Seven-hour delay for Texas Eagle

[cp]

The southbound Eagle that departed Chicago on 9/8 was delayed about 6-7 hours in Saint Louis due to a failure of the locomotive. It took Amtrak six hours to bring another locomotive. As a result, the segment from Fort Worth to San Antonio on 9/9 was cancelled and replaced by a bus. We were coming down from Dallas southbound and had to rent a car instead of riding the bus.

Does any one know why it takes six hours to find a replacement locomotive? It would seem that they could just "borrow" or "rent" one from UP.

 

[PRR 60]

The southbound Eagle that departed Chicago on 9/8 was delayed about 6-7 hours in Saint Louis due to a failure of the locomotive. It took Amtrak six hours to bring another locomotive. As a result, the segment from Fort Worth to San Antonio on 9/9 was cancelled and replaced by a bus. We were coming down from Dallas southbound and had to rent a car instead of riding the bus.
Does any one know why it takes six hours to find a replacement locomotive? It would seem that they could just "borrow" or "rent" one from UP.

It depends on the nature of the failure. The train needs electric power generated by the locomotive (HEP) for lighting, HVAC, food prep, even toilets. If the locomotive's HEP unit is operative, then a freight unit can be added to actually move the train. But if the HEP is out, then freight units, which do not have HEP, can't help. It sounds like a unit had to be sent down from Chicago.

 

[had8ley]

The southbound Eagle that departed Chicago on 9/8 was delayed about 6-7 hours in Saint Louis due to a failure of the locomotive. It took Amtrak six hours to bring another locomotive. As a result, the segment from Fort Worth to San Antonio on 9/9 was cancelled and replaced by a bus. We were coming down from Dallas southbound and had to rent a car instead of riding the bus.
Does any one know why it takes six hours to find a replacement locomotive? It would seem that they could just "borrow" or "rent" one from UP.

Well sometimes management at UP gets a little greedy and runs a train a little oversized. In other words, not enough horsepower to get it over the road; especially the hills. They are very protective of their million dollar monsters and its not as easy as saying, "Dad can I borrow the car tonight?" There is a lot of dialog between Omaha and Amtrak that the general public will never get to hear. (Not that you would want to hear some of the choice words employed.)

P.S. "JUST" is a four letter word invented by someone in California who had nothing else to do.

 

[Amtrak OBS Employee gone freight]

I am not sure about over there, but here in the East I would like to know what happened to Amtrak's agreement with CSX to operate with at least two locomotives! Several times lately I have seen the "Meteor" (both NB and SB) back to operating with one unit! Operating with two units was part of the new agreement when (then Amtrak president) David Gunn approached the freights regarding solutions to delays. I see CSX has made better efforts since then. I can understand CSX's point of view as there were many delays associated with Amtrak engine failures en-route on the "Silver" trains during that time of dismal OTP. To get back on topic, I just wonder if this particular "Eagle" only had one unit in the locomotive consist!

OBS gone freight.....

 

[eliyahu]

It depends on the nature of the failure. The train needs electric power generated by the locomotive (HEP) for lighting, HVAC, food prep, even toilets. If the locomotive's HEP unit is operative, then a freight unit can be added to actually move the train. But if the HEP is out, then freight units, which do not have HEP, can't help. It sounds like a unit had to be sent down from Chicago.

in this case the HEP unit was still working. although i'm not sure where it came from, NS #2686 was added in st. louis. both the eagle and the city usually run with only one power unit, and this happens more often than it should. speaking as someone has had the 'pleasure' of bustitution between FTW and AUS, it's not the most enjoyable ride. i can certainly understand why someone would rent a car at their expense to avoid it.

-- eliyahu

waterbury, ct

 

[battalion51]

Like had8ley said the hard part is getting the Power Desk to release power to be used on the train. As we all know UP could care less what happens to an Amtrak train so long as it's not tying up the main line. Since it appears the train was dead at the station or of UP property the power desk isn't going to jump all over releasing horsepower to a train they don't make any money on. The fact that an NS unit was added indicates something else. This unit was most definitely off of NS property, so the power desk released the unit because they wouldn't have to pay for the usage of that unit, Amtrak was. So UP solved the situation by waiting for foreign power to become available so they wouldn't be paying to move it and giving their own horsepower away to Amtrak.

