperatures should have cooled down enough that heat is no longer an issue and the Empire Build should be back to historical on-time performance. September, in my experience, is generally a really good month to travel. I know, cause it's my birthday month and I've taken vacation in the month of September for most of the last 25 years.

Enjoy your trip.
 
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