Let me get this straight. A bunch of trains aren't running due to mudslides, but they still can't find enough equipment to operate the runs they have??
Northwest mudslide season begins
- Thread starter CHamilton
- Start date
Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:
- Status
fairviewroad
Engineer
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2011
- Messages
- 3,393
I assume that's the same engine that crapped out in PDX on 500 yesterday morning, leading to yesterday's 507 being
canceled, which presumably would have formed this morning's 504 out of Eugene. But yeah, you'd think there'd be a spare
engine sitting around given all the other cancellations.
canceled, which presumably would have formed this morning's 504 out of Eugene. But yeah, you'd think there'd be a spare
engine sitting around given all the other cancellations.
George Harris
Engineer
I don't question climate change as such. I question a lot of the current fads and even more the proposed fixes. I also question whether the activities of mankind are as big a factor as is generally thought. I also was around to remember the 1970's panics about the earth cooling off due to the actions of man. A lot of the same actions by man were in the proposed solutions then as now.
The mudslide issues are much more in the nature of needing a short term action. If sea level rise is truly real, then the railroad gets raised. As far as they are concerned that is the summation of the action, and it is well in the future in comparison to slope stabilization.
Has anyone going around waving their arms about global warming and sea level rise considered the effect of additonal water in the atmosphere and probably on land as well due to greater evaporation from water surfaces which will happen with any form off temperature increase.
The mudslide issues are much more in the nature of needing a short term action. If sea level rise is truly real, then the railroad gets raised. As far as they are concerned that is the summation of the action, and it is well in the future in comparison to slope stabilization.
Has anyone going around waving their arms about global warming and sea level rise considered the effect of additonal water in the atmosphere and probably on land as well due to greater evaporation from water surfaces which will happen with any form off temperature increase.
Amazing. Someone finally updated the Amtrak Cascades page on Facebook.
jis
Permanent Way Inspector
Staff member
Administator
Moderator
AU Supporting Member
Gathering Team Member
Could happen if too much equipment gets trapped on the wrong side of a track outage (Don;t know if that is the case in this case). This happened in spades after Hurricane Irene to NJT, which caused them in an attempt to avoid that, to take the disastrous step of moving equipment out of high and dry remote yards to their main storage facility in the Meadowlands marshes only to have them take a bath in the surge in Hurricane Sandy.
"Rail link buses." I have no idea what that is, unless they mean Thruways/charters/not the dog.
And that, ladies and gents, is how passenger rail service in the PNW was unceremoniously stripped clean from partaking in the 2012 holiday season.
Without taking the time to dig up the data, what are we looking at in terms of ridership lost and revenue predictions? Record lows for the Cascades? And would Amtrak ever consider temporarily moving the Seattle departure time for #8 earlier, route the whole train via Portland and then up the Gorge combined, and do the same in reverse for #7?
The only thing that Amtrak might do is send the whole train to Portland. There isn't anywhere near enough time to get the train to Portland, then change ends and head back up to Seattle, service, and turn, go back to Portland, change ends and go back east.
The best you could even realistically hope for, for an arrival of #7 into Seattle if it ran via Portland would be 2 pm. That's not even enough time to service the train and make its normal departure of 4:45 pm, let alone an earlier one (it would have to leave before 1 pm to make an on-time departure from Portland).
So, long story short, no.
Affected are Cascades 510/513, 516/517, EB 7/8 and Sounder North. There are four Cascades trips south of SEA and only two north. So we're talking about potentially cutting Cascades ridership by one-third. I doubt that EB ridership will be affected all that much, as eastbound passengers will either grumble and take the bus, or get friends to drive them to Everett. Sounder already has buses lined up.
But really, somebody at Amtrak, WSDOT and BNSF had better be making plans now! If this becomes a huge, ongoing problem, they had better start looking at the feasibility of running 7/8 over the Auburn-Stampede Pass route. Now that would be some interesting rare mileage!
But really, somebody at Amtrak, WSDOT and BNSF had better be making plans now! If this becomes a huge, ongoing problem, they had better start looking at the feasibility of running 7/8 over the Auburn-Stampede Pass route. Now that would be some interesting rare mileage!
Big Green Chauvanist
Service Attendant
The situation is likely to remain in flux in the coming days, with possibly conflicting reports coming from various agencies. The next few days are predicted to be partly rainy/partly sunny, not the steady unremitting events that seem to engender the slides. But then again, the slopes are saturated and gravity will do its thing. Very frustrating all around. When the first houses come crashing down, then perhaps the powers-that-be will get serious.
