Service Stops

[kt1i]

I will be taking another cross-country trip in May and am wondering which stations are service stops (or long stops)

I will be taking:

#29 Capitol Limited Westbound

#3 Southwest Chief Westbound

# 14 Coast Starlight Northbound

# 8 Empire Builder Eastbound

# 48 Lakeshore Limited Eastbound

BTW, not a smoker!

Thanks for any info.

Charlie

 

[Guest_Rick_*]

If I recall, on the Westbound Capitol Limited, Cumberland,MD, Pittsburgh. Cleveland and Toledo, on the Westbound Sw Chief, Kansas City, La Junta and Albequerque...The Coast Starlight will probably not be running in full in May, but if it is..San Luis Obispo, Oakland, Sacramento, Klamath Falls and Eugene(I think) and then Portland, and on the Eastbound Builder..Spokane, Whitefish, Havre, a town in North Dakota that escapes me,then Minneapolis. and on the Eastbound LakeShore, Toledo, Buffalo and Albany. There could be more, but I think these are the crew change or lengthy stops you will have.

 

[the_traveler]

on the Eastbound Builder..Spokane, Whitefish, Havre, a town in North Dakota that escapes me, then Minneapolis. There could be more, but I think these are the crew change or lengthy stops you will have.

I believe it it Minot, ND.

If you look at the schedule, many of the stops that show a separate Ar and Dp time are service stops. (Of course, there are exceptions.)

 

[dan72]

I know of the EB, they also have 'smoke stops' at Winona and Milwaukee, although you need to stay next to the train as when they are ready to go, the blow the horn as a warning and you have about 30 seconds to get back on board.

When I rode the SWC two years ago, I know they were announcing Fort Madison, IA as a smoke stop as well, however due to an Express Trak boxcar derailing 45 outside of Chicago, they pretty much tanked it in an effort to make up some time. I wanted to get out and see the station and Kansas City, but the conductor issued me a stern warning not to go to far then either so I didn't take any chances. As Rafi put it to eloquently: 'Never turn your back on a loaded train.'

I rode the LSL this summer and there was a lengthy stop in Cleveland (although we were running on time, if not a little early). They also let us off at Buffalo, Rochester, and Schenectady, although you needed to pretty much stay next to the train and I don't know if those were official stops to let people off to walk around. That will depend on your attendant or conductor. There was a couple in my sleeper that were very heavy smokers and at one stop, they about ran me down in the hallway trying to get to the vestibule. Albany also has a stop to change locomotives and for folks going to Boston to hop onto the 448 train, so you may be able to get off and walk around a little bit there, but it also depends on whether or not they are running on time.

Have a great trip!

Dan

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Does the train ever depart long stops early? Like, can I comfortably go into Albany-Renesslaer and buy myself a cup of coffee, for instance?

On the assumption that they are running close to on time that is. I can assume there is a minimum time to swap the P42 for a P32AC-DM?

 

[AlanB]

Does the train ever depart long stops early? Like, can I comfortably go into Albany-Renesslaer and buy myself a cup of coffee, for instance?
On the assumption that they are running close to on time that is. I can assume there is a minimum time to swap the P42 for a P32AC-DM?

Unless you see a "D" next to the departure time in the time table, a train can never leave early from any station stop, be it a long one or a short one. That said, I wouldn't cut things to the minute, as your watch might not match the conductor's watch. I'd always leave at least a 2 to 3 minute cushion, or you could be left stranded.

Of course if the train is arriving after its scheduled departure time, then all bets are off. As soon as any necessary work is completed, the train can and probably will depart. Even if it was supposed to be there for 30 minutes, don't assume that it will be there for a full 30 minutes.

Regarding Albany, yes there is a minimum amount of time required to swap the P42 for a P32. There is also a maximum time, and based upon my experiences, the crews at Albany always take that maximum. In the past they were allowed 30 minutes to swap the engines and no matter what, I've never seen it take less than those 30 minutes. Even if everything is ready to go and the train is 3 hours late, it still seems to take them 30 minutes to accomplish something that used to be done in 10 minutes many years ago.

Note: With the new TT, LSL now has recovery time built into the schedule in ALB. It's still due in at 3:40 PM, but it is now scheduled out at 4:50 PM, 40 minutes later than the previous TT. It remains to be seen if the crews will now take that much longer to swap the engines on a late running LSL, or if they'll just keep to the old standard of 30 minutes.

 

[dan72]

In my experience, if a train arrives early, it will wait until it's scheduled departure time. I've had this happen at MSP and at Cleveland. My wife and and I were a little freaked out when we arrived at MSP at 7:00 a.m. to find the EB sitting there. Much to our relief, they had not even started boarding. We waited another 20 minutes, boarded, went to the dining car, and were 2/3 done with breakfast before we left at 7:50 a.m. At Cleveland, we waited for about 40 minutes before our scheduled time to depart.

On the other hand, on the EB we arrived at Milwaukee and they made it very clear that since this was a drop-off only stop, we would leave once ready and not to wander around.

If a train is behind schedule, I would say all bets are off and it's probably best not to wander too far. I'm curious what other people have experienced with this.

Dan

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Also, I know last time I took the LSL they never swapped engines. They pulled into Manhattan, we stopped, and something coupled to us (never saw it) and towed us the rest of the way. What was that about?

 

[AlanB]

Also, I know last time I took the LSL they never swapped engines. They pulled into Manhattan, we stopped, and something coupled to us (never saw it) and towed us the rest of the way. What was that about?

I can only guess that as soon as the train popped out of the Empire Connection tunnel, that they coupled an electric an electric motor onto the head end. But that would be very rare, and in fact I'm not sure that I've ever heard of it being done.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

The other odd thing was all the lights went out and stayed out. We detrained in darkness.

 

[AlanB]

The other odd thing was all the lights went out and stayed out. We detrained in darkness.

Not odd at all. The P42 was shut down to comply with the no diesels in Penn rule, and they didn't bother to couple up the hotel power from the electric motor.

 

[the_traveler]

If a train arrives early. it can not depart until it's scheduled time. (I've seen this happen at KIN, where there is no separate Ar/Dp time. Train #___ arrives 5 minutes early - it sits at KIN until the scheduled departure time.) This is also why you may find the train stopped at some small town in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night on the time change night for 1 hour. It arrived on time, but it can't leave until 2:05 AM (or whatever), which is 1 hour later after the time change!

If a train shows an Ar time and a Dp time of 30 minutes later, but #___ is 2 hours late, it may not stay at xxx for 30 minutes. After the crew change (or whatever) is complete, you may find the departure is 15-20 minutes (or so) after arrival! I've even seen "smoking stops" cancelled in full, because the train is running late!

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Is that true even on a reserved train where all of the passengers on the manifest that were going to board at that stop are already on the train?

 

[AlanB]

Is that true even on a reserved train where all of the passengers on the manifest that were going to board at that stop are already on the train?

Absolutely, since the conductor isn't going to run down the manifest to see if everyone on it showed up already. Additionally, the manifest won't show last minute ticket sales made while the train was already in transit.