S W Chief on time

[Southwest Chief]

It's a mess out there for the normally punctual Chief.

I took the June 25 train #3 from Albuquerque NM, to Fullerton, CA (gets into Fullerton on June 26).  This was the first CHI-LAX train in a while.  Busses substituted for the CHI-Kansas City part for the last several days...and might be doing again if the late trend continues.  The busses added about 5 hours of tardiness on average...I've been tracking it a lot lately since I was taking it on the 25th. 

My train got into ABQ very late at 9:30 PM (where on-time is 3:55 PM).  And finally got into Fullerton yesterday around 2:00 PM (where on-time is 6:34 AM).  My all time late record...12:45 PM being the previous.  BNSF did their best and surprisingly gave us high priority trackage rights strategically switching us around freights at crossovers even though we were so late and not likely to gain any appreciable time.  CTC multidirectional double track operation is great if used correctly.

But it looks worse for the train into Fullerton today (June 27).  If I'm correct in checking it, she might be 18+ hours late into Fullerton.  Now that's late

[Expresslane]

  Amtrak just called and there will be no Chief on friday out of Kansas City.

[Expresslane]

  Thanks Samantha.  She is to arrive tomorrow. I will check out the Amtrak web site. There must be some trains to watch and some place to get a bite to eat.

[Anonymous]

  Great news. My mother inlaw is coming to visit and she is taking the Southwest Chief from Kansas City. I know about the flooding and all but do they run this train on time or can I expect the train to be late and how late. We are going to pick her up in Naperville IL. If the train is late how about train watching here?

Over the last 12 months the Southwest Chief has met the advertised into Chicago 62.5 per cent of the time.  May 2008 was not so good.  It only met the schedule 29 per cent of the time.  

Yesterday, for example, the train arrived in Naperville at 9:51 p.m., as opposed to its scheduled arrival time of 2:44 p.m.  Today the train information is not available due to operating constraints, which probably means that Amtrak and BNSF are still working out the kinks associated with re-opening the route after the flooding. 

If momma is coming in a couple of days, she may be delayed.  If she is coming in a week or so, the railroad and Amtrak should be back to normal.  In any case, you can check on the status of the train by going to http://www.amtrak.com/ and filling in the information on the train status window, which is located near the bottom of the home page.  You can also check the historical arrival statistics by clicking on the line 'Historical on Time Performance'.  

 

[Expresslane]

  Great news. My mother inlaw is coming to visit and she is taking the Southwest Chief from Kansas City. I know about the flooding and all but do they run this train on time or can I expect the train to be late and how late. We are going to pick her up in Naperville IL. If the train is late how about train watching here?