 

[nr272]

Gotta love UP! (I'm glad they don't operate here on the east coast)

 

[Mark]

I just wonder if this particular "Eagle" only had one unit in the locomotive consist!

From what I've seen/read the Texas Eagle operates most of the time with one locomotive, (I take it to STL usually twice per year and it goes right by my brothers house). The route south into Texas, (and back of course), is relatively flat so there isn't a great need for the extra traction that two units provide. I'm not real sure how much fuel a P42DC holds/uses but if its around 4000 gallons, then naturally Amtrak will cut the extra unit if they can. The fuel savings alone per year comes out to: [4000 gallons,(assuming that this is all one unit uses per trip)x($3.00 per gallon)x(365 days per year)]=$4,380,000. Even if I'm way off and the TE uses only 1000 gallons per trip that's still quite a cost at over 1 millon dollars annually. I won't even talk spare parts.

So if they have to hand out a few free trip vouchers, (of which probably half of them won't be used anyway). The cost of running one unit is justified--- to somebody in accounting.

Thanks Congress.

 

[battalion51]

The P42DC has a fuel tank of 2200 gallons. For any long distance train there is usually a fuel stop at some point along the way. The basic math on a standard 16 cylinder diesel engine is burning 2 gallons of fuel per mile. The trip from Chicago to San Antonio is 1306 miles, so approximately 2600 gallons. Of course this can vary to some degree depending on the length of station stops and the amount of time you spend in the 8th notch, but it's basically correct.

 

[had8ley]

The P42DC has a fuel tank of 2200 gallons. For any long distance train there is usually a fuel stop at some point along the way. The basic math on a standard 16 cylinder diesel engine is burning 2 gallons of fuel per mile. The trip from Chicago to San Antonio is 1306 miles, so approximately 2600 gallons. Of course this can vary to some degree depending on the length of station stops and the amount of time you spend in the 8th notch, but it's basically correct.

Plus you have to add in the HEP additive of which I'm not certain. That one unit gets a work out and I'm sure GE did not design them to pull trains and provide HEP by themselves for the life of the unit. I'm certain that the engine's life span will be greatly reduced. Given GE's dismal reputation of the 70's (the U-23 among others) I'm glad they have power that is pretty dependable. The last Southern U-23 could not even climb the hump hill by itself (no cars attached) and had to be shoved by a set of SW-12 dinkies over the hill. So much for the cave days.

BTW, does anybody know why the southbound #59 was so late Monday? I called Hammond, LA and the agent said it was about two hours late. He was running his north bounder and didn't have time to talk.

 

[Sam Damon]

Like had8ley said the hard part is getting the Power Desk to release power to be used on the train. As we all know UP could care less what happens to an Amtrak train so long as it's not tying up the main line. Since it appears the train was dead at the station or of UP property the power desk isn't going to jump all over releasing horsepower to a train they don't make any money on. The fact that an NS unit was added indicates something else. This unit was most definitely off of NS property, so the power desk released the unit because they wouldn't have to pay for the usage of that unit, Amtrak was. So UP solved the situation by waiting for foreign power to become available so they wouldn't be paying to move it and giving their own horsepower away to Amtrak.

What a half-a%%$d way to run a railroad.

Fits right in with today's MBA culture, though.

 

[meatpuff]

BTW, does anybody know why the southbound #59 was so late Monday? I called Hammond, LA and the agent said it was about two hours late. He was running his north bounder and didn't have time to talk.

I noticed it late coming through Champaign Sunday night. Should come through at 10:34. I rarely look for it but I was driving around town around midnight and much to my surprise a southbound Amtrak blasted by! I have no idea why it was late, but checked amtrakdelays.com yesterday and noticed it left Chicago one and a half hours behind schedule. That lateness is thankfully pretty rare for the City.

 

[PRR 60]

I don't think the UP has a policy to not provide power to Amtrak except when Amtrak's problems will delay the railroad. A couple of weeks ago the UP provided power for the eastbound Zephyr all the way from the Oakland yard to Denver. The problem was that one of the Amtrak units was out of FRA regs due to lapsed inspections (and, by the way, was operated illegally on the westbound trip) and Amtrak had no other working units available. That was clearly an Amtrak problem and since the train had not even left the yard the UP had no selfish reason to help Amtrak. If the UP could not help Amtrak at St. louis I suspect it because they couldn't, not because they did not want to.

