WASHINGTON — New Amtrak guidelines on special trains and private cars issued Wednesday provide a few exceptions from its original plan — to only allow private car moves between a train’s originating and terminating point — but will largely eliminate such moves at intermediate spots along Amtrak routes.
Amtrak originally revealed new limitations on these services in a March 28 memo to employees, saying its primary objective is to operate its core, scheduled service safely, punctually, and efficiently.
Under the guidelines issued April 18, Amtrak will only accommodate private cars moves at terminals where trains originate or terminate, or at facilities with sufficient dwell time to accommodate the time needed to switch private cars. The latter group of cities includes such locations as Albuquerque, N.M.; Denver; Houston; Kansas City; and St. Paul, Minn.
In all, the list includes 40 locations eligible for private-car moves. (The complete list is available here.) For those with cars currently located at stops not on the list, such as Huntington, W.Va., the railroad says it will work with private car owners on a one-time, one-way relocation move via Amtrak to a terminal or yard where private cars will still be permitted to operate.
Also, all private car moves will now require case-by-case written approval by Amtrak.
The guidelines also indicate Amtrak will limit maintenance service for private-car owners to FRA-required repairs of safety appliances as necessary on private cars in the consist of Amtrak trains. Amtrak will no longer allow private-car owners to pay Amtrak’s maintenance services for preventative maintenance and general repair services. Previously, Amtrak mechanical forces would repair privately owned cars and bill their owners.
Wednesday’s memo also clarified Amtrak’s restrictions on special-train operations.
Charter trains must operate on existing Amtrak routes. One-time trips — a special or charter that isn’t already established in the Amtrak system — will no longer be accommodated.
For instance, the Collis P. Huntington Railroad Historical Society could continue to run its New River Train excursion because it is an established train and operates on an Amtrak route.
Even so, additional restrictions could make it difficult for established special trains to continue. Charter trains proposing to use Amtrak locomotives, equipment, and personnel are subject to the availability of those resources and must not impact regularly scheduled operations. In addition, Amtrak says charter trains must generate sufficient financial benefit for Amtrak to justify the resources and assets.
Amtrak did not elaborate on how it calculates the financial benefits for such operations.
Similar to private car moves, Amtrak-operated special trains are subject to a final written agreement signed by Amtrak and the customer.
Trains News Wire will continue to follow this developing story.
— Updated 11:25 a.m. CDT to fix link.
Toledo Union Station despite having a private car track is not on the list
And when will we hear of Amtrak at least still allowing the 611 to operate on their routes, and not just on the former Norfolk and Western main line as well as the former Southern Railway main line between Lynchburg and Spencer along with the B-line?
KENNETH ATTENHOFER, Just look at today’s Crescent NB or SB. Both are over two hours late. Bet there aren’t any private cars on the rear of either of them.
I have missed breakfast on the Cardinal due to freight traffic blocking it. How late? Try 4 hours getting into Charleston WV. On a Sunday you don’t have much choice at the station for food. Fortunately, Jimmy Johns delivers after 1100 to the station and the station agent has their number. 🙂 If it hadn’t been that the SB Meteor was also a half hour late, it would have been a missed connection at Richmond, VA with Amtrak paying for a hotel for the night. And that is with a 5 hour normal wait in Richmond.
Obviously this isn’t the most ideal result, it’s still be better than once feared. It still leaves a lot to be desired though.
This clarification by Amtrak seems to protect the Friends of the (Milwaukee Road) 261 group’s private car fleet moves on Trains 7-8 from MSP. Not sure if the switching can still be done at Midway, or if the cars will need to be brought down to SPUD. The bigger question is whether #261 will run to the Twin Ports on June 9-10th… hoping to see positive news on this front soon.
Was once on a train with a private car to be removed at Monterey, Ca. It took over a half hour for the switcher to get there and pull the car away. I didn’t mind, since I like private ar’s, and then realized I knew the owner of this car. When we got on the train, we didn’t even realize that it had a PV on. This was at 10:00 at night.
That excludes anything special on the Crescent. Just took a trip on it and the NS is barely able to handle their OWN traffic, much less Amtraks!!!
not to belabor this horse too much, but does Amtrak have some sort of common carrier status? PS: Curiously, #3 EB last night, was trailing a private car.
After absorbing this a bit the sentence in a lot of notes that says ‘originating and terminating trains only’ seems to say that quite a few common moves from major terminals are now prohibited. For example its been quite common for the Coast Starlight to add/drop PV cars at the West Oakland yard, but this list shows only Emeryville for originating and terminating, which means only #5 and #6, the Zephyr. Since Portland, OR also shows originating/terminating only it seems the only Coast Starlight PV moves now available are for the entire route, Seattle to Los Angeles. There are several more like this, but this example rules out a day trip via PV along the Pacific Coast.
So-any idea as to when we will find out whether or not the mainline steam excursions are going to run?
Very sad. Passenger trains are Amtrak’s business and private cars and excursions are passenger trains. And Amtrak does get paid. So many illogical things are happening in our government and quasi-government agencies.
Its not like Amtrak is running on time at these intermediate stops. Reading this one would think that delays are not tolerated by Amtrak. Truth is schedules have been padded to compensate for delays…..use some of that time to switch private cars.