Pere Marquette Stranded North of Holland

[Amtrak OBS Gone Freight]

The train dispatcher probably should not have released the train form the previous station if he knew the conditions and the amount of time the crew had was so close to expiring.

We don't know the track layout at the station though either. Perhaps the CSX dispatcher didn't want a dead Amtrak train sitting on his only open main.

While this is a true statement, I still believe there is some form of miscommunication and mismanagement in this situation. Either on the part of both carriers' management, the dispatcher, and/or the crew. I feel the same way regarding this as well as the one which occurred with the "New Year's Meteor" saga some time ago. This just doesn't look good for business! But I must agree with you, we need some more clarification of just what happened. There is just too much of a two sided story so far....

OBS gone freight...

 

[ralfp]

I suspect that his opening the door without crew permission is also against the law.

How long does someone have to be held against their will without access to food & medicine before they are allowed to attempt escape? Five hours? Five days?

How long can a common carrier hold people against their will before the actions become criminal? At 5:10am the delay due to 12-hour crew time-out was probably quite foreseeable for a train that began at 5:20pm. Unless I'm missing something, that demonstrates such reckless disregard for the passengers that it amounts to intentionally confining the passengers.

FRA rest rules require that the crew have a certain number of hours rest, either at home or in a hotel room. Being on an Amtrak train, even if they are given a bedroom (something not available in this case), does not qualify as FRA manated rest.

That's a silly rule. Pilots can fly an aircraft after resting in crew bunks or in an F seat... why not train crews?

 

[amtrakwolverine]

exactly. how long does it have to be without food or water and not allowed off before you can charge the crew with attempted kidnapping. im being held against my will thats kidnapping and un-lawful confinement. they could have asked for help but didn't care about the passengers health. if someone died cause of lack of food(diabetic etc) they would be held responsible and that could lead to murder charges.

 

[PRR 60]

They aren't allowed to move the train if they've outlawed. Keeping the engine running is not against the rules.

Makes sense, though it would probably make more sense to allow the crew to move the train to the nearest station, much as an airplane crew can continue to taxi until at a gate.

Airline crews have some additional leeway with the hours of service. A flight crew can depart if the expected arrival is within their hours-of-service. If, while en route, they are further delayed such that they will exceed their limit, they are permitted to continue to the destination. For a rail crew approaching the limit, the train must be stopped before the crew hours expire, and cannot move except under extraordinary circumstances.

 

[ralfp]

Airline crews have some additional leeway with the hours of service. A flight crew can depart if the expected arrival is within their hours-of-service. If, while en route, they are further delayed such that they will exceed their limit, they are permitted to continue to the destination. For a rail crew approaching the limit, the train must be stopped before the crew hours expire, and cannot move except under extraordinary circumstances.

Sounds like a rule designed for freight trains, and not those holding self-loading cargo.

Maybe it's just me, but holding 100+ people prisoner overnight is an extraordinary circumstance. Something is really screwed up if it's an ordinary circumstance.

In any event it seems that Amtrak, CSX, or someone employed by those entities, was totally reckless in allowing the train to leave the station 23h50m after it left its original departure point. As I see it, the situation was not just foreseeable, but basically inevitable, such that it's a case of the dispatcher (or whoever decided to let the train leave the station) intentionally making this happen. Not just negligence, but a reckless disregard for the passengers' freedom and well-being.

Please tell me that I am missing some piece of information here...

 

[WICT106]

It never ceases to disappoint me just how often this happens with passenger trains in the US, every winter. I mean, it is not as if winter and snow are some sort of Midwestern secret. How could the organization fail to plan for this sort of event ? this is failure of a very serious kind, and this is part of how the "never again" group continues to grow larger and larger. The paying customer does not want to hear excuses, they want action and solutions ! :angry: If it means they give more administrative authority to the folks on the front lines, so they can better cope and create, or improvise some sort of ad hoc solution, then perhaps it i time to do so.

 

[gswager]

Only the engineers, firemen (or firewoman), conductors, and asst. conductors are the ones that must follow the FRA rules. Meanwhile, the other employees such as chef, LSA, waitress/waiter, attendants, etc. don't "died" on the end of their hours, except at the end of the train's journey.

 

[MrFSS]

Now the state of Michigan is involved in what happened.

Full story HERE.

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

Now the state of Michigan is involved in what happened.
Full story HERE.

Oh great, let's get the NTSB next!

