Palm Beach Safety Patrol Trains - 2016

Shop deals on ebay
shop deals on amazon
Advertise with us
Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum

Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Status
Not open for further replies.
I can confirm there is one more trip going north on 1/14 and returning 1/17.
 
That would be why my points reservation on 98 on the 14th was canceled. Taking the Star instead and had Amtrak allow me an overnight in DC on my own expense so that we could make the CL.
 
This is just such a mickey-mouse thing to do. Hopefully one of these days Amtrak will have enough equipment to run proper extra sections.
 
I'd be extremely upset if my reservation was canceled for this. Just like I was extremely upset when they knew about track work months in advance, let me book the train, and then canceled my trip a week before I was scheduled to leave.

Even if a big group reserves a lot of rooms, it doesn't mean you boot customers who already have a ticket. That's just wrong and bad business.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Dixieland evidently could not handle the train leaving early north of Florence. Now over 2 hours early at Baltimore.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
neroden said:
This is just such a mickey-mouse thing to do. Hopefully one of these days Amtrak will have enough equipment to run proper extra sections.
Click to expand...
It's not just equipment. There is also cost to the safety patrol association, availability and positioning extra crews (T&E and OBS), and getting an extra train over a railroad that already has trouble handling regularly scheduled passenger trains.
 
Different reason. What it can't handle too well is the dearth of reported times. If the times aren't being posted by Amtrak, Dixieland thinks the train has become inactive and after a time will move it to the archives - which will remove it from the maps.

I put it back. Let's see how long it stays on there.

jb
 
JB guess some intermediate stations were not reported since 98 did not have to stop ? When posted 98 north of BAL suspect IT did not note a motor change and has now corrected it ?

How hard is it for you to implement the many schedule changes that become effective Jan 11 ? Also a question is for trains that originate on the 10th or earlier do they continue on the old schedule or the 11th schedule ? Do know that on time changes they go o the new schedules.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
west point said:
JB guess some intermediate stations were not reported since 98 did not have to stop ? When posted 98 north of BAL suspect IT did not note a motor change and has now corrected it ?

How hard is it for you to implement the many schedule changes that become effective Jan 11 ? Also a question is for trains that originate on the 10th or earlier do they continue on the old schedule or the 11th schedule ? Do know that on time changes they go o the new schedules.
Click to expand...
Because this is a special train, Amtrak didn't define times at every station. That's why so many of them are missing.

I'm sure they did/will change from a diesel to a motor at some point. Otherwise, they won't get to Sunnyside. If they do it normally, we won't be able to tell where they do it.

Regular Schedule Changes

I use the lazy method. After each train runs, I have a schedule checker/fixer that runs. It will detect most discrepancies and fix them. However, note that on the first day, in my system, the trains will have the old schedule, because the checker/fixer hasn't been run yet.

Most changes are small, so no one notices. However, if the changes are significant, someone will likely notice it and tell me. Anyway, sometimes I find out there will be significant changes ahead of time, and try to implement them before they are effective.

Schedule changes are supposed to be effective for each train that starts at or later than the effective time of the change. So, a train which is already out and running at the time of a schedule change is running on the old schedule.

Temporary Schedule Changes

I read Amtrak's Service Alerts and Notices and try to implement the changes ahead of time.

jb
 
Why Amtrak has to kowtow to a group of Cub Scouts or whatever these are and end up upsetting legitimate passengers who in the long run carry more weight and value is beyond me. As others have posted, I would be most upset if my already booked reservations were suddenly scuppered for this lame excursion.

Until Amtrak can get enough equipment to build an extra section let that group take the bus!
 
Wow, how do you really feel about it?

You should read up thread why it isn't just a matter of extra equipment. Then you can reflect on the difference between "has to" and "chooses to". For extra credit, you can compare the number of passengers negatively impacted with the goodwill that they're building in a significantly larger number of future customers.
 
John Bobinyec said:
west point said:
JB guess some intermediate stations were not reported since 98 did not have to stop ? When posted 98 north of BAL suspect IT did not note a motor change and has now corrected it ?

How hard is it for you to implement the many schedule changes that become effective Jan 11 ? Also a question is for trains that originate on the 10th or earlier do they continue on the old schedule or the 11th schedule ? Do know that on time changes they go o the new schedules.
Click to expand...
Because this is a special train, Amtrak didn't define times at every station. That's why so many of them are missing.
Click to expand...
The scheduled times for every station were indeed adjusted to match the special schedule for the safety patrol special. However, the system will not automatically capture arrival and departure times unless the train actually stops. Even then, the train has to stop within a defined geo-fence at the station to be properly captured. It works probably 99.9% of the time. On one particularly late/wacky night, I stopped the train quite far down from the normal position. There were two passengers off in the coaches and instead of having them walk down the platform in the middle of the night, I just brought them right up to the station building at the far end of the platform. That was apparently outside the fence as the times did not automatically report.