 

[had8ley]

I don't think the UP has a policy to not provide power to Amtrak except when Amtrak's problems will delay the railroad. A couple of weeks ago the UP provided power for the eastbound Zephyr all the way from the Oakland yard to Denver. The problem was that one of the Amtrak units was out of FRA regs due to lapsed inspections (and, by the way, was operated illegally on the westbound trip) and Amtrak had no other working units available. That was clearly an Amtrak problem and since the train had not even left the yard the UP had no selfish reason to help Amtrak. If the UP could not help Amtrak at St. louis I suspect it because they couldn't, not because they did not want to.

I would love to back you up but I worked for the UP for 37 years. They'll tell you quick that they would rather haul a carload of pigs than people~ more profit involved. As for the out of date (92 day inspection) incident they must have found a UP manager with half a heart because not only were the operating engineers on the Zephyrs jobs on the line but also the supervisors who sent the power out of the shop in non-compliance of the CFR. I promise you Battalion 51 is right on target.

 

[wayman]

Operating with two units was part of the new agreement when (then Amtrak president) David Gunn approached the freights regarding solutions to delays.

I'm confused. If the "when there's only one engine, and it breaks down" delays were essentially Amtrak's fault, and "always use two engines, so if one breaks down the train keeps going" is a solution, why does it sound (from your post) like Gunn suggested this and CSX had to agree to it for this to happen? How would running a second engine impact CSX negatively, such that they'd have to be involved in a discussion about this at all?

(Or was it more that CSX told Gunn that delays were a problem, and Gunn came back with this as a suggestion, and CSX said "oh, that's good, ok"?)

 

[wayman]

The P42DC has a fuel tank of 2200 gallons. For any long distance train there is usually a fuel stop at some point along the way. The basic math on a standard 16 cylinder diesel engine is burning 2 gallons of fuel per mile. The trip from Chicago to San Antonio is 1306 miles, so approximately 2600 gallons. Of course this can vary to some degree depending on the length of station stops and the amount of time you spend in the 8th notch, but it's basically correct.

If you need X horsepower to pull the train, with two engines isn't each only required to produce a little over X/2 HP, and wouldn't that reduce fuel consumption per engine, such that fuel consumption per train is less than 2 gallons of fuel per mile per engine? It wouldn't cut fuel consumption per engine in half, so the train as a whole would still consume more fuel with two engines than one, but there would be significantly less fuel and wear per engine, no?

 

[AmtrakWPK]

I think the agreement with CSX was along the lines that Amtrak was complaining to CSX about CSX dispatching that was not giving priority to Amtrak trains over CSX trains, and CSX was complaining to Amtrak that the Amtrak trains were having a lot of engine failures and clogging up CSX tracks. So Amtrak promised trains with two engines and CSX promised to expedite Amtrak trains in dispatch. And both of those things seemed to be working, so I don't have a clue what happened to foul things up at this point.

 

[had8ley]

The P42DC has a fuel tank of 2200 gallons. For any long distance train there is usually a fuel stop at some point along the way. The basic math on a standard 16 cylinder diesel engine is burning 2 gallons of fuel per mile. The trip from Chicago to San Antonio is 1306 miles, so approximately 2600 gallons. Of course this can vary to some degree depending on the length of station stops and the amount of time you spend in the 8th notch, but it's basically correct.

If you need X horsepower to pull the train, with two engines isn't each only required to produce a little over X/2 HP, and wouldn't that reduce fuel consumption per engine, such that fuel consumption per train is less than 2 gallons of fuel per mile per engine? It wouldn't cut fuel consumption per engine in half, so the train as a whole would still consume more fuel with two engines than one, but there would be significantly less fuel and wear per engine, no?

Your theory is right on but Amtrak engineers are instructed, on certain runs that have two units, to only use one unit for train pulling power and one for HEP.

 

[George Harris]

The P42DC has a fuel tank of 2200 gallons. For any long distance train there is usually a fuel stop at some point along the way. The basic math on a standard 16 cylinder diesel engine is burning 2 gallons of fuel per mile. The trip from Chicago to San Antonio is 1306 miles, so approximately 2600 gallons. Of course this can vary to some degree depending on the length of station stops and the amount of time you spend in the 8th notch, but it's basically correct.