 

[PRR 60]

Now the state of Michigan is involved in what happened.
Full story HERE.

Oh great, let's get the NTSB next!

The State of Michigan pays for the Pere Marquette. They are not just an outside party.

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

Now the state of Michigan is involved in what happened.
Full story HERE.

Oh great, let's get the NTSB next!

The State of Michigan pays for the Pere Marquette. They are not just an outside party.

Never said they were an outside party.

What I am saying is that there's really no point. I mean what are they going to do, count the number of toilet paper rolls the train had left? It was a damned act of nature!

 

[ralfp]

What I am saying is that there's really no point. I mean what are they going to do, count the number of toilet paper rolls the train had left? It was a damned act of nature!

The decision to send the train out from the Holland station at 5AM was not "a damned act of nature." It seems to me that it was an act of reckless disregard for passengers on someone's part (please prove me wrong).

BTW:TP availability is pretty important when you're involuntarily confined for 10+ hours and trying to engage in that damned act of nature. TP is something of a public health issue (yes, it's minor, but addressing it is even more minor).

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

The decision to send the train out from the Holland station at 5AM was not "a damned act of nature." It seems to me that it was an act of reckless disregard for passengers on someone's part (please prove me wrong).

What should they have done? Kicked everybody off the train and let them roam around with 3 feet of snow blowing around?

 

[Amtrak OBS Gone Freight]

The decision to send the train out from the Holland station at 5AM was not "a damned act of nature." It seems to me that it was an act of reckless disregard for passengers on someone's part (please prove me wrong).

What should they have done? Kicked everybody off the train and let them roam around with 3 feet of snow blowing around?

ALC, a passenger train is best kept in a location to where it is accessible! It doesn't mean that the passengers on board the train would be "kicked off" the train. The point is they would be in a safe, accessible, location where they would have the ability (by their own rights) to disembark and leave if they so desired (even if that meant to hole up in the station and get stuck in town). The point is in this whole story, it appears there has been a huge miscommunication breakdown between many! IMHO, that operating crew was too close to going dead on the law to be attempting to finish their tour of duty under such conditions. I am an operating employee, myself!!!! If you are gonna die on the hours of service law, then it is best to be in an accessible location!

OBS gone freight...

 

[Crescent Mark]

Random, but when in the world did the Pere Marquette start using Superliners? I could have sworn it is/was a single level train.

 

[AlanB]

Random, but when in the world did the Pere Marquette start using Superliners? I could have sworn it is/was a single level train.

It normally is. But during the winter months, especially during severe cold snaps, Amtrak often replaces the Michigan trains with Superliners as they handle the cold weather much better. Far less freeze ups with the Superliners, by comparison to the single level cars.

 

[ThayerATM]

The decision to send the train out from the Holland station at 5AM was not "a damned act of nature." It seems to me that it was an act of reckless disregard for passengers on someone's part (please prove me wrong).

What should they have done? Kicked everybody off the train and let them roam around with 3 feet of snow blowing around?

ALC, a passenger train is best kept in a location to where it is accessible! It doesn't mean that the passengers on board the train would be "kicked off" the train. The point is they would be in a safe, accessible, location where they would have the ability (by their own rights) to disembark and leave if they so desired (even if that meant to hole up in the station and get stuck in town). The point is in this whole story, it appears there has been a huge miscommunication breakdown between many! IMHO, that operating crew was too close to going dead on the law to be attempting to finish their tour of duty under such conditions. I am an operating employee, myself!!!! If you are gonna die on the hours of service law, then it is best to be in an accessible location!

OBS gone freight...

OBS GONE FREIGHT:

I think that you've touched on the bottom line here. Isn't it the responsibility of the Conductor to look out for the safety of the train and its passengers? Surely the conductor knows when his/her hours are going to go dead. I would assume that that conductor also knows when the engineer's hours will go dead. Certainly, under miserable conditions, the conductor should have taken the hours to get to the next safe station into consideration.

Everybody can run around and point at the other guy, but somebody made a really bad decision to move that train out of a station (safe position) and continue on until it got into an unsafe positon, and then all hell broke loose.

I'm certainly not a conductor, nor am I a meteorologist. But I've traveled enough to know when to abort my trip when I'm not sure that I can get through. I've cancelled driving when I've seen a snowstorm coming on my route, and holed up for another day in a motel to avoid ending up in the ditch.

My primary concern has always to be in a safe place, and wait 'till I can get to the next safe place without endangering my passengers. (In my case, that's my wife and kids.)

