Section E of Amtrak's Monthly Performance Report contains an analysis of the schedule performance of its trains. The report shows the cause of the delays, the minutes of delay, and the host railroad on which the delays occurred.
The report for September 2007, which can be found at http://www.amtrak.com/, contains the data for the fiscal year ended 30 September 2007. While the nature and reasons for the delays will vary over time, the delays experienced during the past week were probably caused by the major delay drivers that afflicted Amtrak throughout 2007.
The biggest driver behind the late running long distance trains that pass through Texas (Texas Eagle and Sunset Limited) is freight train congestion. From August 1 through December 31, 2006, the Eagle was late by an average of 59 minutes at Dallas and 69 minutes at San Antonio. On nine occasions the southbound Eagle was so late that the train was terminated in Fort Worth and the passengers were bused to their destination. The record for the Sunset is even worse.
UPReading85 wrote:Has anyone noticed a strikingly poor on time on time perfomance for just about every Amtrak route over the 1st week?? ... The CZ was 3 hours late out in Sacramento when the run from Emeryville is only about an hour or so. The Coast Starlight was over six hours late once this year. Is it just bad luck or has something happened to cause this rash of abominable service to start the new year?
According to www.amtrakdelays.com the Starlight and Zephyr incidents you refer to occurred on January 4 & 5 when a monster storm blew through central California. It made a mess everywhere, not just with the trains. It was the biggest storm we've seen in several years. Here on the coast we were listening to the police scanner all day and there were reports of either trees or power lines going down every three to five minutes for over six hours! Wind gusts in our neighborhood exceeded 50 mph, and in higher elevations approached hurricane force at 75 mph.
My wife says she heard there had been a mudslide on the UP somewhere between Emeryville and Martinez. It's double track in there so it probably only blocked one of them or nothing would have gotten through. I hear through the grapevine that the westbound Zephyr waited out the worst of the storm in Reno for a few hours before taking on the Donner Pass crossing.
Since this is winter, weather delays may have affected the other trains around the country as well.
I just completed a round trip sleeping car ski trip on the CZ between Naperville and Winter Park/Fraser.
Westbound #5 leaving Naperville on Sunday Jan 6, 2008 was virtually on-time into Denver the next morning and also departing Denver. But, arriving at the East Portal to the Moffat Tunnel, we were held up there by the U.P. dispatcher for 1 hour and 40 minutes making us late into Fraser by that much time, in order to give (illegal?) priority to a slow-moving eastbound coal train having engines front, center and rear. But that coal train was nowhere close to Fraser when we were ordered to hold at the East Portal. I consider the U.P. dispatcher's conduct reprehensible if not also outright illegal. If someone can provide a justification for that decision, I'd certainly like to hear it.Returning on #6 leaving Fraser on Friday January 11, the train had been 3 hours late after clearing the Sierras (including 1/2 hour lost almost immediately before even beginning that climb) and had made up an hour during the night and through the next mid-afternoon (the 11th) but then lost that hour between Glenwood Springs and Granby. We learned of that additional hour loss from "Julie" while sitting in the jam-packed and none-too-large Fraser Amtrak station. Fortunately, the dining car stayed open to serve the large crowd boarding at Fraser (including me and five others in my group occupying 3 sleeper rooms) that night at 8 p.m. instead of at the scheduled 5:10 p.m. BNSF was reliable between Denver and Omaha (keeping the lateness to under 3 hours which it inherited from UP coming into Denver) but then #6 lost--on the BNSF--over 3/4 hour in central and eastern Iowa plus another 3/4 hour with several slow zones after crossing the Mississippi and, most disgusting, inexplicably forcing #6 to crawl into Galesburg on a restricted signal for several miles most of the way from just east of the relatively "new" ex-ATSF main line/ex-CB&Q main line interchange near Cameron to the station. Thus, #6 ended up almost 4 1/2 hours late at Princeton, the last stop before the "padding" of the schedule into Naperville (and Chicago).As a life-long fan of, and participant in, passenger rail travel, this kind of performance is simply disheartening and unacceptable, apart possibly from 2 1/2 hours understandably lost in the Sierras apparently due to the after-effects of a snow storm as noted in another post, and none of the lateness was the fault, one iota, of the Amtrak crew, which barreled #6 along at 79+ mph when the "green-eye" was present.
jjtrains wrote: I just completed a round trip sleeping car ski trip on the CZ between Naperville and Winter Park/Fraser. Westbound #5 leaving Naperville on Sunday Jan 6, 2008 was virtually on-time into Denver the next morning and also departing Denver. But, arriving at the East Portal to the Moffat Tunnel, we were held up there by the U.P. dispatcher for 1 hour and 40 minutes making us late into Fraser by that much time, in order to give (illegal?) priority to a slow-moving eastbound coal train having engines front, center and rear. But that coal train was nowhere close to Fraser when we were ordered to hold at the East Portal. I consider the U.P. dispatcher's conduct reprehensible if not also outright illegal. If someone can provide a justification for that decision, I'd certainly like to hear it.Returning on #6 leaving Fraser on Friday January 11, the train had been 3 hours late after clearing the Sierras (including 1/2 hour lost almost immediately before even beginning that climb) and had made up an hour during the night and through the next mid-afternoon (the 11th) but then lost that hour between Glenwood Springs and Granby. We learned of that additional hour loss from "Julie" while sitting in the jam-packed and none-too-large Fraser Amtrak station. Fortunately, the dining car stayed open to serve the large crowd boarding at Fraser (including me and five others in my group occupying 3 sleeper rooms) that night at 8 p.m. instead of at the scheduled 5:10 p.m. BNSF was reliable between Denver and Omaha (keeping the lateness to under 3 hours which it inherited from UP coming into Denver) but then #6 lost--on the BNSF--over 3/4 hour in central and eastern Iowa plus another 3/4 hour with several slow zones after crossing the Mississippi and, most disgusting, inexplicably forcing #6 to crawl into Galesburg on a restricted signal for several miles most of the way from just east of the relatively "new" ex-ATSF main line/ex-CB&Q main line interchange near Cameron to the station. Thus, #6 ended up almost 4 1/2 hours late at Princeton, the last stop before the "padding" of the schedule into Naperville (and Chicago).As a life-long fan of, and participant in, passenger rail travel, this kind of performance is simply disheartening and unacceptable, apart possibly from 2 1/2 hours understandably lost in the Sierras apparently due to the after-effects of a snow storm as noted in another post, and none of the lateness was the fault, one iota, of the Amtrak crew, which barreled #6 along at 79+ mph when the "green-eye" was present.
I think you may be a bit harsh on the poor UP dispatcher! I rode #5 a couple of years ago and was amazed at how well the dispatcher threaded the needle with our train. We did catch a train ahead climbing the Front Range, but once got past that, we didn't miss a beat all the way to Grand Junction. Just about every siding on the line had a train in it waiting for us pass or overtake. Now, the dispatching west of Salt Lake City was another story......
There are lots of legit reasons why he could hold you at East Portal other than malice.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
The Crescent's been pretty good lately. Since 12/1/07:
Southbound, late more than 30 minutes from Amtrak at Alexandria: 6 times 87% OT
Arriving Atlanta more than 30 minutes late: 3 times (93% OT)
Arriving NOL more than 30 minutes late: 9 times, only 3 times more than one hour - 80% OT
Northbound, late at Atlanta more than 30 minutes, 7 times, only twice more than one hour, - 84% OT
late at Alexandria more than 30 minutes, 3 times - 93% OT. 80% of the time, early into Alexandria.
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