TE running late

[gregoryla]

I'm taking the Sunset/Texas Eagle tomorrow (Tuesday) evening from Tucson to Los Angeles. SL is on time, but TE is running about 3-1/2 hours behind schedule. Will that time be made up tonight in San Antonio?

 

[Texan Eagle]

I'm taking the Sunset/Texas Eagle tomorrow (Tuesday) evening from Tucson to Los Angeles. SL is on time, but TE is running about 3-1/2 hours behind schedule. Will that time be made up tonight in San Antonio?

If it does not hit delay due to another reason, the 3-1/2 hour delay that TE is having now would be wiped out in the night at San Antonio. TE is scheduled to arrive into San Antonio at 9.45pm and depart at 2.45am after combining with SL, so even if it arrives by midnight it will still have plenty of time to depart on schedule.

 

[George Harris]

I'm taking the Sunset/Texas Eagle tomorrow (Tuesday) evening from Tucson to Los Angeles. SL is on time, but TE is running about 3-1/2 hours behind schedule. Will that time be made up tonight in San Antonio?

If it does not hit delay due to another reason, the 3-1/2 hour delay that TE is having now would be wiped out in the night at San Antonio. TE is scheduled to arrive into San Antonio at 9.45pm and depart at 2.45am after combining with SL, so even if it arrives by midnight it will still have plenty of time to depart on schedule.

Just looked at the timetable on Amtrak's web site, and it says 9:55pm arrival, but I am not about to quibble about 10 minutes. The point I was looking to make is that a 3 1/2 hour late TE does not necessarily mean arriving at San Antonio 3 1/2 hours late. The normal practice is to put in a certain amount of fat just ahead of the terminating point to make the keeping schedule look better without introducing a lot of "waiting for time" along the way. The general practice of the railroad companies pre-Amtrak was to make this around 15 minutes, and commonly less for premier trains. Amtrak normally makes it larger, sometimes MUCH larger.

When you look at the timetable, you will see that for the 53 miles between San Antonio and San Marcos the schedule allots 1 hour 32 minutes northbound and 2 hours 43 minutes southbound. Even considering that there can be some extra shuffling around in the final approach, this still suggests that there is an hour of padding just ahead of the San Antonio arrival. Therefore, if you look at how the train is doing now, if things do not get worse, then you can assume that the San Antonio arrival will be about one hour earlier than how ever late you are now would suggest. It also means that if the train is on time at San Marcos that you will be arriving in San Antonio about one hour early.

 

[Texan Eagle]

I'm taking the Sunset/Texas Eagle tomorrow (Tuesday) evening from Tucson to Los Angeles. SL is on time, but TE is running about 3-1/2 hours behind schedule. Will that time be made up tonight in San Antonio?

If it does not hit delay due to another reason, the 3-1/2 hour delay that TE is having now would be wiped out in the night at San Antonio. TE is scheduled to arrive into San Antonio at 9.45pm and depart at 2.45am after combining with SL, so even if it arrives by midnight it will still have plenty of time to depart on schedule.

Just looked at the timetable on Amtrak's web site, and it says 9:55pm arrival, but I am not about to quibble about 10 minutes. The point I was looking to make is that a 3 1/2 hour late TE does not necessarily mean arriving at San Antonio 3 1/2 hours late. The normal practice is to put in a certain amount of fat just ahead of the terminating point to make the keeping schedule look better without introducing a lot of "waiting for time" along the way. The general practice of the railroad companies pre-Amtrak was to make this around 15 minutes, and commonly less for premier trains. Amtrak normally makes it larger, sometimes MUCH larger.

When you look at the timetable, you will see that for the 53 miles between San Antonio and San Marcos the schedule allots 1 hour 32 minutes northbound and 2 hours 43 minutes southbound. Even considering that there can be some extra shuffling around in the final approach, this still suggests that there is an hour of padding just ahead of the San Antonio arrival. Therefore, if you look at how the train is doing now, if things do not get worse, then you can assume that the San Antonio arrival will be about one hour earlier than how ever late you are now would suggest. It also means that if the train is on time at San Marcos that you will be arriving in San Antonio about one hour early.

Yes I know there is a fat padding coming into San Antonio. What I was suggesting is that even in case TE is not able to cover up any delay and ends up in San Antonio 3 and half hours late, still it will have enough time to do the car shuffle to SL move and depart from San Antonio afresh without any delay*

*Conditions apply