MichiganFoamer
Train Attendant
- Joined
- Jan 21, 2004
- Messages
- 40
The Wolverine, Train 351(Jan 31) stopped 30 miles west of Jackson with AMTK 32 shut down. Reset ground fault relay, then proceeded. Unit shut down again after station stop at Niles, same problem, reset again. Problem referred to Chicago Mechanical after arrival.
Total delay 59min
The Late-for-Sure Limited does not seem to be fairing very well either (so what esle is new, eh?). The following article appeared in the Toledo Blade last week:
January is awful for Amtrak
Tardiness, dirt, weather make travel through town tough
By DAVID PATCH
BLADE STAFF WRITER
For 15 years, Angelica Ward has traveled from her Buffalo-area home to Toledo several times annually to visit her parents. And when the weather turns sour, she prefers to take the train.
The experienced Amtrak traveler said her train into Toledo on Saturday was the worst experience she has ever had. Leaving Buffalo five hours late was only the beginning of the problems.
"It was really, really disgustingly dirty," Mrs. Ward said. "There was a lot of rock salt and dirt on the carpets, and the restrooms were closed in our car and a lot of the others. When you got inside the one restroom we could find that was open, it was really foul."
But the trip Mrs. Ward, her two children, and the other passengers endured on that particular train was hardly unique. January has been a month of especially miserable performance for the Lake Shore Limited, a New York-to-Chicago train already notorious for poor schedule-keeping.
Through Jan. 25, the Lake Shore Limited has reached its final stop "on time" this month only 12 percent of the time - an average of less than twice per week - and Amtrak considers the train "on time" if it is within 30 minutes of its schedule.
During the last week, the westbound train’s arrival in Toledo has been at least 105 minutes late all but once. On Thursday, the Chicago-bound train left Toledo only 18 minutes late but lost two hours before reaching the Windy City.
The eastbound has been even worse - it has been close to on-time only once since Jan.17. On the other days, it was at least three hours late by the time it reached New York, and on several occasions it was more than nine hours behind schedule.
Amtrak’s critical shortage of train equipment - a result of decades of financial austerity - is a main cause of the eastbound train’s chronic tardiness. After arriving in Chicago, the Lake Shore is supposed to be cleaned and serviced for the return trip east that evening. So when the westbound trip is hours late, the eastbound is late too, and clean-up in between is drastically curtailed.
"We’ve had a series of problems, largely because of the cold in the East," conceded Marc Magliari, an Amtrak spokesman in Chicago. "We cycle this equipment pretty quickly, and if the train is very late arriving in Chicago, it is likely going to be late departing."
But the overnight layover the trains get in New York is no guarantee of an on-time departure the next morning. The train the Wards boarded in Buffalo was five hours late before it ever left Penn Station because the cars froze up in the railroad yard in Queens, Mr. Magliari said.
"This is an especially severe northeastern winter," he explained. Even if the heat had been left on in the cars, he said, the water lines are in the undercarriage, where they’re exposed to the cold.
The 18-degree mean temperature at nearby LaGuardia Airport last Friday was 14 degrees below normal for the date; only once since Jan. 6 has the daily mean at LaGuardia even reached normal.
The other two Amtrak trains that cross northern Ohio, while hardly sterling performers, have done relatively better: 48 percent on time for the Washington-Toledo-Chicago Capitol Limited, and 38 percent for the New York-Philadelphia-Fostoria-Chicago Three Rivers.
The Lake Shore Limited’s problems have not been all Amtrak’s fault. Neither the Capitol Limited nor the Three Rivers crosses upstate New York, where the Lake Shore trains have endured severe cold and lake-effect snow-related delays.
The Capitol Limited has the further advantage of using double-deck "Superliner" cars in its train, cars that don’t have the same freeze-up problems that the 1970s vintage single-level cars Amtrak must use on trains into New York City because of small tunnels.
Not all of the problems can be blamed on Amtrak or its equipment. The Chicago-bound Lake Shore that left New York on Jan. 15 - and passed through Toledo 12 hours late the next evening - was delayed for more than three hours east of Utica, N.Y., by frozen track switches. There was an additional delay at the Utica station while the police were summoned to deal with a passenger harassment problem.