 

[amashr]

I live in Holland Mich. approx 6 blocks from the holland amtrak station. the pere marquette delivered its passangers to holland station. the rail yard where it was stopped is a 1/2 mile from the station. There is only one track passing the holland station and this track is the owned by CSX and is the main line from Grand Rapids to chicago. Our local television and radio stations were playing the recoded conversation between the mayor and police chief. The mayor was asking the chief to go check on the passangers because the train had be sitting for almost 10 hours at that point. The CSX attendant at the railyard refused the police access the rail property.

The holland station is small, but large enough to accomodate the 90-100 remaining passangers bound to grand rapids, the next stop. Why amtrak didnt back up and drop them off is unbelivable.

CSX wanted the main line through the station clear for their freight trains to roll. The railyard where they parked amtrak has multiple lines through it.

But to keep the people locked up on the train for almost 12 hours is mind boggling.

 

[amashr]

this has been a front page newsmaker here in holland and grand rapids papers. Each one is running "horror" stories of those "trapped" on the pere marquette. One story has a college kid that slipped out a door and walked to business route us-31 that parrallels the railyard. He flagged a passing car down and asked where there were. He then used his cell phone to call folks in grand rapids, 35 miles away to come pick him up in holland. He then went back to the train and collected his luggage and again slipped of the train unnoticed.

Crazy to think that this train stopped inside holland city limits, 6 blocks from downtown, and only 35 miles from next stop in grand rapids, and crew was prevented from moving.

 

[AlanB]

Why amtrak didnt back up and drop them off is unbelivable.

Why? Because they can't.

First, if the engineer moves a train after he's been outlawed (completed his hours of service), without permission and some life threatening emergency like a fire, then he won't be an engineer any longer. The Federal Railroad Administration will take away his/her license to drive trains.

Second, CSX owns the tracks. Amtrak cannot move a train without CSX's permission, regardless of the circumstances.

 

[AlanB]

I think that you've touched on the bottom line here. Isn't it the responsibility of the Conductor to look out for the safety of the train and its passengers? Surely the conductor knows when his/her hours are going to go dead. I would assume that that conductor also knows when the engineer's hours will go dead. Certainly, under miserable conditions, the conductor should have taken the hours to get to the next safe station into consideration.
Everybody can run around and point at the other guy, but somebody made a really bad decision to move that train out of a station (safe position) and continue on until it got into an unsafe positon, and then all hell broke loose.

I'm certainly not a conductor, nor am I a meteorologist. But I've traveled enough to know when to abort my trip when I'm not sure that I can get through. I've cancelled driving when I've seen a snowstorm coming on my route, and holed up for another day in a motel to avoid ending up in the ditch.

My primary concern has always to be in a safe place, and wait 'till I can get to the next safe place without endangering my passengers. (In my case, that's my wife and kids.)

Thayer,

I won't deny that some bad decisions were made. But it's also not as simple as people would like it to be.

I'm positive that the crew told CSX that they were going to outlaw, well before it happened. Heck, any dispatcher using even a modicum of common sense could figure that out without help. But I believe that it is an FRA rule, and if not at least an Amtrak rule, that the crew inform the local dispatcher two hours before they're going to outlaw. I've heard Amtrak crews call that info in to a dispatcher on more than one occasion.

Once that reminder has been given however, things are really out of the crews hands. They keep operating the train until they can no longer do so. The crew cannot decide "oh, hey we're gonna outlaw in the next 10 minutes, maybe we should stay right here in the station." As long as they have a signal to move, they move unless an unsafe condition exists.

Now while I'm not looking to truly place blame without all the facts being in yet, my money is still on CSX screwing things up. One thing that is still very unclear is did the crew think that they had a reasonable hope of reaching the last stop. I'm betting that the crew left Holland station thinking that they did have reasonable hope, and that CSX routed them into the yard for reasons unknown where they sat until they did outlaw. By that time there were no options left to the crew. They probably couldn't get permission to back up, not an easy thing to do in normal weather conditions.

And it's not like Amtrak has crews growing on trees. There is a finite number of crews, on top of which they have to find a crew that has completed the FRA mandated hours of rest, and a crew that's not already scheduled to run yet another train that would now be cancelled because they wouldn't have enough hours of service left to run that train. And let's not forget that all trains were running late, which probably means that Amtrak had already expended the few extra crews that they probably did have.

