Long Distance Arrival Times

[denmarks]

I've been monitoring the arrival times of the California Zephyr in Chicago in anticipation of my trip next June. The train always seems to be at least an hour late. Why doesn't Amtrak update schedules to reflect actual arrival times?

 

[Amfleet]

I've been monitoring the arrival times of the California Zephyr in Chicago in anticipation of my trip next June. The train always seems to be at least an hour late. Why doesn't Amtrak update schedules to reflect actual arrival times?

Because host railroads like the UP are supposed to be gracious and give Amtrak the right of way. Like that'll ever happen though. <_<

 

[AlanB]

That's one of the biggest problems that Amtrak has, arrival times. The agreement says that Amtrak trains are supposed to get priority over freight trains. However the reality is far from that. All to often the freight companies, who own the tracks, will give their own trains priority.

Why, you may ask? Because they make far more money keeping their own trains on time, than they do keeping Amtrak on time. The also are not subjected to fines or penalties for not giving priority to Amtrak.

Amtrak's timetables are already well padded to help compensate for those delays. On the rare occasions where an Amtrak train encountered no delays, they could in theory arrive as much as 4 hours early and in a few cases probably 6 to 7 hours early.

Of course since the train can never leave the station earlier than it's scheduled time, a train that hits no delays simply waits for 10 minutes or more at each station along the way. So being super early never happens.

 

[Amfleet]

Of course since the train can never leave the station earlier than it's scheduled time, a train that hits no delays simply waits for 10 minutes or more at each station along the way. So being super early never happens.

What if the conductor has boarded everyone on his manifest? Can s/he in sense allow the train to leave early?

 

[battalion51]

No, you can under no circumstance leave before the advertised time (unless ytou are on discharge or primary discharge operation as denoted by the timetable). This protection is put in place so that if anyone wishes to purchase a ticket at the last minute they can do so.

 

[AlanB]

Of course since the train can never leave the station earlier than it's scheduled time, a train that hits no delays simply waits for 10 minutes or more at each station along the way. So being super early never happens.

What if the conductor has boarded everyone on his manifest? Can s/he in sense allow the train to leave early?

As a general rule, no they can't. Some conductor's have been known to leave a minute or two early, but that's usually about that max.

Now there is an exception to this rule. Certain trains that hit stations where there is other train service, like on the NEC, Southern Florida, and California can leave early once all of their passengers have been discharged. These trains and the appropriate stations are noted in the timetable with the letter "D" next to the time. This means that not only can the train leave early, but it will only discharge passengers. You cannot board the train at that stop to ride to the end of the line.

When the train is running the other direction though, then the timetable is marked with an "R". This means that the train will only receive passengers and must wait for the scheduled departure.

 

[AMTRAK-P42]

I can recall only one time, on the west bound CZ at a small station during the middle of the night (around 4am) , we departed about 2 minutes early. Other then this, I agree, train never leaves early unless its a stop to discharge passengers only, shown as a "D" stop.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

I have never happened to be on a on a train when it left early, except under the circumstances described above, like on the NEC, when all the remaining stops are for discharge only.

As to arriving early, I think my all time record was on the California Zephyr eastbound into Denver, once I arrived a full one hour early.Of course it did not leave early. Denver is a big station and anyone could come up at the last minute wanting space.

I was delighted. This gave me my first chance ever in Denver to feel that I had enough time not only to explore the station but actually walk around quite a bit of downtown Denver. It was a Sunday night so not much was happening. But it was neat. This, of course, was due to much padding in the schedule, preceded by on time running.

 

[jccollins]

Of course since the train can never leave the station earlier than it's scheduled time, a train that hits no delays simply waits for 10 minutes or more at each station along the way. So being super early never happens.

Yep, sat on Sunset Ltd #2 in Tuscon for 45 minutes due to early arrival this summer. These early arrivals and 30-45 minute waits at stations proceeded all the way to New Orleans, where we finally left 30 minutes late, arrived/departed from the following stations on time and arrived in Orlando 10 minutes early.

I've never seen a train leave early, but I've seen two Amtrak California connecting buses leave early. Once was leaving NB from Martinez, the driver left one hour early on a Sunday after forgetting about the fall time change. You think he would have realized something was up when there were no passengers on the bus. The other time was returning from the California State Fair to Sacramento when the bus left 15 minutes early for no apparent reason and stranded ten passengers at the fair. We almost missed our train connection!