CHICAGO — Washouts in California, plus heavy snows there and along BNSF Railway’s Hi Line across North Dakota and Montana, are among obstacles thrown at Amtrak’s national network the last several days, precipitating cancellations, significant delays, and route truncations.
A washout north of San Luis Obispo, Calif., caused the Coast Starlight to be cancelled in both directions between Los Angeles and Emeryville, Calif., on Sunday; the train is showing “sold out” on that segment for the next few days.
Another washout over the weekend near Bellingham, Wash., canceled all Canada-bound Cascades service at least through Sunday.
Zephyr woes
After avoiding the California-Salt Lake City portion of its route for more than a week because of heavy snows over Donner Pass and resulting Union Pacific freight congestion in Nevada, the California Zephyr departing Emeryville on Wednesday, March 8, bravely soldiered east through the Golden State’s continuing “atmospheric river” snows. But it was 7 hours late departing Salt Lake City after getting tripped up by UP freight congestion, mostly east of Elko.
For the remainder of the week, the Zephyrs encountered similar delays on the pass and in Nevada. Westbound arrivals in Emeryville around midnight, 6 to 7 hours late, delayed eastbound departures by an average of 4 hours. The route’s biggest obstacle, however, occurred in Colorado between Granby and Glenwood Springs on Saturday, when a track outage delayed the westbound train 9 hours. The eastbound Zephyr that departed California on Thursday, March 9, was already 17 hours late into Glenwood Springs after delays across Nevada and Utah, and arrived in Chicago at 9:48 p.m. Sunday night — 1 day, 5 hours, 58 minutes late. (The eastbound train that left Emeryville on March 10 arrived just 3 hours, 5 minutes behind that train, although it was running 9 hours, 3 minutes late.)
Without any available equipment, Sunday’s westbound Zephyr was canceled out of Chicago. And Amtrak announced this morning on its Amtrak Alerts Twitter feed that today’s eastbound departure from Emeryville is canceled because of “disabled snow removal equipment blocking the tracks.” Sunday’s eastbound departure from Emeryville was terminated east of Colfax, Calif., just 137 miles into its journey. The westbound train that left Chicago on March 10 was, as of a 5:07 a.m. tweet, holding in Reno for an open track. The westbound train that left Chicago on March 11 terminated at Salt Lake City and has flipped back from there to represent the eastbound Zephyr of March 12 that never made it past the line blockage. Westbounds leaving Chicago through Wednesday March 15 are set to terminate at Salt Lake City, but with equipment out of position, there will be no eastbound Zephyr departing Salt Lake City on Tuesday, March 14, or Emeryville to Chicago on Thursday, March 16.
More Builder adversity
Freight congestion and heavy snows also played havoc with the Empire Builder. After leaving Chicago on time, both the March 10 and March 11 westbound Builders were routed through New Rockford, N.D., instead of over BNSF’s Devils Lake Subdivision between Fargo and Minot, N. D. Still, the March 10 westbound train was 6 hours late leaving Minot and 13 hours late out of Sandpoint, Idaho; Amtrak’s website shows the Portland section arriving at 1:01 a.m. today, 12 hours, 44 minutes late. As a result, Sunday’s eastbound Builder was cancelled out of Seattle and Portland, Ore. Without a spare trainset to fill the gap, the westbound train out of Chicago is now cancelled on Wednesday, March 15.
Westbound delays earlier in the week caused eastbound trains on March 10 and March 11 to leave the West Coast about 5 hours late. The train due in Chicago on Sunday afternoon arrived at 3:34 a.m. this morning (Monday, March 13), 9 hours, 49 minutes late; the one due in Chicago today is currently projected to arrive at 2:33 a.m. on Tuesday, some 8 hours, 48 minutes late. Both did or will miss all Chicago connecting trains. With the westbound train that left Chicago more than 7 hours late approaching Spokane, significant eastbound delays are continuing along the route.
More sellouts
Reduced capacity of both long-distance and state-supported trains also effectively eliminates connection possibilities and thereby limits Amtrak’s revenue potential. On Sunday afternoon, March 12, the Texas Eagle and three subsequent Lincoln Service trains were all either “sold out” or “100% full” leaving of Chicago, as were the westbound Empire Builder and Southwest Chief, the eastbound Capitol Limited, and three afternoon trains headed for Michigan. Although Sunday is a normally heavy travel day, the situation is not unusual.
The only space available aboard the westbound Lake Shore Limited from New York to Chicago on March 12 was one bedroom; it cost $1,497.
Staying “on time”
At least that train has been running “on the advertised.”
