DAYTON, Texas — Nineteen people were injured when the eastbound Sunset Limited collided with a truck in rural Liberty County, Texas on Friday afternoon.
The train hit the truck about 4 p.m. near Dayton, about 40 miles northeast of Houston, the Houston Chronicle reports. The newspaper quoted Amtrak spokeswoman Kimberly Woods as saying the train was damaged but did not derail; the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office reported the front wheels of the lead locomotive left the track.
WPVI-TV reports 18 passengers were injured, along with the driver of the truck.
How did the accident happen? Truck stalled or stuck on the track? Tried to beat the train?
I recently visited Spain. In Spain, the passenger trains run everywhere, fast, and on-time. Of course, this comes from a will to run good trains. I noticed two things. One, there weren’t that many major highways except in the urban areas, an indication that they allocate their transportation funds differently. Two, the passenger lines largely ran parallel to, but not on, the freight lines. We could, if we had the will, do the same thing. Of course, this would require a major rethinking about how we allocate transportation funds. I guess that’s never going to happen. Everywhere, fast and on-time is not in the cards in this country.
I guess the only thing worse would be a box lunch in the dining car.
Nine hours, nine minutes late into NO after hitting a truck. Shoot, the Broken Eagle, my unofficial name for the Texas Eagle, often arrives in San Antonio in time for the passengers to see the sun come up. Which would be OK if it were not for the fact that it is due in SAN at 9:55 pm. And it does not have to hit anything.
According to the Houston Chronicle, the train was carrying 70 passengers. All of them could have been squeezed into one coach or nearly one coach.
What is not to like about a thrice weekly passenger train that had an average load factor of 49 percent in FY18, was on-time percentage of 49.4 percent at its end points, and lost $35.1 million before depreciation, interest, and miscellaneous capital expenses.
The June 8th Texas Eagle arrived in San Antonio shortly after 4 am on June 9th. Number 21 arrived in San Antonio at 4:05 am on June 21st. And the August 9th train was estimating San Antonio at 3.52 am. I gave up checking; most of the people that I know think the OTP for the long-distance trains is a joke.
In 2018 the Texas Eagle was on-time at its end points (Chicago and San Antonio) 46.4 percent of the time.
On a year-to-date basis through March 2019, the Texas Eagle’s average all station on-time performance (OTP) was 33.5 percent. By June 2019 the average OTP for all intermediate stations had dropped to 20.9 percent.
The average time late per rider for the three months ended March 31, 2019 was 110 minutes or nearly two hours. In June the average number of minutes late had risen to 154 minutes.
The Eagle’s tardiness appears to show in the numbers: In 2016 the Eagle carried 387,853 passengers. In 2018 it was 346,000. Based on an annualization of the results for the first three quarters of 2019, the estimate for 2019 is approximately 316,000, which would be a decline of approximately 19 percent since 2016.
The word spreads. Passengers that have had a bad time on the train tell their family, friends, and associates. People find an alternative. Especially when arriving in San Antonio just before dawn is in the cards!
Make it daily. Run it on time. Effectively market it. Extend it, and restore service between NOL and JAX or align it with connections at NOL to restored NOL-BLX-MOB-PNS-JAX service.
Mr Smith on what dates has the Texas Eagle arrived at sunrise? The Texas Eagle has been arriving 1-2 hours late in San Antonio. There is a considerable amount of padding in the arrival time in San Antonio. The padding is such that frequently the Texas Eagle arrives at times 30 minutes to an hour early.
The ‘Sunset Limited’ was already three hours late arriving into Houston. The train proceeded to New Orleans from the collision site (reportedly minus the lead locomotive, P42 Number 20, according to CBS affiliate KHOU11) more than nine hours late.