Again, I'm not really looking to point fingers, even though I did to some extent. But this is not a simple cut and dry matter, and we're missing too many facts at this point in time.

 

[Amtrak OBS Gone Freight]

OBS GONE FREIGHT:I think that you've touched on the bottom line here. Isn't it the responsibility of the Conductor to look out for the safety of the train and its passengers? Surely the conductor knows when his/her hours are going to go dead. I would assume that that conductor also knows when the engineer's hours will go dead. Certainly, under miserable conditions, the conductor should have taken the hours to get to the next safe station into consideration.

Everybody can run around and point at the other guy, but somebody made a really bad decision to move that train out of a station (safe position) and continue on until it got into an unsafe positon, and then all hell broke loose.

I'm certainly not a conductor, nor am I a meteorologist. But I've traveled enough to know when to abort my trip when I'm not sure that I can get through. I've cancelled driving when I've seen a snowstorm coming on my route, and holed up for another day in a motel to avoid ending up in the ditch.

My primary concern has always to be in a safe place, and wait 'till I can get to the next safe place without endangering my passengers. (In my case, that's my wife and kids.)

Thayer, maybe I should have been a little more specific. AlanB has pretty much gave you/us a realistic "railroad" explanation in his latest posting of the possible scenario here. So I won't further elaborate on too much other than the following.

I also believe the Amtrak crew followed up on their end of the rules! CSX requires us to give at at least three hours of notice to the train dispatcher of the time of our hours of service expiration. And Amtrak is required to follow that rule on CSX as well. All we can do as a crew is take care of our responsibilities accordingly! The whole point of my involvement in this thread, however, points to how the management bodies of the travel industry as a whole seem to have lost touch with reality when it comes to good customer service! I realize, even as a railroad employee myself, that there are those times where things, actions, etc just occur without warning! But over the years, I have seen too many instances of adverse action which could have been prevented if a good backup plan was in place! The big issue I see here as I have previously posted pertains to "communication!" That in itself seems to be a difficult ideal for many organizations to master (not just in railroading though it seems prevalent in this industry)! Hopefully, we will be able to get the scoop on exactly what the case is here. But whatever the explanation may be, it is not going to be worth too much to those folks who went through the ordeal! That is because there was obviously a "communication" breakdown somewhere between the Amtrak crew, CSX dispatcher, and Amtrak and CSX supervisors! BTW, I feel really bad for that Amtrak crew! When I was at Amtrak, I had my small share of difficult situations arise as well. I can most certainly feel their pain and the passengers' too.

OBS gone freight...

 

[Guest_Yerry_*]

The defending of Amtrak, CSX and NS on this thread is simply ludicrous. Quoting the 10-hour law over and over is clutching at straws, and the disparaging comments about small-town midamerica fails miserably at the blind defense of everything the railroad does. Funny, how come anything clearly pointing out railroad failings is countered with "We don't have the facts yet", while 10-hour law (or anything else that absolves the railroads) is touted as an absolute that explains everything?

First, Holland's concern and attempted help being a publicity stunt is nothing short of a cheap shot. Holland routinely hosts Dutch royalty. It doesn't NEED publicity. The press writeup back in '65 after our tornado merely mentioned "emergency crews from as far away as Holland." Pretty lame PR since they got to us FIRST. For you NEC/NYC people, THIS IS TYPICAL OUT HERE WEST OF THE HUDSON! We don't call Washington and demand cash; we hole up, dig out, and take care of the travelers. This is mentioned in another post. I've been booted off the Interstate in CO during a storm in '01, and a campground put me in their lodge for the night; they wanted $25, but since I had $15 cash they charged $5 because "you need to get breakfast in the morning." Pretty much the same story in Peshtigo, WI.

Us stupid Midwesterners know all about the Hours Of Service law, so quit reminding us. PM's crew is based out of Chicago, and there's barely 10 hours between arrival in Grand Rapids and the next morning's departure. Many of us check the arrival the night before to find out if we have to wait for departure the next day--- many's the time we had a 9:00 AM departure thanks to that rule.

Holland's station is actually larger than the pole-barn station in Grand Rapids, and is right next to Business/Old US-31, plus a commercial district. Unload the passengers and THEN move the train. It was going to outlaw in MINUTES and couldn't make it to Grand Rapids anyway. While only 15 miles away, a lot of time is scheduled between the two, with over HALF of it tabbed at traversing Wyoming Yards. If keeping the Main clear was so important, there was the old C&MLS line to the south, and the Black Lake siding immediately North, both with main road access immediately adjacent to the tracks and a fr improvement in access than the yard.

