Why is the cardinal trains 50 and 51 always late ?

[amtrakrider]

yeah when i did a search for photos of the cardinal train it showed as the pacific parlour being in the photos and superliner cars and these were in the latest paint scheme's and the photos were dated for 2003 and some even for 2004 and the last time i was on the cardinal was back in 2004 but i was on it before then like in the summer of 2003.

If you saw a PPC on the Cardinal, then it most likely was being towed from Chicago to Beech Grove, Amtrak's heavy repair shops near Indianapolis. The Cardinal is often used to get cars to/from those shops. But the PPC has never run in revenue service on the Cardinal.

well in the photo it didnt look like it cause it seemed that it was being used for passenger serivce i will have to look for the photo again on line and look at it more closely but that is what it looked like but i could be wrong

 

[had8ley]

Well with the Cardinal typically only pulling 4 to 5 cars, it's easy enough to tack on another 5 or so for the regional

I keep forgetting that there are much shorter LDs than what we have down here (Silver Star, Silver Meteor) and also the former Silver Palm/Palmetto and Sunset that used to be here. The Star and Meteor are usually 44-48 axles in length (2 engines plus 9-10 cars).

Yes sir. Even the Superlined City of New Orleans looks skimpy compared to some of the Silver Service trains especially when they run three Viewliner sleepers and two units. One engine is the name of the game all the way to Chicago from New Orleans and usually about a 6 car consist total.

Hmm, I thought that Amtrak had undone that policy of running only one motor on an LD for all trains. Have you seen a recent consist with only one?

I know that they don't do it here in the east anymore, per their agreement with CSX and NS.

Au contrire, mon frere; The City runs religiously with only one unit in both directions. I think many of the southern end people will back me up on this.

 

[AmtrakFan]

yeah when i did a search for photos of the cardinal train it showed as the pacific parlour being in the photos and superliner cars and these were in the latest paint scheme's and the photos were dated for 2003 and some even for 2004 and the last time i was on the cardinal was back in 2004 but i was on it before then like in the summer of 2003.

If you saw a PPC on the Cardinal, then it most likely was being towed from Chicago to Beech Grove, Amtrak's heavy repair shops near Indianapolis. The Cardinal is often used to get cars to/from those shops. But the PPC has never run in revenue service on the Cardinal.

well in the photo it didnt look like it cause it seemed that it was being used for passenger serivce i will have to look for the photo again on line and look at it more closely but that is what it looked like but i could be wrong

Do you have a link to the Photo?

 

[George Harris]

If you properly maintain your one engine, you don't need two for a six car train.

 

[AlanB]

If you properly maintain your one engine, you don't need two for a six car train.

Agreed. Unfortunately Amtrak's record for properly maintaining them hasn't been steller. It was after several engine failures on CSX that they insisted that Amtrak go back to running two engines when on CSX in return for time keeping improvements from CSX.

 

[George Harris]

If you properly maintain your one engine, you don't need two for a six car train.

Agreed. Unfortunately Amtrak's record for properly maintaining them hasn't been steller. It was after several engine failures on CSX that they insisted that Amtrak go back to running two engines when on CSX in return for time keeping improvements from CSX.

And that is why a poor level of maintenance is a false economy. It has got to be cheaper to keep one engine in a really good state of maintenance that to cover the cost of poorly maintaining and running two because you need a backup due to frequent line of road failures.

 

[AmtrakWPK]

And gives you another engine to use on another train, or it gives you time to do more in-depth maintenance/repair and even proper PM on that equipment, instead of having to do hurry-up maintenance between runs because you don't have enough equipment otherwise.

 

[AlanB]

And gives you another engine to use on another train, or it gives you time to do more in-depth maintenance/repair and even proper PM on that equipment, instead of having to do hurry-up maintenance between runs because you don't have enough equipment otherwise.

Well with the demise of Express Trak, Amtrak has more than enough engines to go around. In fact that's why the mothballed the P40's, although some have now been leased out.

 

[AmtrakWPK]

They may have enough engines in operating inventory if they actually keep them all maintained properly. Do we really know whether they are adequately maintaining more than the number absolutely needed, so that if they had a few unexpected failures, or a couple of bad grade crossing accidents, they wouldn't immediately be "on the ropes", as it were? Between insufficient funding and bad management decisions, the (pardon the pun) track record on repair and mantenance isn't that great. After all, that's why the freight RRs demanded they run two engines on trains that objectively don't need two.