Amtrak christmas holiday extras

[blue streak 1]

Amtrak announce extra trains for the Christmas holiday starting with Michigan service.  Michigan seems to be on top of getting its residents around.

Couple thoughts

1.  Maybe NS quite willing now to allow extra trains since the Capitol and LSL does not seem to loose much time on NS.  One has to wonder that the STB petition to NS got upper management involved.  It may be UP, CSX, CN are not as willing to allow extra trains?

Could it be that NS middle management was not telling CEO that the Computerized dispatching system was not working hoping to resolve problems before they became known?  Understand he ordered changes?

Also the extra crews certainly have helped.  Also Englewood flyover.

 

http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/392/899/Michigan-Winter-Holiday-122614.pdf

 

 

 

[oltmannd]

blue streak 1

Amtrak announce extra trains for the Christmas holiday starting with Michigan service.  Michigan seems to be on top of getting its residents around.

Couple thoughts

1.  Maybe NS quite willing now to allow extra trains since the Capitol and LSL does not seem to loose much time on NS.  One has to wonder that the STB petition to NS got upper management involved.  It may be UP, CSX, CN are not as willing to allow extra trains?

Could it be that NS middle management was not telling CEO that the Computerized dispatching system was not working hoping to resolve problems before they became known?  Understand he ordered changes?

Also the extra crews certainly have helped.  Also Englewood flyover.

 

http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/392/899/Michigan-Winter-Holiday-122614.pdf

 

The autorouter isn't (and hasn't) been used west of Porter.  There are just too many unknown trains and routes for it to function well.  It has to know about all the foreign traffic entering the line - where and when.  Much of that is still a data "black hole" in Chicago area.

It remains in use on the line east of Porter.  (It really works pretty well, honest!)

NS upper mgt is and was well aware of what was going on with the LSL and Capitol, (and the crude trains, and the UPS trains, etc. etc.)  I am sure the CEO looks at the daily Amtrak performance report every day, but he isn't (and shouldn't be) a micromanager.  The RR is just too big for a CEO to be an effective micromanager.