Does anyone know why the Empire Builder took an hour hit eastbound and two hours westbound between Malta, Montana and Glasgow, Montana yesterday? I can not understand it.
There were no delays... If AMTK in general and Empire Builder in particular arrive on the correct day, they are on time.
Beyond that, it is a very long line, with heavily increasing freight traffic, and BNSF is pouring billions of dollars into improving the lines in North Dakota and Montana to accommodate the increasing oil traffic.
If a given work zone is 10 miles long, the speed restriction is 10 mph that adds an hour to your travel time. Amtrak knows full well that there will be two or three such delay on every trip across that line, they simply cannot know where "Today's Delay" will be. The timetables are padded so that the train will arrive at the terminal (or hand-off point to another railroad) on time. All the timetable tells you is that a train will not depart before the time listed.
That said, AMTK always has delays. If AMTK is on time, BNSF will expedite it, but once it is off schedule, all bets are off, and they will move their own trains ahead of it, and manage it like any other train when it shows up.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
Generalizations are often misleading. It may be humorous to suggest that Amtrak considers same day arrival to be on time, but that doesn't make it true. On Friday, 9/20, my friend's train from New York arrived in Washington DC on time at 11:59pm. I picked him up & we were out of the station by 12:10. I'm no fan of CSX, but the southbound Auto Train arrived on time in Sanford FL on 9/22, and was over an hour EARLY when that same consist arrived in Lorton VA on 9/23. I can't speak about the Builder or BN-SF, but I can say that it's incorrect to suggest that Amtrak isn't concerned about delayed trains. The company isn't perfect; but delays, when they occur, are often the fault of outside influences (e.g., hurricanes, floods, motorists who fail to yield to trains) or the owner of the tracks; not the owner of the equipment.
Running on-time has been a challenge for Amtrak since the get-go. As the attached article shows, the issue is not as clear cut as some would have it.
http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/blogs/frank-n-wilner/amtraks-sisyphean-struggle-to-run-on-time.html
As long as Amtrak mixes its trains with freight trains operated by another carrier, it is going to have on-time performance issues. This is especially true for the long distance trains.
BroadwayLion If a given work zone is 10 miles long, the speed restriction is 10 mph that adds an hour to your travel time. Amtrak knows full well that there will be two or three such delay on every trip across that line, they simply cannot know where "Today's Delay" will be. The timetables are padded so that the train will arrive at the terminal (or hand-off point to another railroad) on time. All the timetable tells you is that a train will not depart before the time listed. That said, AMTK always has delays. If AMTK is on time, BNSF will expedite it, but once it is off schedule, all bets are off, and they will move their own trains ahead of it, and manage it like any other train when it shows up. ROAR
Lion is correct. My trip thru the various areas of BNSF on the Amtrak EB route had a very large amount of construction activity probably trying to beat the winter weather. Construction started at sunrise right behind our train and ended about dark. Many work windows would cause operation over an essentially single track section 10 - 30 miles long. Only very high priority trains such as Amtrak & IMs operated during the day. At night it was freight train after freight train passing in opposite direction. Night time dispatching appeared to be very Amtrak friendly.! ! ! The proof in the pudding will be what happens once winter sets in. If you study the Amtrak delays of the EB right now you will find a section is very slow going then the next section have some time made up even during the day.
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