Amtrak.com:
It is not true. Revenue passenger trains are not allowed on either main track. This week I saw only 3 empty non-passenger Amtrak trains being positioned through this area.(EB and 2Talgos)
For everyone's clarification the outer track/outboard or Puget Sound side is "Main 1" and the hillside track is "Main 2",
Swadian Hardcore
Engineer
That's not good! This could turn into something like the SL East if BNSF decides to downgrade the line. Unlikely, but who knows?
I don't think that's likely, since there's too much freight traffic on the line. But BNSF would certainly not cry if passenger service went away.
From Facebook.
More from Facebook.
amtrakwolverine
Engineer
Amtrak can't afford to go through this every winter. They loose money and also gives those who hate amtrak more fuel. maybe its time to find a another route to seattle that is not affected by mudslides. I understand money is tight but something needs to be done. What if the slide had taken out a amtrak train full of passengers instead of the container train?
Kevin, you are so right. I do not know who is paying for the buses and the lost revenue. And I don't know how to quantify lost future revenue from people who decide that they're never going to take a train again.
The problem is that there is no feasible alternate route. The one that comes closest, the eastside route between Renton, Bellevue, Woodinville, and Snohomish, has been cut in half by WSDOT and is now owned by five separate localities, at least one of which is pulling up the tracks. Building a new line would require finding a new RoW; about the only way to do that would be to take away lanes from I-5 or SR 99 -- can you say "pigs will fly"?
I had an interesting conversation on the CS with someone who has worked for the railroads and the transit agencies, and he says that this problem is only going to get worse. He thinks the issue has been inevitable ever since a lot of hillsides were cut away in the 1930s to double-track the line.
But of course, it comes down to money and political will. If the latter is there, the former will be found. And the only way to make political will happen is for us to get everyone we know to join the rail advocacy organizations. I know, they have problems. But if they can start saying that they represent 100 or 1000 times more people than they do now, the politicians will have to listen.
NARP: http://www.narprail.org/donate/join
All Aboard Washington: http://allaboardwashington.org/join-us/join-or-renew-online/
The problem is that there is no feasible alternate route. The one that comes closest, the eastside route between Renton, Bellevue, Woodinville, and Snohomish, has been cut in half by WSDOT and is now owned by five separate localities, at least one of which is pulling up the tracks. Building a new line would require finding a new RoW; about the only way to do that would be to take away lanes from I-5 or SR 99 -- can you say "pigs will fly"?
I had an interesting conversation on the CS with someone who has worked for the railroads and the transit agencies, and he says that this problem is only going to get worse. He thinks the issue has been inevitable ever since a lot of hillsides were cut away in the 1930s to double-track the line.
But of course, it comes down to money and political will. If the latter is there, the former will be found. And the only way to make political will happen is for us to get everyone we know to join the rail advocacy organizations. I know, they have problems. But if they can start saying that they represent 100 or 1000 times more people than they do now, the politicians will have to listen.
NARP: http://www.narprail.org/donate/join
All Aboard Washington: http://allaboardwashington.org/join-us/join-or-renew-online/
winterskigirl
Service Attendant
Why aren't passengers bussed to Everett from Seattle for the Amtrak Cascades run north up to Vancouver, B.C.? Is this moratorium so strict that BNSF won't even allow Amtrak engineers to run the trains up to Everett?
http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?c=AM_Alert_C&pagename=am/AM_Alert_C/Alerts_Popup&cid=1251623160072
http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?c=AM_Alert_C&pagename=am/AM_Alert_C/Alerts_Popup&cid=1251623160072
Last edited by a moderator:
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2003
- Messages
- 8,510
If the tracks are passable, crews can run empty trains through the mudslide sites during the moratorium. They cannot run trains with passengers on board. The philosophy is that a relative handful of trained employees could escape safely from a train derailed by a mudslide, while a train with a hundred or more passengers of varying degrees of physical capability would have a much more difficult time getting out quickly.
As stated, there is no feasible alternative route. I guess Amtrak could reroute its Spokane - Seattle route over the former NP route through Yakima and over Stampede Pass into Auburn and into Seattle, but that would be a very drastic measure.
I sure hope that someone at Amtrak, WSDOT and BNSF are at least considering how they could do this temporarily. I suppose that it would come down to cost and convenience -- but of course, it wouldn't solve how to get Sounder North trains, and Cascades SEA-VAC service, through. Rerouting the EB permanently would have its advantages, but after all the troubles Leavenworth went through to get the EB to stop there, they would certainly be very unhappy. In the best of all worlds, I imagine that the state would like to have trains using both routes, but that would require much more budget than is available at present.
- Status
Latest posts
-
-
-
Future Amtrak Equipment and ADA ideas
- Latest: MccfamschoolMom
-
St. Paul, Milwaukee, Chicago (TCMC) second daily service- Latest: TransitTyrant
