CHICAGO — Amtrak’s “new normal” for handling anticipated severe weather — cancelling trains rather than operating them into a region where a storm is predicted — has proven to be a significant change from decades past when passenger rail earned an “all-weather” reputation. Fewer railroad resources in far-flung locations and Amtrak’s stretched-thin equipment situation are partly responsible. But so is more accurate weather reporting, which predicted how heavy snowfall from winter storms Blair and Cora would trigger local do-not-travel edicts from the Midwest to the Northeast last week.
Keeping trains out of harm’s way prevented the 12- to 24-hour stranding events in remote locations that befell passengers in the past. Both the Crescent and Auto Train ran into well-publicized trouble in a Virginia snowstorm three years ago [see “Amtrak struggles to recover …,” Trains News Wire ,Jan. 5, 2022].
Rolling cancellations
As previously reported, the Texas Eagle, Southwest Chief, City of New Orleans, Missouri River Runner, Lincoln Service, Cardinal, and Floridian, and finally Acela and Northeast Regional cancellations swept across the country’s midsection, preceding snow and ice storms [see “Amtrak announces more storm cancellations …,” News Wire, Jan. 8, 2025]. The company’s effort to resume service as soon as possible was mostly successful in targeting when bad weather would subside.
However, the Southwest Chief departing Los Angeles on Jan. 4 only made it as far as Albuquerque due to paralyzing problems across Kansas and Missouri. The westbound Chief departing Jan. 4 from Chicago had previously been cancelled.
The eastbound’s advisory on Jan. 5 said, “After the train is serviced (at Albuquerque) the train will return passengers to their points of origin between Albuquerque and Los Angeles.” Though the equipment was to operate back to L.A. on what might approximate the cancelled westbound Chief’s schedule, inventory for that train was not reinstated in Amtrak’s ticketing system.
Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari tells News Wire that passengers booked on the waylaid eastbound Chief beyond La Junta, Colo., had been advised before its Los Angeles departure that the train would terminate there, so those traveling as far as La Junta were provided alternate transportation. As for the “returning passengers to their point of origin” advisory that routinely appears whenever a midroute truncation occurs, Magliari says, “customers are always given the option not to return to the trains’ point of origin.”
Last week’s long-distance annulments were staggered to match the path of severe weather, rather than having an opposing train’s departure cancelled whenever its counterpart doesn’t run. Because Amtrak lacks standby equipment, this also mitigated against trains serving unaffected regions, such as having the Texas Eagle make a Fort Worth-Austin-San Antonio round trip.
As of today (Jan. 13, 2025), another set of weather cancellations has been announced for later this week: the Empire Builder will not operate in either direction between Spokane, Wash., and Chicago on Jan. 17, 18, and 19, according to the Amtrak Alerts feed on X.com. Current forecasts for the weekend call for temperatures reaching minus-15 and minus-19 on Saturday and Sunday in Havre, Mont., with similar temperatures in Fargo, N.D. No alternate transportation will be provided. Amtrak subsequently extended those cancellations to include Jan. 20.
Mechanical delays persist
According to reports from various sources, trains that did operate still ran into weather-related obstacles, such as the northbound Crescent’s 4-hour delay switching locomotives at Lynchburg, Va., on Jan. 6 after the lead Charger hit a tree. The train lost another hour waiting for a recrew at Charlottesville, Va.
Once the Chiefs were running again, the westbound train departing Chicago Jan. 7 hit debris in Illinois, suffered a fire in one of its Superliner sleeping cars, needed recrewing in Kansas, and arrived nearly 13 hours late into Los Angeles on Jan. 9. Shop forces there were able to assemble enough equipment for an on-time eastbound departure even though the cars typically make a same-day turn.
But harsh conditions were far from the only reason for delays. Emergency maintenance sidelined a Seattle-Portland, Ore., Cascades round trip on Jan. 7; that route is without one Talgo trainset because of damage when its cab car hit a downed tree [see “Engineer injured, equipment sustains significant damage …,” News Wire, Nov. 21, 2024], In the Midwest, a number of departures were also eliminated [see “Equipment issues lead to three Amtrak cancellations…” News Wire, Jan. 6, 2025]. Between Jan. 9 and today, the Amtrak Alerts feed lists seven Midwest regional trains cancelled into or out of Chicago for “equipment issues” or “equipment issues resulting from inclement weather.” The latest: today’s Borealis in both directions between Milwaukee and St. Paul.
The Cardinal suffered serious back-to-back setbacks. The westbound train’s lone P42 lost head end power at Cincinnati on Jan. 9, causing passengers to be bused the rest of the way in the wee hours. The equipment then froze as it deadheaded to Chicago and had to be thawed, resulting in the eastbound Cardinal’s departure on Jan. 10 at 1:12 a.m., 7 hours, 17 minutes late.
Locomotive issues also struck the Empire Builder when all three of its units failed in Minnesota on Jan. 4. It arrived almost 10 hours late at St. Paul, where travelers boarded buses for the rest of the nocturnal trip to Chicago and intermediate stops. Eastbound Borealis passengers ended up on buses the next day because most of the toilets in the Horizon and Amfleet cars were frozen.
“Technical issues with the train’s equipment,” according to an Amtrak advisory, was responsible for the northbound Floridian’s delay on Jan. 3 that resulted in a five hour late Chicago arrival. It’s southbound counterpart of January 4 left Chicago three hours late, a delay that ballooned to more than 10 hours through the Carolinas.
Other tardy departures over the last week included:
— The California Zephyr, 2 hours late from Chicago, Jan. 5
— The Cardinal, 1:23 late from Chicago on Jan. 7 and Jan. 11
— Acela Nos. 2108 and 2162 each almost an hour late out of Washington D.C. Jan. 9.
— The Silver Meteor 2:55 late from New York on Jan. 11.
Of course, running a nationwide passenger rail network has numerous challenges exacerbated by weather extremes. The fact the majority of Amtrak trains depart their terminals on time is a credit to the employees that make that happen, but it’s up to the company to furnish necessary personnel and workplace resources to keep service dependable enough to generate repeat business.
— Updated Jan. 15 at 8:42 p.m. with Jan. 20 cancellations of Empire Builder.
Most of these problems are due to old equipment that has seen its day and new equipment that was not engineered to perform in cold weather. The ability to design such equipment is a lost art due to the political neglect & undermining of passenger rail in this country & the worst is yet to come. Mr McGuire the train was delayed due to a fire on board probably the underside of the car from the sound of it should they have kept travelling while on fire? Yes, you’d best fly because airline travel never have any problems.
How Amtrak manages to find enough passengers to ride these trains is beyond me. If I was on a train that was over 13 hours late; no wait, I wouldn’t be on a train that was 13 hours late. I would have evacuated long before it got to that stage never to return. I have a couple of trips planned for this spring and summer but after reading articles like the above I’m going to fly and save myself the aggravation.
In 1957, my father was travelling in a Pullman sleeper from Houston to Memphis on the ‘Texas Eagle’. The train encountered flooding in northeast Texas and was delayed a whole day. The diesel locomotives were exchanged for a steam locomotive to avoid their electric traction motors from being immersed in water. The train continued to St Louis and Memphis.
Without the steam locomotive, the ‘Texas Eagle’ would have been cancelled or more late.
I was 5 years old at the time.
How much of these locomotive problems are related to the new Chargers ?