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[quote user="desertdog"] [quote user="dakotafred"] These service disruptions, around the Amtrak system, are getting worse and worse. I sympathize with the freight railroads and the disadvantageous terms under which they serve Amtrak ... but at some point Amtrak must take a stand. Speaking just for myself, I have a big trip booked for October that looks like it is "scheduled" -- that's a laugh -- for serious disruptions on at least two of its legs. Late trains are one thing, missed connections another. Everybody's got to pull up his socks! [/quote] I'm not sure what kind of stand Amtrak can take in a situation like this. The Tower 55 project is enormously complicated. It will cause significant, unavoidable disruption to both railroads, let alone Amtrak. Meanwhile, a bus substitution offers a far better solution than daily delays of undetermined length, perhaps even hours. [/quote] As noted above, during a similar situation in the spring, i.e. track work between Longview and Fort Worth, the Eagle was routed to Taylor via Jacksonville, Palestine, and Hearne, thereby enabling the train to continue to San Antonio. Why Amtrak management was not able to work out a similar arrangement for the work being performed at Tower 55 is unknown. The Amtrak management team appears to be heavily weighted with life long government service bureaucrats. They are successful, at least in part, because they have figured out how to go along to get along. They probably don't see any advantage to leaning on the UP to accommodate the Eagle on the Longview to Taylor option as per this spring. My guess is that Boardman, at the end of the day, knows that the future for passenger rail is not in long distance trains and, therefore, to play a high card against the UP would not be in his or Amtrak's interest.    The purpose of my second post was to highlight the inadequacy of the customer service representative's response regarding meal service arrangement for the passengers being transferred to a bus at Fort Worth or Dallas. The message is the bus will stop at one of the stations listed.  They have vending machines. What else do they need?   As if to add insult to injury, the on-line status tab shows that the information for the Texas Eagle is unavailable due to a service disruption.  It has been displaying this information since July 5th.  Amtrak told me that they are working on the problem.  Wow!  Its four days into the service change, and Amtrak cannot figure out how to fix the status tab for the Texas Eagle.
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