If you need X horsepower to pull the train, with two engines isn't each only required to produce a little over X/2 HP, and wouldn't that reduce fuel consumption per engine, such that fuel consumption per train is less than 2 gallons of fuel per mile per engine? It wouldn't cut fuel consumption per engine in half, so the train as a whole would still consume more fuel with two engines than one, but there would be significantly less fuel and wear per engine, no?

These points are both more or less correct, but neither is a whole picture. One of the other main reasons for using two units is better acceleration out of stops and speed restrictions. This will go a long way to improving timekeeping in itself. On straight and level track running at constant speed, the power required is whatever it takes to overcome train resistance. In this case, the thing that makes a train with two units burn more fuel is the rolling resistance of the second locomotive only. For acceleration, make that weight and rollling resistance. And of course to all of this, you must add the "hotel power" usage of the train itself. A train with two units will always burn more fuel than a train with one unit, but the increase will not be twice as much. Probably something on the order of 40% to 60% more, maybe even less if stops are widely spaced and there are not a lot of speed restrictions to slow down for and then speed up out of.

 

[Larry H.]

As to the City running late, I couldn't sleep last night and thought I heard what should have been amtrak near centralia, and it was quite late. When we returned from Seattle last spring we were late leaving Chicago by over and hour, the reason for that was they told us, that the out going City was made from the incoming Eagle, and it had be several hours late that day.. Maybe that was the same?

 

[had8ley]

As to the City running late, I couldn't sleep last night and thought I heard what should have been amtrak near centralia, and it was quite late. When we returned from Seattle last spring we were late leaving Chicago by over and hour, the reason for that was they told us, that the out going City was made from the incoming Eagle, and it had be several hours late that day.. Maybe that was the same?

Very well could be. It's a tight turn with the Eagle coming in at 2 P.M and the City leaving 6 hours later. This is the daily schedule for the equipment off of #22. A lot of housekeeping needs to happen even if the Eagle is on time so I can see where late arrivals can cause chaos. Incidentally, I'm getting many reports of the Metro lounge in CUS being shoulder to shoulder (overcrowded conditions), especially for the evening trains. Been up that way lately?

 

[Larry H.]

Haven't been to Chicago since that late spring trip.. the lounge was full and no where to sit that time also when waiting for the Empire Builder to leave.. The evening wasn't as bad coming back, but was fairly full till several trains left. Were going up next week, will see how it goes then. I mentioned after that trip that the lounge seems "lackluster" compared to when new. Many accessories are gone, if not all. Just didn't have the same feel. Here again, its someone not concerned about how things are maintained..

 

[AlanB]

Jay,

It's usually the afternoon trains that put the biggest strain on the lounge in my experience, as there are far more trains departing at that time, compared to the evening. Since the lounge was expanded, it is much better able to handle the evening crowds IMHO, while the afternoon trains during the summer months especially continue to strain the lounge's capacity.

Larry,

I'm curious as to what accessories you find missing from the lounge?

 

[Larry H.]

Allen,

I made a quick look for the photos I took in there when it was fairly new, but so far can't find them.. I just recall that it had floral arrangements, as accents on tables and I think the fireplace? Also there were nice lamps and pictures on the walls.. Its almost totally, if not completely void of those things now.. It just doesn't look the same without them.. I'll keep looking for those pictures for confirmation, but I know I was impressed when it was new at the nice touches in the room, since my dad was in that business I was used to noticeing things like that.. What was there is gone now..

 

[had8ley]

Jay,
It's usually the afternoon trains that put the biggest strain on the lounge in my experience, as there are far more trains departing at that time, compared to the evening. Since the lounge was expanded, it is much better able to handle the evening crowds IMHO, while the afternoon trains during the summer months especially continue to strain the lounge's capacity.

Larry,

I'm curious as to what accessories you find missing from the lounge?

Alan;

If I remember correctly they actually had a computer game on the desk just to the left of the front desk when you walked in for the kids (and some of us adults also). I don't know if the computer walked or broke but I haven't seen it in quite some time.

Jay