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[quote user="s&a 1"]I think Amtrak may be improving their on-time performance. The Amtrak that runs in my area used to always run late now it is close to on-time.[/quote] FY 2008 Amtrak's system on-time performance improved 2.6 per cent over FY 2007.  Trains were on-time at their end points 71.2 per cent of the time.  It is important to keep in mind that "on-time" means within 10 minutes of the advertised for trains traveling 250 miles or less and 30 minutes for trains running 550 miles or more.  Amtrak does not say what "on-time" means for trains running between 250 and 550 miles.  Thus, the Sunset Limited can be 30 minutes late arriving at El Paso and still be counted on-time by Amtrak, although the people waiting for it may have a different view of "on-time".  Cooling one's heels in the El Paso station waiting for a train is not the most exciting thing to do in El Paso. On time performance for the NEC declined by 3.3 per cent to 84.5 per cent for the premium trains and 1.2 per cent to 79.7 per cent for the regional trains.  Short distance train on-time performance increased 3.1 per cent to 68.6 per cent.  Half the short distance trains show an improvement over FY 2007, whilst the other half showed a decrease.  The best performers were the Capitols at 86 per cent and the Pennsylvanian at 86.7 per cent.  The Missouri trains had the worst on-time arrival percentage at 18.6 per cent. The long distance train on-time performance increased 12.6 per cent to 54.2 per cent.  Of the 15 long distance trains, 11 show an improvement over FY 2007.  The best performers were the Auto Train at 81.9 per cent and the Empire Builder at 68.8 per cent.  The worst performers were the Texas Eagle at 17.9 per cent and the Sunset Limited at 27.2 per cent. At Fort Worth Number 21 (Texas Eagle) was late by an average of 86 minutes in calendar 2008 whilst Number 22 was late an average of 58 minutes.  Number 21 arrived late by an average of 102 minutes or more than an hour and a half at San Antonio.  Number 1 (Sunset Limited) was late by an average of 33 minutes at San Antonio, whilst Number 2 was late by an average of 83 minutes.  However, the on-time performances improved dramatically during the last quarter of the year.  I suspect it is because traffic on the UP has declined due to the recession.  Ironically, because the schedule is padded so heavily, Number 1 has been arriving at San Antonio shortly after 2:00 a.m. for many of the days since October 1st.  This means that the train sits in the station for 3 hours and 40 minutes before departing at 5:40 a.m. for the west.  This is a lot of time to be standing still, especially for a coach passenger.
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