WASHINGTON — While Amtrak’s string of weather-related cancellations in the Midwest is officially over, the company continues to deal with a pattern of equipment issues on the Northeast Corridor.
Six Acela trains have been cancelled to begin today (Jan. 24, 2025) because of “equipment unavailability,” while a seventh has been scrubbed because of mechanical issues. Four Northeast Regional trains have also been cancelled because of equipment unavailability, according to posts on the Amtrak NEC Alerts feed on X.com.
The cancellations announced as of 6:50 a.m. ET include New York-Washington Acelas Nos. 2103, a 5:30 a.m. departure, 2107, a 6:30 a.m. departure, and 2121, a 2:15 p.m. train; Boston-Washington train 2155 (7:15 a.m.); Washington-New York trains 2108 (10:30 a.m.) and 2122 (5:30 p.m.); and 2172, a 4 p.m. Washington-Boston train. Northeast Regional cancellations are Nos. 111 (New York-Washington, 4:50 a.m.), 119 (New York-Washington, 11:13 a.m.), 130 (Washington-New York, 6:30 a.m.), and 182 (Washington-New York, 9:35 a.m.).
Today’s cancellations follow four on Thursday, Jan. 23, for “equipment issues” or “equipment unavailability,” and six on Wednesday Jan. 22, for the same reasons. Another five were cancelled for the same reasons on Tuesday, Jan. 21, in addition to one cancelled between Newark, N.J., and New York because of “ongoing delays resulting from mechanical issues.”
It’s fine for all of us passenger train supporters to complain about Amtrak’s winter weather train cancellations. But we are simply “preaching to the choir”. This solves nothing. What each of us should be doing is contacting our state transportation and Congressional Representatives to file complaints. We should also be contacting the chairman of the Congressional Railroad subcommittee, representative Daniel Webster, along with new Transportation Secretary Duffey, the Amtrak Board of Directors, etc. Current Amtrak management DOES NOT WANT long distance passenger trains and they are doing everything in their power to turn customers away —
(1) They cancel trains, making the service and dependable,
(2) They refuse to add additional coaches and sleepers to handle more customers,
(3) They refuse to offer quality meal service to ALL passengers by not operating dining cars and lounge cars on every train.
The Amtrak executive bonus system is backwards by solely focusing on cost-cutting instead of increasing passenger miles and long-distance revenue. But nothing will change unless we, the passenger train advocates, push for changes.
Midwest weather issues over? Then why has today’s Boreanus just departed Chicago over 5hrs late? The excuses are just ridiculous. Wonder how many times the Zephyrs, Builders, 400’s, and Hi’s ever got cancelled because the weather was a little iffy. Back then it there was a sense of pride in keeping things moving. Today, not so much.
As a Wisconsin taxpayer, why am I paying for this zhyt?
I would say to Charles Landy that the same principle applies to taxpayers in New York paying for federal highways in very rural states that those states would otherwise not be able to afford.
Amtrak is run like the State of California…Always waiting for the Federal Government to bail them out, fix it or give them more money to squander on things they don’t need and/or bonuses they haven’t earned. Maybe they ought to bid the whole system out to a Brighline or Herzog or some other contractor based on the initial charter given by Congress and paid to make it work. Would probably result in better and cheaper results as it seems no one is responsible for any kind of administrative results at Amtrak. The fish stinks from the head down…
Supposedly Midwest cancellations are officially over, but the on the SteelHighway webcam at Columbus, WI I observed that Friday’s Westbound “BoringAlice” was about 4 hours late as was the WB Empire Builder. Eastbound #8 was, as I recall a few hours late, but eastbound 1340 Borealis never showed up that I could find by slowing scrolling back. The last report on it on the webcam showed it as “Overdue”.
The WB Boring Alice goes through Brookfield Township (past and present home of TRAINS Magazine), where I live, on the way to Columbus. This is the mildest winter weather you could possibly imagine. If the train is 4 hours late WB, imagine if we had snow or cold. We don’t have either. It was cold and a bit of snow a few days ago but not on the day of David’s observation (above) which was yesterday.
Amtrak continues to fall apart. What else can you say?
What else can I say? I can say that 55 years ago we put a man on the moon but 55 years later we can’t build a locomotive than runs. I can say that when the temperature drops to 34 degrees F (that’s 34 ABOVE zero) it’s too cold to run a train in Wisconsin. I can say that my wife who has lived parts of her life at 50 BELOW zero is disgusted.
A thought. What is the cancellation rate for the class 1s on the same routes? One item I worry about is the tree problem on many routes. Since the demise of code line tree removal many trees have had growth time to become major problems.
Canceltrak is a more adept name I would say..
They really need to get the new Acelas up and running who knows if the old ones are gonna last until the spring. This winter might be the death of them.
The above picture certainly shows how the Elizabeth curves restrict max speeds. An example of how Amtrak cannot maintain consistent speeds on the whole route from NYP – WASH.
The AX-1’s are so worn out. Took a trip to Boston and back from Philly in Dec and holy crap they are clapped out. Shocks are beat and they look horrible outside (dirty, missing body parts and cosmetic cracks/dents) but I will say they still got up to speed and were zipping thru Jersey and RI. These things are on their last legs. When are the AX-2’s going to start service? This is embarrassing: Amerika at it’s worst
Is this a result of Amtrak refusing to buy enough spare parts for the AX-1s? That refusal may have come due to Amtrak’s unreasonable expectation that AX-2s would be ready last year.
It certainly sounds like the first generation Acelas are in their death throes. And their second generation replacements, Avelias, are struggling to be born.
I wonder if Amtrak is in its death throes.