Sorry, Alan, there is NO requirement than an Amtrak crew run an Amtrak locomotive. CSX dispatched the train, and knew how long it had been out there. It left Chicago at 5:40 PM, just like it has the past 7,500 times before. No excuse. Counting to ten is not "a difficult job". If parents can drive out from Grand Rapids to get their children, CSX can send out a crew from Wyoming, which is closer. What crew wouldn't want that once-in-a-lifetime job of running a passenger train for an hour, getting almost a day's pay doing so, and possibly getting quite a few pats on the back? CSX would bill Amtrak for the hours, so the "making more money off freight" argument doesn't work. INEXCUSABLE.

NS' blocking the Main with an outlawed train while KNOWING the PM was right behind it? Once more, ust how hard IS this counting to ten job, anyway? Again, 7,500 times to figure out a passenger train leaves at 5:40. Planning ahead would have saved NS money, again negating the "we don't make enough money off Amtrak to care" nonsense. As for not enough crews, well, some trains have a higher priority. One would think that with so much attention (finally) being devoted to late trains in Washington that NS would have sent out a crew ahead of time and said, "See? We don't have late train problems here!" And why is South Bend to Chicago still double track? There are ALWAYS three to five delayed freight trains just sitting there every time I ride the PM.

Ridiculing people who complained about running out of toilet paper? THAT post defies polite comment!

Running out of food? Surprise; any of you remember the PM's food service? It's a Horizon coach with a few seats pulled out, and large 100-quart Rubbermaid latching coolers filled with pop, beer, milk, and some baked goods. Crew makes coffee in the hotel room in Grand Rapids! They don't have enough food to serve everyone ONE snack, let alone a meal.

And what a bunch of lame-o remarks about "somebody getting hurt and suing Amtrak." Sure, it's 10 degrees out, snow's two feet deep and still falling; let's all run out into traffic. We're quite capable of taking care of ourselves and keeping our little dears under control 'way out here. With the Mayor and Police Chief both being so concerned, I'm sure there would have been grownups there to watch everyone and keep them safe. Holland offered free food, free beds, and even free buses to Grand Rapids. And what about the cancer patient on board the train? Isn't that ALREADY a safety/liability issue? Surprise; the PM hauls a LOT of medical traffic. It has since the PM was run by the original PM.

The people who ride the PM regularly are a pretty militant group, and have been so for years. When the Blue Water was added in the '70's, there was a huge outcry here because it didn't go Chicago - Grand Rapids - Lansing - Port Huron, and there's a lot of comments now that service to Toronto would have continued if the BH2O went through Grand Rapids. during the Michigan cuts in the '90's, these people brought back the PM to 7-days by tallying the amount of traffic that connected with other trains (oddly enough, Amtrak said they had no way of finding out how many PM passengers connected elsewhere! didn't Amtrak sell them the tickets?). Holland also charters 14-car trains from Chicago for Tulip Time most years; it's not a city AMtrak or CSX ignores.

If we're excusing things on the weather (which figures little, if a Mom can drive to Holland), then there'd better not be any more posts about rail being "the only all weather transportation mode". So which one is it?

Quite frankly, I'm baffled as to why most here are failing to join in the outrage and point out the gross failings in freight railroads' handling of Amtrak affairs. Apparently, it never happens on YOUR routes, and the hundreds of posts about the subject are fake.

Finally, there's a thing called credibility. Think only railfans read this? There are some newbie posts here from folks who obviously know how to use Google. Think back to the commuter crash in CA; when thy kids said the signal was green, their comments were quickly dismissed as "railfans protecting the rail industry". Looks like we're seeing the same thing here.

 

[WICT106]

Wait ! There's more :

"Stuck on Amtrak, Stuck with Amtrak" Holland, Mich., editorial

Amtrak is correctly criticized for its' atrocious customer service to some of the smaller communities in the Midwest.

 

[Guest_Yerry_*]

And, to top it off, we pay extra for the "service". We get the same slipshod service for our 403b dollars as New York got for its Turbo contributions.

Amtrak is doing everything in their power to drive away their business and support, all while asking for more money to make up the difference. What happened to supply and demand? Provide what the customers want or lose your job.

That's how it works where I work, and I do a quality job every day for far, far less than these people make.