The Silver Serices & DST

[rmgreenesq]

Greetings Gang:

I hit the rails Saturday morning. I'm off to thaw out and practice law in Ft. Lauderdale. I'm on the Regional to NY Penn and on the Silver Meteor to Ft. Lauderdale, arriving Sunday evening.

I've read on here that when DST "springs ahead" the conductor advances the his/her/the train's clock and the train is instantly an hour late. Is there sufficient padding in the Silver Service' schedule to absorb the hour? Is the Amtrak-Freight Railroad relationship sufficiently friendly to even consider making up that hour somwhere?

Thanks in advance for any/all opinions.

Rick

 

[PRR 60]

A quick check of the timetable does not show an obvious padding segment. My guess is that "on-schedule" this weekend will be arrival one-hour late. I would not expect any significant making-up of time after the clocks shift.

 

[Bill Haithcoat]

And keep in mind it will not just be your train affected--it will be all the trains up and down the line in each direction. So.....it could be very interesting what will actually happen to get that coordinated. And of course you do not know if your train will be on time when it happens, either. If it is already say, an hour late, then it will automatically become two hours late!

Somehow it seems to me that it is probably easier, operations-wise, in the fall when trains have to sit for an hour to catch up with the time (if they are on time already) . And when that happens, trains which had been one hour late suddenly become on time!

 

[AmtrakWPK]

Rick - You are taking the train when it is most likely to be on time - leaving Saturday for a Sunday arrival, traveling the entire time during the weekend when there is less freight interference. And the Meteor has been doing real well the bast few days -

Status for train 97 arriving into MIA

2007-03-07: Scheduled: 6:55 pm Actual: 6:42 pm 13 minutes EARLY

2007-03-06: Scheduled: 6:55 pm Actual: 6:22 pm 33 minutes EARLY

2007-03-05: Scheduled: 6:55 pm Actual: 6:58 pm Delay: 3 minutes

2007-03-04: Scheduled: 6:55 pm Actual: 6:47 pm 8 minutes EARLY

2007-03-03: Scheduled: 6:55 pm Actual: 7:39 pm Delay: 44 minutes

2007-03-02: Scheduled: 6:55 pm Actual: 7:24 pm Delay: 29 minutes

On the other hand, for the balance of the past three weeks, it has frequently been quite late, up to 7 hours, and the average since Feb 16th was over two hours late.

If this continues, you may well be less than an hour late, as the trip from West Palm on south is for detraining pax only - it does not take on any passengers at any of those stations, and if there are no passengers to be detrained at a particular station, it doesn't even stop there. Also, of course, since they only stop for detraining pax, it doesn't matter when they leave those stations, so if they get to a station 20 minutes early, they don't have to wait for scheduled time before they can leave - if they leave a given station 45 minutes early, that's ok, no problem. You still do have the (weekend schedule) Tri-Rail commuter trains to contend with, which do stop at more stations than Amtrak does along the southeast FL coast, but Tri-Rail trains make REAL short station stops.

If I think about it, I'll go down to WPK and wave as you go by. If I haven't gone back to bed to catch up on that hour of sleep, after playing the morning church service

 

[rmgreenesq]

If I think about it, I'll go down to WPK and wave as you go by. If I haven't gone back to bed to catch up on that hour of sleep, after playing the morning church service

It is noon and we are just pullin gout of JAX. We are about 2 1/2 hours behind. 1 1/2 hours due to a fatal freight train versus auto accident last night. The other hour is the DST time change.

Should you decide to come, I'm in room 3 (on the starboard side of the train) in the sleeper nearest to the baggage car.

Rick

 

[AmtrakWPK]

Sorry, Rick it just didn't work out this time. I had a fairly narrow time window and you fell outside of it - we had to be in a place called Narcoosie, quite a ways south and a little east of Orlando, by 3 pm. 43 stoplights away, to be exact (aaaaaarrrggggghhhhhhh!!!!!). We'll try again some other time. Keep us up to date. Try to get down into the Keys for awhile, go bake and swim and snorkel at Bahia Honda State Park for a day or two. It's just beautiful down there.... Water temperature in the Keys right now is in the mid to upper 70's (F).

 

[Guest_Amtrak OBS Employee_*]

If I think about it, I'll go down to WPK and wave as you go by. If I haven't gone back to bed to catch up on that hour of sleep, after playing the morning church service

It is noon and we are just pullin gout of JAX. We are about 2 1/2 hours behind. 1 1/2 hours due to a fatal freight train versus auto accident last night. The other hour is the DST time change.

Should you decide to come, I'm in room 3 (on the starboard side of the train) in the sleeper nearest to the baggage car.

Rick

I saw your train today, Rick. They pulled y'all in behind a coal train at Barberville, and backed you out after #98 went by. I saw the tail end of your train at the DLD station again (after I passed by y'all at Barberville) as the train was leaving the station. Hope you have a good time. OBS...

 

[rmgreenesq]

I saw your train today, Rick. They pulled y'all in behind a coal train at Barberville, and backed you out after #98 went by. I saw the tail end of your train at the DLD station again (after I passed by y'all at Barberville) as the train was leaving the station. Hope you have a good time. OBS...

So that's why we backe up. The Sleeper Attendant was just as mistified as I was as to the backing move.

Had a great time. Looking forward to my next train ride tomorrow.

Rick