Amtrak’s Floridians cancelled by plane crash

BOCA RATON, Fla. — Many events can affect Amtrak service, but a Florida tragedy illustrates that some are far from the passenger operator’s control.

A fatal private plane crash Friday, April 11, on tracks used by Tri-Rail and Amtrak trains caused cancellation of the day’s northbound Floridian and its counterpart east from Chicago today (Sunday, April 13). Three members of a South Florida family were killed in the crash of the six-seat Cessna aircraft, the Palm Beach Post reports. The driver of  a vehicle on an adjacent street was injured. The NTSB is investigating.

In addition, the eastbound Sunset Limited, Texas Eagle, and Empire Builder sustained long delays on their cross-country routes over the weekend, adding to other national network disruptions.

Florida challenges

The plane crash occurred between the Boca Raton and Deerfield Beach Tri-Rail stations about 10:30 a.m. Friday. The northbound Silver Meteor had already passed, so that day’s train was unaffected. Tri-Rail instituted a bus bridge between the two stations until right-of-way cleanup and track repairs were completed; commuter rail service resumed Saturday evening.

Meanwhile, the southbound Meteor was held at Orlando and the Miami-bound Floridian terminated at Tampa. Bus transportation to South Florida destinations was arranged for passengers aboard those trains.

Unfortunately, there was no easy way to bypass the blockage. Florida East Coast tracks can only be accessed through a slow-speed, circuitous industrial connection north of downtown West Palm Beach. Rejoining the Tri-Rail route south of Amtrak’s Hialeah station (used by Tri-Rail express trains to and from Brightline’s MiamiCentral terminal) is also problematic; qualified host railroad pilots would have been necessary to facilitate such complicated moves.

The need for equipment servicing after a two-night trip, normally done overnight at Hialeah, was likely why Friday’s southbound Floridian didn’t assume the day’s northbound schedule. Trains arriving into Tampa must wye east of the stub-end station so they can be backed in.

Thus, although the southbound Floridian arrived at 1:06 p.m. on April 11 and the northbound was scheduled out at 4:45 p.m., Friday’s Chicago-bound train was cancelled. Without equipment, passengers were notified that Sunday’s eastbound Floridian was also cancelled over its entire route. Both the Silver Meteor and Floridian originated at Jacksonville, Fla., northbound through Sunday, April 13, but the day’s southbound arrivals went all the way to Miami.

It was the second major disruption for Floridian service in a week. On April 4, the Chicago-bound Floridian incurred a seven-hour delay after it struck a vehicle between Lakeland, Fla., and Tampa. Running 13 hours late after departing Washington, D.C. at 5:36 a.m. on April 6, the westbound was terminated at Toledo, Ohio. Passengers were bused to Chicago from Toledo and back from the Windy City to the eastbound Floridian as a result.

Texas chain reaction

Another series of events impacted the Texas Eagle and Sunset Limited, whose on-time performance is joined at the hip. The reason for the westbound Eagle’s nine-hour delay on Union Pacific tracks east of Mineola, Tex., on Wednesday, April 9, has not been reported, but it lost another three hours at Dallas, perhaps waiting for a recrew. Because this was one of the three weekly trains that passes a coach and sleeping car to the Sunset Limited at San Antonio, passengers aboard the Los Angeles-bound train from New Orleans waited more than 12 hours, from midnight Wednesday to 12:17 p.m. Thursday, for the connection from Chicago.

The saga didn’t end there. After the train arrived in Los Angeles on Friday at 6:59 p.m. instead of 4:39 a.m., equipment servicing delayed the eastbound Sunset’s departure that evening by more than an hour and a half. The train lost another four hours between Sanderson and Del Rio, Tex. So  the Sunset and eastbound Texas Eagle both departed San Antonio more than five hours late, severely inconveniencing passengers waiting on both routes.

These were not the only setbacks during the past week. It also included an eight-hour eastbound Empire Builder pause west of Williston, N.D., on Saturday, April 12, and the cancellation of the northbound Palmetto out of Savannah, Ga., on April 6, reportedly because of a Charger locomotive failure. The reasons for the other delays were not immediately available, but they all required Amtrak to compensate impacted travelers and could discourage future business.

The freak Florida incident illustrates how some events may be hard to overcome. Who pays for railroad congestion and mechanical breakdowns remains an issue being hashed out by Amtrak, host railroads, and the Surface Transportation Board.  is an part of the puzzle host railroads, Amtrak, and the Surface Transportation Board. [See “‘Passenger interference,” May 2025 Trains Magazine, and “STB asks CN, Amtrak for more information …,” News Wire, April 10, 2025].

The good news: with flooding in western Tennessee subsiding, the City of New Orleans is set to resume its full route in both directions south of Carbondale, Ill., on Tuesday, April 15, after being sidelined for more than a week.