Reasonable turn time and dwell time requirements?

[moselman66]

Are there any standards for what's a reasonable turn time at the end of a line, how often/how long dwell times are appropriate? I found a few (much) older threads with a little information but they were mostly about specific LD turns.

I'd guess the longer the trip the more delay recovery you want to build in at turnaround or dwell, but I'm hoping there are some rules of thumb or guidelines on what's minimum reasonable times are.

--what's a reasonable turnaround after a 2 hour trip, end to end
--should turnaround after a 5 hour trip significantly longer than 2?
--for a "daytime" sort of train (ie cafe car but not sleepers) are especially long turns needed (every turn or just some?) for servicing, or is that adequately done with the normal turn time?
--are dwell point stops only an LD thing, or if not how often/ how long is a good plan?

I suspect there's not a true formula or grid of specified minimums, but any guidance is appreciated. Thanks!

 

[jis]

It also depends a lot on the track record of the host railroad's handling of OTP. There is no one size fits all answer to these question.

I have seen Amtrak turn Acelas on platform in Washington DC in less than two hours, butRegionals have to got through the Wye to get turned and then backed into the platform after servicing, which can take 3 hours or more.

 

[Cal]

Meanwhile down here on the Surfline, we have a train that is turned in 30 minutes or so after an 8 hour run. Turns back and does a 6 hour run to Goleta after 30 minutes in San Diego. It has caused the northbound train to depart significantly late (over an hour) before.

 

[Cal]

--are dwell point stops only an LD thing, or if not how often/ how long is a good plan?

I can't speak for other corridors, but on the Surfliner runs that do not begin/terminate in LA, they have a dwell time of 10-30 minutes (although most are about 15 minutes).

I could imagine that Cascade services that don't begin/terminate in Seattle and Portland would have similar dwell times.

 

[west point]

Turn times may also depend on the inbound crew needing a HOS break to return on the same route. One such is the Crescent crew inbound to New Orleans making the turn to next day's outbound Crescent.

 

[jis]

In high intensity operations 5 minute turns are not unheard of specially where the crew "falls back one", i.e. the crew that arrived on the previous train picks up this train, and the crew that came in on this train picks up the next train. But as I said, that happens only in intense suburban operations, not long distance ones.

 

[Seaboard92]

I mean anything is possible if you have the right crew size for a turn ready to jump on the minute the passengers are off. It also depends what is the work you want done? If you are just getting trash and making a car presentable and have four people doing it. You can probably turn a car in about five to seven minutes. But that is using the A Team on a good day.