Only two routes suffered cancellations: two St. Louis-Kansas City Missouri River Runner morning trains in each direction on Saturday, Jan. 12, and the Indianapolis-New York segment of the Cardinal the following day.
Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari tells Trains News Wire that the Missouri cancellations, “were a consensus decision reached after consulting with the host railroads and our state partners, and reviewing information from our private meteorology firms.” He says the Cardinal decision was made early Sunday morning when heavy snowfall was predicted in isolated areas of West Virginia. The westbound train leaving Chicago Saturday night had been delayed about two hours en route to Indianapolis near Lafayette, Ind., owing to a mechanical problem.
Despite more than a foot of snow from central Illinois to Kansas City, Mo., a Trains News Wire analysis reveals most Lincoln Service, Hiawatha, Chicago-Carbondale, Ill., and Chicago-Quincy, Ill., trains ran on time. The major exception was Saturday’s Southwest Chief, which lost three hours between Galesburg, Ill., and Fort Madison, Iowa; it arrived four hours late into Los Angeles on Monday.
Further east, the most significant delays occurred south of Washington, D.C., Sunday, where both the southbound Palmetto and Carolinian lost more than two hours. The northbound Silver Star was combined with an already-tardy Carolinian out of Richmond, Va.. Other delays cropped up Sunday evening at Washington with the southbound Crescent, Silver Meteor, and Richmond-bound train no. 87 all delayed making the engine change from electric to diesel; the Meteor departed almost three hours late.
Meanwhile today (Wednesday) in California, Interstate 80 has been closed to westbound traffic at Truckee due to spin-outs, according to the California Highway Patrol, as a storm that might being more than three feet of snow to the Sierra Nevada mountains moves in. Amtrak’s California Zephyr is operating through the area in both directions; however, no coach seats —only roomettes — are available on the eastbound train departing Sacramento.
The storm, which is bringing heavy rain and accompanying mudslides to the southern coast along the Pacific Surfliner corridor, is set to move across the country through the end of the week. A blast of arctic air will follow, testing Amtrak and host railroad crews again.
This is news? The once “all weather mode” makes it through snowstorms!
This sentence doesn’t make sense.
“The westbound train leaving Chicago Saturday night had been delayed about two hours en route to Indianapolis near Lafayette, Ind., owing to a mechanical problem.”
Indianapolis is EAST of Chicago. When the Cardinal leaves Chicago, it is Eastbound to New York.
Any clarification available?
I live in St. louis and we did get slammed with 13″, maybe more according to different reports. I am not surprised they did cancel the River Runners, but some provision should have been made for LD customers on the Cardinal and others. I know a few years ago when there was a terrible storm in Chi, the agents in CUS were putting LD people up in hotels, our railfan group got a bus to bring us back to St. L, and there were about 13 buses waiting to take people to other places. Probably under “propeller head” things are different, the heck with customers, airlines no longer make provisions like TWA did for us due to a bad storm in NYC, plane set down in Hartford, CT and we were bused to JFK. Everyone had their connections changed smoothly, we were put up for the night in hotel and got 2 meal vouchers and cab voucher to get to JFK the next evening to catch our plane for Madrid. We were on TWA Getaway tour but they were taking care of everyone not just us. Not that way today from what I hear.
Mark Magliari is not correct in saying that the decision on the Cardinal was made on Sunday Morning, Reservations made in November from Philadelphia were cancelled on Friday morning January 11, with no alternative provided. We were fortunate to garb a bedroom on the Lake Shore Limited from. New York to Chicago. Since there is no suitable baggage service between Philadelphia and New York we were told we could not bring all our baggage with us (with no sympathy or suggestion shown by the Amtrak telephone agent). We ended up taking Septa and New Jersey transit with our luggage until we reached New York. This was totally no for Amtrak to run a business with high-price paying customers!
Amtrak still can’t make the electric to diesel and vice versa power change at WUS in a timely manner. Southern used to do it on the Southern Crescent prior to 1979 with the precision of a military drill. I’ve ridden both the Southern and Amtrak versions. Amtrak owns the NEC and WUS. What’s the problem other than mgt incompetence?