CHICAGO — In the latest round of Amtrak operating issues, fallout from days of late trains has again inconvenienced passengers along the Empire Builder’s Chicago-Seattle/Portland, Ore., route, causing cancellation of one round trip.
Other significant disruptions befell Southwest Chief and Lake Shore Limited departures, and reports say VIA Rail Canada’s westbound Canadian encountered snow-covered frozen switches lacking heaters, causing a 6-hour standstill at Nokomis, Sask., east of Saskatoon.
As is generally the case, the exact cause of en-route breakdowns are not always revealed in status reports, but malfunctioning locomotives remain the leading suspects.
Friday’s eastbound Builder from Seattle and Portland was cancelled after delays to the westbound train departing Chicago on Feb. 5 suffered another lengthy pause. That five-hour stop occurred waiting for a sufficiently rested operating crew at Whitefish, Mont., after the train endured a locomotive swap west of Stanley, N.D. [see, “Amtrak mechanical challenges …,” Trains News Wire, Feb. 6.,2025]. Its two sections arrived on the West Coast about 20 hours late this morning (Saturday, Feb. 8). With no spare equipment in Chicago, Monday’s westbound train is being cancelled.
Meanwhile, the westbound Builder departing Chicago Friday afternoon experienced “engine issues with the trainset,” according to Amtrak’s train status report, after departing St. Cloud, Minn., on time. A photo taken at Rugby, N.D., today revealed that a BNSF Railway freight locomotive was coupled in front of three Siemens ALC42s. Running 7 hours, 48 minutes late as of its most recent stop (Stanley, N.D., at 6:34 p.m.) , this train will likely be short-turned at Spokane, Wash., with buses substituted to Seattle and Portland, Ore. The fact that there is no eastbound counterpart across Montana complicates the crew turn situation, so there may be other cascading disruptions.
Among the other trains registering lengthy delays:
— Thursday’s eastbound Southwest Chief out of Los Angeles sustained “engine issues adding a freight engine” between Fullerton and Riverside, Calif. Because another Amtrak locomotive apparently wasn’t available from Amtrak’s Redondo Junction engine terminal, what was originally a 5-hour delay grew to 10 hours by the time the train reached Kansas City, Mo., this afternoon.
— Friday’s westbound Lake Shore Limited was stopped seven hours between Utica and Syracuse, N.Y. It arrived into Chicago at 4:51 p.m. Saturday afternoon, 6 hours, 39 minutes behind schedule.
— The Floridian lost another 4 hours between Toledo and Elkhart, Ind., on Saturday. It arrived Chicago at 3:11 p.m., 6 hours, 26 minutes late and less than two hours before the tardy Lake Shore.
— The eastbound California Zephyr was 6 hours late leaving Truckee, Calif., after being held there while UP forces repaired a broken rail on Thursday. It made up some time, arriving in Chicago at 7:05 p.m., 4 hours, 26 minutes late.
As a result, few east-west passengers were able to make scheduled long-distance connections at Chicago today in either direction. Only the westbound Cardinal was close to on time arriving. This evening’s eastbound Floridian is, at this writing, scheduled for a one-hour departure delay “due to the late arrival of inbound equipment,” while the eastbound Lake Shore is currently slated to depart at midnight, 2 hours, 30 minutes late, although Amtrak’s website says “a delay of up to approximately 3 hours is anticipated.”
In Canada, VIA Rail Canada’s westbound Canadian leaving Toronto on Wednesday, Feb. 5, cooled its heels for 6 hours in rural Saskatchewan Friday, according to information received by News Wire, because switch heaters were not operating across Canadian National’s 247-mile Watrous Subdivision between Biggar and Melville, Sask. The twice-weekly flagship, whose schedule is generously padded with hours of recovery time, remained 6 hours late at Jasper, Alta., on Saturday.
The Canadian has had both early and late Toronto and Vancouver, B.C. arrivals lately, but had a rough January when a number of mid-month westbounds operated up to 18 hours late as a result of freight congestion and mechanical failures.
As someone who got tagged with working on Beech Starships, it can take awhile to get the bugs out of new machines. But at this point maybe give in and buy a bunch of Phase VII painted ES44’s
Instead of making an assumption and making fools out of everyone involved, could the staff authors notice that the Lake Shore delay occurred approximately 800 feet west of a grade crossing?
“and reports say VIA Rail Canada’s westbound Canadian encountered snow-covered frozen switches lacking heaters, causing a 6-hour standstill at Nokomis, Sask., east of Saskatoon.”
I doubt the switches were lacking heaters. I’d wager they had heaters, but they weren’t working. Or, in the event of a sustained ground blizzard, switch heaters are of little use because the melting show creates a puddle of water and the snow above creates an ice crust making accessing the switch points nearly impossible.
CN does not have switch heaters on the Watrous Sub they have switch blowers for the reasons you stated about melting snow.
@Barry Williams, do you know if these are hot or cold air blowers? Wonder if that would make a difference?
This article is highly appreciated, in promptness and degree of detail. This really keeps the “news” in “News Wire.” I still have an empty feeling in my stomach seeing the author referred to as “Trains Staff.” I would really like to give mental and verbal credit to whoever did most of the work, especially on a weekend. I can “smell” Bob Johnston, Bill Stephens, David Lassen & maybe others from the wording. Anyone at Firecrown listening? WALTER FRITZ, OBER, INDIANA 574-772-4766
Who and what is Firecrown? Seems like Kalmbach Publishing has descended into the same cheap for them pain in the butt for readers/ customers cesspool as others businesses have done. Bet calling Firecrown for Customer Service gets you an operator in a foreign country with an accent so thick that they are impossible to understand.
This was incorrectly credited as a Trains Staff story. It is a Bob Johnston article and that has been corrected.