The annual nationwide shift from standard to daylight time normally makes every Amtrak overnighter an hour late, though this year the company added an hour to Sunday schedules after 2 a.m. on many routes to give trains a fighting chance to arrive at intermediate and final destinations “on time.” Indeed, the Lake Shore was 5 minutes “early” into Chicago at 11:07 a.m., though the Capitol Limited from Washington, D.C. got in 44 minutes “late.” Perhaps this is one of the few advantages of not publishing printed timetables.
— Updated at 7:20 a.m. CDT with arrival time for several trains; updated at 7:35 a.m. with additional Zephyr cancellations and terminations; updated at 11:33 a.m. with more Zephyr information.
So, what are we saying? Read the comments from the various experts who post on these pages. It’s not one serious problem, it’s four serious problems. (“The perfect storm”, if you will.)
(1) Amtrak is dysfunctional; it can’t run LD trains to save its soul.
(2) The freight rail system has changed May 1, 1971, and is no longer designed for passenger trains.
(3) Amtrak hesitates to send a train out into a snowstorm, not only because we have become risk-averse, but because it’s a long way from Chicago to Seattle with little or no human infrastructure or spare equipment in between. There’s only so much that the host freight railroad can do if an Amtrak train breaks down or gets into trouble.
(4) Yes it’s true that equipment has changed. In 1971, BN could pull a broken down old heavyweight coach off a siding and attach it to the Empire Builder or the California Zephyr, hoping that the steam lines work. Can’t do that anymore.
How much revenue is Amtrak loosing?
A partial solution. Take 3 – 4 out of service cars. Get their rake test done, send them to Seattle. SEA maintenance can refurbish one at a time. Whenever a builder is not going to be able to turn to the scheduled time turn it at Spokane.
Then run the extra SEA cars as a stub to Spokane as #8 and turn it to #7, Passengers both ways change trains at Spokane and #8 can leave Spokane on time. PDX and Starlight passengers either early train to SEA or maybe one bus?
Those days of the Great Northern were a time when the RR’s had many more employees, more track capacity, shorter trains that could fit sidings & basic no frills equipment. Unlike today the RR’s operate with bare bones staffing, less track capacity, 200+ car trains, high tech fussy equipment & of course Precision Scheduling.
I agree Galen, how many times has Amtrak been delayed by disabled freight trains? Equipment nowadays is way to complicated. Look at Automobiles these days. You have to be an engineer or designer to work on them. I am sure the same for locomotives.
My high school geometry teacher Sister Mary Blaise had zero tolerance for stupidity. When a student went to the chalk board to do a problem from the previous night’s homework and if the student didn’t know the problem, she was less than patient with the student puts it mildly.
She’s no longer with us but I would love to see how she would have handled tony, Stevie and the flyboys. She would been ruthless in their handling of Amtrak. Sadly tony, Stevie and the flyboys in there arrogance, her criticism would go over their heads.
Years ago {before Amtrak} The Empire Builder was the pride and glory of the Great Northern Railroad as well as one their flagship trains. The Great Northern would do whatever was possible to make sure their train got through to their destination even if the train would be late due to any weather related issues or equipment troubles. To the Great Northern andmany other great railroads of their day, keeping their elite passenger trains running as well as serving their customers was the last word in prestige, respect as well great promtional value. A sense of pride, trust and reliability and service was it. How things these days have changed. Amtrak in earlier times would at least try to keep their trains running and accomodate their passengers. Today it is all about money, balance sheets and logistics. We can now say that trains no longer can make the claim as the all weather way to travel and the train can get through any weather related issues. The train has lost the battle against whatever Mother Nature can dish out and has just rolled over and quit.
Joseph C. Markfelder
Merci aux nos chers amis Canadiens, ey? They have a railroad whose purpose is to make ours look good in comparison.
It used to be when the westbound Builder was really late, Amtrak would terminate the train in Spokane and bus the passengers to the coast. On time busses would leave Seattle and Portland for Spokane and the eastbound Builder would leave Spokane on time. Amtrak doesn’t do that anymore. Amtrak just annulls the train period. Why doesn’t Amtrak bus to/from Spokane anymore?
Good question Mike. Perhaps one should ask the air jockeys currently ruining…er– typo, I meant “running” Amtrak.
You were right the first time Jay
Thank you for your reporting, Bob. This problem has been decades in the making because of the lack of capital investment by Amtrak and freight railroads. The workforce is aging out and burning out. It has combined to make life miserable for passengers, shippers and the public at large. I have a hard time seeing this mess get sorted on in the coming decade, if ever. Politicians are like Nero fiddling while Rome burns.
Reminds me of a cartoon I saw years ago. Caption was “Hey, look! The train is on time!” “No, that’s yesterday’s train.”
On some VIA and Amtrak routes, there wasn’t a train “yesterday”. It was two or three or four days ago.