And on the railroad, a late train gets later. By the time the police issue was settled, the engineer was so close to exhausting legal time to run the train that a replacement had to be dispatched.
Later, a similar replacement had to be summoned for the conductor. And before long, the train was so late that it was getting stuck behind slow-moving freight trains, necessitating long stops at stations so passengers could use the rest rooms there.
David Pieronnet, a passenger on board the Jan. 15-16 odyssey, reported conditions similar to those Ms. Ward experienced. Snow was piled up in the vestibules between cars, water pipes were frozen, the diner ran out of food, and toilets were plugged up and overflowing.
At Toledo, ham sandwiches were offered as a makeshift dinner, but passengers who avoid ham for dietary or religious reasons went hungry.
"The dining car was completely nonfunctional," Mr. Pieronnet said. "The train crews spread salt in the vestibules, and that was tracked throughout the train."
Last week, Congress approved a transportation bill that provides Amtrak with $1.22 billion for the current fiscal year, funds Amtrak says will allow it to keep its trains running and, according to Mr. Magliari, replace the 1950s-vintage dining cars used on trains like the Lake Shore.
But there are no prospects for funding that would allow Amtrak to assemble extra car sets for backup use when trains are late.
"We aren’t going to be equipped any time soon with enough to have ‘protect’ equipment," Mr. Magliari said.
As for the trains’ plugged toilets, the Amtrak spokesman said establishing a pump-out facility at some intermediate stop could not be justified for the few times it would be used, and calling in a contractor in emergencies would be expensive and perhaps delay the train longer than simply allowing passengers to use station restrooms.
Amtrak issued a statement yesterday advertising a buy-one-ticket, get-one-free for high-school seniors and their parents making college visits. While conceding that persistently late trains are likely to discourage ridership,
Mr. Magliari said he expects operation of the Lake Shore and other Ohio trains to be a lot smoother by springtime, when college-visit season gets busy.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Ward and her children traveled home on the train early Tuesday morning. The eastbound Lake Shore was three hours late out of Chicago, four hours late out of Toledo, and 41/2 hours late into Buffalo.
With the total time they spent waiting for late trains, they could have nearly made a second round trip between Buffalo and Toledo.
Total delay 59min
The Late-for-Sure Limited does not seem to be fairing very well either (so what esle is new, eh?). The following article appeared in the Toledo Blade last week:
January is awful for Amtrak
Tardiness, dirt, weather make travel through town tough
By DAVID PATCH
BLADE STAFF WRITER
For 15 years, Angelica Ward has traveled from her Buffalo-area home to Toledo several times annually to visit her parents. And when the weather turns sour, she prefers to take the train.
The experienced Amtrak traveler said her train into Toledo on Saturday was the worst experience she has ever had. Leaving Buffalo five hours late was only the beginning of the problems.
"It was really, really disgustingly dirty," Mrs. Ward said. "There was a lot of rock salt and dirt on the carpets, and the restrooms were closed in our car and a lot of the others. When you got inside the one restroom we could find that was open, it was really foul."
But the trip Mrs. Ward, her two children, and the other passengers endured on that particular train was hardly unique. January has been a month of especially miserable performance for the Lake Shore Limited, a New York-to-Chicago train already notorious for poor schedule-keeping.
Through Jan. 25, the Lake Shore Limited has reached its final stop "on time" this month only 12 percent of the time - an average of less than twice per week - and Amtrak considers the train "on time" if it is within 30 minutes of its schedule.
During the last week, the westbound train’s arrival in Toledo has been at least 105 minutes late all but once. On Thursday, the Chicago-bound train left Toledo only 18 minutes late but lost two hours before reaching the Windy City.
The eastbound has been even worse - it has been close to on-time only once since Jan.17. On the other days, it was at least three hours late by the time it reached New York, and on several occasions it was more than nine hours behind schedule.
Amtrak’s critical shortage of train equipment - a result of decades of financial austerity - is a main cause of the eastbound train’s chronic tardiness. After arriving in Chicago, the Lake Shore is supposed to be cleaned and serviced for the return trip east that evening. So when the westbound trip is hours late, the eastbound is late too, and clean-up in between is drastically curtailed.
