Intercity, commuter, and local passenger rail systems contine to adjust to the COVID-19 outbreak. Here are the latest service changes as of Tuesday morning:
— Amtrak has announced further reductions. Because Amtrak continues to adjust schedules, check Amtrak.com or Amtrak smartphone apps for the latest status. Here are changes as of Monday evening:
– Effective Wednesday, March 18, all Keystone Service trains are suspended; the New York-Philadelphia-Pittsburgh Pennsylvanian will be suspended as of Thursday, March 19. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf ordered a statewide shutdown of non-essential activity on Monday evening.
– In New York state, Empire Service and Ethan Allen Express trains are operating on reduced schedules; changes for New England’s Downeaster will see trains 688 and 689 suspended beginning Tuesday, and trains 683 and 683 beginning Wednesday. Beginning Saturday, there will be two sets of trains on weekends.
– Amtrak Cascades trains will not operate north of Seattle following the closure of Pacific Central Station in Vancouver, British Columbia. Thruway bus service north of Seattle will continue.
— As of Monday, Connecticut’s Shore Line East commuter service has joined its Hartford Line with reduced operations. The routes between New Haven and New London, Conn., is operating on a weekend schedule. More details are available here.
— The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority is reducing Regional Rail schedules as of today. Until further notice, Regional Rail trains will operate on an “Enhanced Saturday Schedule;” details are available here. PATCO, which operates between Philadelphia and Lindenwold, N.J., is also reducing frequencies; details are available here.
— Beginning today, Metro Transit in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area will suspend service between 11 p.m. and 4:30 a.m. on its light rail and bus routes, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports.
— Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit is suspending weekend service through at least Sunday, April 5. Weekday service is currently unchanged, but the agency cautions that it will make “adjustments as necessary, on a day-to-day basis.”
Anna, I don’t have any idea what town you are in, but other than paper products and hand sanitizers, some stores in our area (Fort Worth, Texas) seem to have good stocks of produce and packaged goods and prices are normal, although I went to a military commissary and the shelves were mostly empty and the meat department was closed.
My good friend who is a UP engineer hasn’t gone to work for several days.
It used to be the locals would raid a local rail yard to break in some box cars and steal some Budweiser. Now they break in to get into the Scotts toilet paper unit train from Idaho. Who knew?
Instead of Powder River Coal, BNSF is shipping Charmin Powder Fresh TP. 🙂
The Purell plant is running behind on making more sanitizer because UP won’t switch in the bulk alcohol anymore under their new PSR rules. (*this is a joke and is not true*)
Just a minor dose of sarcasm in these very unusual times.
Here in NYC they are enforcing against price gouging. I think defined as prices more than 10% above normal
John Rice – Re freight volumes on rail, sick truckers, etc. – Did y’all see the piece on 60 Minutes on Sunday about driverless 18-wheelers? No fantasy, coming to an interstate near you maybe next year. Remarkable technology. Not one word about US commerce having the slightest dependence on rail. Only question they passed on was what about the accident with a trooper waving traffic past one at a time. Better be a damn smart truck.
I just came back from the market. Panic abounds.
There are two supermarkets in this town, I was at the first just before opening. This being Tuesday, normally the place is deserted. This morning the parking lot was jammed.
There was a rush for the front door when it was unlocked.
Iceberg lettuce: $7.99/head.
Corn tortillas, 8 pack: $4.99
Whole milk: $7.99/gallon
Toilet paper: none.
Paper towels: none.
Asparagus: $10.99/bundle.
The produce section looked like it had been stripped bare. No carrots, potatoes, celery, or tomatoes.
I got what I could and headed for the second supermarket. The line was out the door and down the sidewalk. They were letting in people five at a time.
No milk. No bread. No toilet paper. No paper towels. No hand sanitizer. They had Rotel – we eat a lot of Mexican and I make salsa from it. $3.99/can. The grape tomatoes ($7.99/lb) had that wizened look they get from having been on the shelf too long. This place didn’t have iceberg lettuce but had three-packs of romaine for $9.99.
People were buying whatever they could. I saw a couple of incidents of people taking stuff out of other people’s carts and putting it in theirs.
Bugger the usual disclaimer. This is no time for levity.
And when that air plane returns to Tahiti they will now infect the islands, Why could one worker not refuel the plane at LA?
Silly to thing there are places to ship T paper from as likely the mills and warehouses are closing. Maybe we should have shut every airline down like on 9/11/01.
Just read that Air Tahiti just set a distance record for a single flight due to the virus rules. It flew 16 hours from Tahiti to Paris non-stop. 15,745nm. They normally stop in LA to refuel but didn’t. Since Tahiti is a French colony, it was considered a domestic flight.
It will be interesting to watch how this pandemic pushes transportation technology, rail, air.
Will freight volumes collapse on rail due to the shift in demand? Will it grow due to the number of sick truckers?
Are there enough rail cars to ship all the toilet paper the US needs? 🙂
Regarding driverless vehicles, until the insurance industry signs off on them, which is many miles down the road, you’ll be dealing with traditional human operators – be that for better or worse.
Oregon is an alcohol control state, which means if you want booze you have to buy it from the state store.
I wandered into the bottle shop today, primarily to stock up on cooking wine and a German brandy I use to make soups. There was a line to get into the store, but when I got in the shelves were bare.
The prices had not gone up – this is a government store – but the stock was gone.
People evidently figure that drinking may not help against the virus but at least they can show it a good time.
Glenn Riley, that’s nothing here in Indianapolis, someone is/was charging $123.00 per bottle of Purrell hand sanitizer on Facebook Marketplace. I got a good laugh out of that one. Hoping Amtrak gets financial help along the line of what the airlines are going to receive. I have my doubts.
Airlines get 50 billion what does Amtrak get.
How about the guy from TN who stockpiled 17,000 bottles of hand sanitizer tried selling them on Amazon & Ebay for $8-15 each they shut him down now the state is considering charges against him so he’s donating them to charity. This guy ought to be publicly flogged!!
John Rice: Maybe the Class I railroads should stop retiring their boxcar fleet. They need the fleet now for hauling more loads of TP, which is in extreme demand during this national crisis.