OlympianHiawatha said:
Why Amtrak has to kowtow to a group of Cub Scouts or whatever these are and end up upsetting legitimate passengers who in the long run carry more weight and value is beyond me. As others have posted, I would be most upset if my already booked reservations were suddenly scuppered for this lame excursion.

Until Amtrak can get enough equipment to build an extra section let that group take the bus!
Click to expand...
Carry more weight in the long run? Let's see... The safety patrol association has been running these trains for a looooong time. Since the 1956, according to the news article.

American Airlines mentioned last year that less than 10% of their bookings are made more than three months in advance, and I'd bet that average is pretty close for all modes of reserved transportation including Amtrak. I don't know when the regular train was zeroed out and already booked passengers contacted, but it was probably several months ago. 1,200 safety patrol passengers vs. a very small handful of passengers...

As far as a "lame excursion", I bet the fifth graders are ecstatic about the trip and have a fantastic time. Don't we need young people to grow up with an appreciation for train travel? Or would you rather have a bunch of fifth graders have a great time on a bus and grow up voting for more highway funding in 10-15 years?

At the end of the day, Amtrak makes a lot more money off these "cub scouts" than running a normal train on off-peak travel days.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
AmtrakLKL said:
As far as a "lame excursion", I bet the fifth graders are ecstatic about the trip and have a fantastic time. Don't we need young people to grow up with an appreciation for train travel? Or would you rather have a bunch of fifth graders have a great time on a bus and grow up voting for more highway funding in 10-15 years?

At the end of the day, Amtrak makes a lot more money off these "cub scouts" than running a normal train on off-peak travel days.
Click to expand...
I was one of those passengers who originally booked the Meteor on 1/14. When I realized, a couple of months ago, that my reservation would be canceled because of the annual safety patrol train, I changed the date of my reservation. I am also one of those people whose first train trip (in the 60's) was a school trip from South Florida to Washington DC. It was not a safety patrol train, but it was our 8th grade spring break trip. I can honestly say that the trip made a lasting impression on me. :)
 
I'm not attacking Safety Patrol, but what makes me upset is when Amtrak allows people to book these dates, knowing in advance they'd be cancelled, like my Texas Eagle. The track work they were doing was scheduled months before I booked for the dates I was travelling (unbeknownst to me, because I didn't check), and yet Amtrak allowed me to book it, Then cancelled it a week in advance.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
TylerP42 said:
I'm not attacking Safety Patrol, but what makes me upset is when Amtrak allows people to book these dates, knowing in advance they'd be cancelled, like my Texas Eagle. The track work they were doing was scheduled months before I booked for the dates I was travelling (unbeknownst to me, because I didn't check), and yet Amtrak allowed me to book it, Then cancelled it a week in advance.
Click to expand...
Finally someone speaks some sense :)
 
IF they've been running this charter since 1956, they can damn well set the dates more than 11 months in advance.
 
Given that Amtrak, IIRC, either knows the dates in advance or should have an idea of them (given 40-odd years of working with them directly) you'd think Amtrak could work something out whereby they'd block the two sets of dates up until a certain point and slap a service notice on the website, with the SP having a reasonable "drop dead date" sometime in the fall to secure the trains. The alternative would be to put a coach and a sleeper (which ought to handle the early bookers) on the front end of the train and work with the SP people (and the crew) to keep the "regular" pax separate from the SP pax.

There's one other thing I'd do with this now, and that is (on the days in question) giving the Star a diner (and possibly an extra sleeper) for the one round-trip in question. When it was a "simple" question of switching trains for someone on the A-line that was one thing; now that there's a measurable difference in service on the trains, the services are not interchangeable.
 
What school were you from penny? Mr. Bosco from North Miami Junior High put that Washington trip together every year for all the north east dade schools. I went in eight grade.
 
If someone sued Amtrak, I doubt Amtrak would have a leg to stand on. This isn't an unforseen operational reason, or "act of God," or something forced on them by the host railroads (see NS trackwork truncation of Crescent), this is Amtrak making a conscious decision to host one set of passengers over another which can't possibly be legal under common carrier standards.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest posts

Back
Top