"We’ve had a series of problems, largely because of the cold in the East," conceded Marc Magliari, an Amtrak spokesman in Chicago. "We cycle this equipment pretty quickly, and if the train is very late arriving in Chicago, it is likely going to be late departing."
But the overnight layover the trains get in New York is no guarantee of an on-time departure the next morning. The train the Wards boarded in Buffalo was five hours late before it ever left Penn Station because the cars froze up in the railroad yard in Queens, Mr. Magliari said.
"This is an especially severe northeastern winter," he explained. Even if the heat had been left on in the cars, he said, the water lines are in the undercarriage, where they’re exposed to the cold.
The 18-degree mean temperature at nearby LaGuardia Airport last Friday was 14 degrees below normal for the date; only once since Jan. 6 has the daily mean at LaGuardia even reached normal.
The other two Amtrak trains that cross northern Ohio, while hardly sterling performers, have done relatively better: 48 percent on time for the Washington-Toledo-Chicago Capitol Limited, and 38 percent for the New York-Philadelphia-Fostoria-Chicago Three Rivers.
The Lake Shore Limited’s problems have not been all Amtrak’s fault. Neither the Capitol Limited nor the Three Rivers crosses upstate New York, where the Lake Shore trains have endured severe cold and lake-effect snow-related delays.
The Capitol Limited has the further advantage of using double-deck "Superliner" cars in its train, cars that don’t have the same freeze-up problems that the 1970s vintage single-level cars Amtrak must use on trains into New York City because of small tunnels.
Not all of the problems can be blamed on Amtrak or its equipment. The Chicago-bound Lake Shore that left New York on Jan. 15 - and passed through Toledo 12 hours late the next evening - was delayed for more than three hours east of Utica, N.Y., by frozen track switches. There was an additional delay at the Utica station while the police were summoned to deal with a passenger harassment problem.
And on the railroad, a late train gets later. By the time the police issue was settled, the engineer was so close to exhausting legal time to run the train that a replacement had to be dispatched.
Later, a similar replacement had to be summoned for the conductor. And before long, the train was so late that it was getting stuck behind slow-moving freight trains, necessitating long stops at stations so passengers could use the rest rooms there.
David Pieronnet, a passenger on board the Jan. 15-16 odyssey, reported conditions similar to those Ms. Ward experienced. Snow was piled up in the vestibules between cars, water pipes were frozen, the diner ran out of food, and toilets were plugged up and overflowing.
At Toledo, ham sandwiches were offered as a makeshift dinner, but passengers who avoid ham for dietary or religious reasons went hungry.
"The dining car was completely nonfunctional," Mr. Pieronnet said. "The train crews spread salt in the vestibules, and that was tracked throughout the train."
Last week, Congress approved a transportation bill that provides Amtrak with $1.22 billion for the current fiscal year, funds Amtrak says will allow it to keep its trains running and, according to Mr. Magliari, replace the 1950s-vintage dining cars used on trains like the Lake Shore.
But there are no prospects for funding that would allow Amtrak to assemble extra car sets for backup use when trains are late.
"We aren’t going to be equipped any time soon with enough to have ‘protect’ equipment," Mr. Magliari said.
As for the trains’ plugged toilets, the Amtrak spokesman said establishing a pump-out facility at some intermediate stop could not be justified for the few times it would be used, and calling in a contractor in emergencies would be expensive and perhaps delay the train longer than simply allowing passengers to use station restrooms.
Amtrak issued a statement yesterday advertising a buy-one-ticket, get-one-free for high-school seniors and their parents making college visits. While conceding that persistently late trains are likely to discourage ridership,
Mr. Magliari said he expects operation of the Lake Shore and other Ohio trains to be a lot smoother by springtime, when college-visit season gets busy.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Ward and her children traveled home on the train early Tuesday morning. The eastbound Lake Shore was three hours late out of Chicago, four hours late out of Toledo, and 41/2 hours late into Buffalo.
With the total time they spent waiting for late trains, they could have nearly made a second round trip between Buffalo and Toledo.
