Is the CZ #5 always so late into EMY?

[Mark P]

I've been keeping an eye on the #5 CZ lately, as this weekend I will be taking it for the first time from CHI-EMY. The delays in the past few weeks have been crazy. Here is a sample:

Today, 6/24 - projected 7 hours late

6/23 - 5 hours late

6/22 - 12 hours late

6/20 - 4.5 hours late

6/19 - 12 hours late

6/18 - 3 hours late

6/16 - 6 hours late

6/12 - 20 (!!!) hours late

I already heard that the 6/12 was due to a freight derailment in Nebraska, but I guess my question is, for those other several hour delays, is that normal?? My worst fear is that the schedule gets jacked up and we end up going through the most scenic parts of the ride in darkness. And I don't see any service alerts or anything on the Amtrak

Really hope my first multi-day train ride isn't spoiled...

 

[Pooh2]

We did the #6 CZ last week Emeryville to Chicago. It got in 3+ hours late. (Made our LSL connection without problem, lots of passengers were not so lucky.)

Probably missed some scenery in Colorado but still a great trip.

Hope you luck out and things are running on time!

 

[acelafan]

Mark P,

"ASMAD" is a website that you can use to see the history of Amtrak trains arriving/departing at various stations along their route. It has some other data, such as checking for missed connections, too.

Here is a link for the CZ arriving into EMY since January 1st of this year. Definitely a recent uptick in delays. If you remove that spike, the average is close to zero but they still range quite a bit on a day-to-day basis.

 

[KmH]

There is a lot of track work going on that couldn't be done in the winter, and Amtrak is at the mercy of the freight railroads that own the tracks.

(Amtrak owns the tracks in the North East Corridor (NEC) and a couple other short sections of track in the upper Midwest.)

The freight railroad dispatchers often make the CZ pull off onto a siding to let a freight train use the main line.

Problems with the rail line infrastructure along tracks Amtrak doesn't own can also cause delays.

Amtrak is suing the freight railroads over that practice. The agreement the government made with the railroads that allowed the railroads to stop providing passenger service was that Amtrak passenger trains would have priority.

So outside the NEC Amtrak doesn't have direct control of staying on schedule.

No doubt, sometimes Amtrak has equipment problems that are not the freight railroads responsibility.

EMY is at the end of the route so the #5 arrival time can be affected by every delay the CZ had over the 3 days it takes to get to EMY from Chicago.

Amtrak's schedule has some padding in it that helps mitigate some amount of delay time.

 

[stevester]

I was in on the 6/22 train. We were told a tree hit the freight train ahead of us due to a twister.

We had to stop in Ottumwa, Iowa for almost 7 hrs and had to go slow after that due to twister alert. I understand the weather related issue, but the management also had to step up to arrange the crew availability in case of delays.

Our train had to stop at couple places for next crew to arrive as the current one got clocked out due to delays. I guess the crew delays caused another 4-5 hrs delay.