Not to beat the proverbial Dead Horse or something more applicable with regard to an Iron Horse in this case, but the last "Canadian" trains of January (January origin, that is - both trains departed origin January 30) had especially painful trips.
Mark Meyer
Ex Dispatchers Advisory: A late train may lose more time and arrive later than expected as it is operating out of its operational window. Common sense recommends that you arrive at the station in advance of the estimated time when there is a delay and check for operational updates on a continuing basis.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
"Ex Dispatchers Advisory: A late train may lose more time and arrive later than expected as it is operating out of its operational window. Common sense recommends that you arrive at the station in advance of the estimated time when there is a delay and check for operational updates on a continuing basis."
The thought that there could be an "operational window" for the "Canadian" on CN is a thing of the past. Not with 14 hours of padding westbound and 10 eastbound and the train still runs 24 hours late. And given that this train can lose so much time so fast on CN I am at a loss as to how anything (such as relief crews) is planned for this train. Dispatching on CN must be a whole different animal than many of us are used to.
--Mark Meyer (17 years dispatching experience, but that was when we tried to get the passenger train over the road....)
Funny, I've always wanted to ride a wonderful passenger train across Canada, but due to this post and many like it, and due to the articles I read in Trains, why bother?
What sort of masochist would pay a small fortune to ride a train that will not only require an extra day beyond the scheduled time, but likely pass through the best scenery at night? To me that's a triple whammy.
Poor Canadian.
In years past the "Moonlighter" trips have kept time fairly well, which should make it obvious that CN can keep VIA on time, if they so choose.
Having said that, CN's Western lines are a frozen mess right now. We are short of power, crews and track space, and there is just as much freight as when oil was at $140/barrel a few years ago, if not more.
Trains are being parked constantly for want of crews, tying up sidings and double track (as they are too long to fit in yards). Once again the greater Edmonton Terminal has forgotten it has yards, and mixed up trains of switch traffic are being sent to outlying yards like Edson or Mirror, AB, only for much of the train to head back to Edmonton after being sorted out. The rest of that traffic then piles up and sits, for want of power.
Edmonton is so congested that they don't even have time to fuel locomotives anymore, so many trains are met by a fuel truck at their next crew change point, causing even more mainline delays.
On top of this they are (once again) trying to run everything at 10,000+ feet in the cold weather, so when night falls and temperatures drop these trains cannot pump enough air to qualify, and everyone sits and waits until morning.
The cold is killing locomotives left and right, especially the secondhand and leased GE Dash-8's. Those 200 new ET44AC's can't arrive soon enough. Unfortunately both EMD Tier-4 demonstrators also broke down in the cold weather last month (management was not impressed with that) so I doubt CN will order any.
In the middle of all this a bi-weekly tourist train is a minor concern to CN.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
From watching and listening to activity in the Jasper yard about a month ago, I got the impression that compounding the fundamental issues that SD70Dude has listed, is that some of the more recent hires are short on experience. No matter how good a training course is, it can never fully replace the knowledge that comes with a few years of actually running trains in the local environment.
Troubleshooting is easier when you have done it before with a similar problem, or maybe you know a better way that avoided the problem in the first place.
Management views themselves as the 'only trained and irreplaceable' personnel on railroads (and most other businesses) and that employees are a dime a dozen and require no learned skills to perform their jobs and get treated as such.
The truth being that 'management' is the most easily replaceable commodity on any business concern. The crossovers between kinds of businesses are legendary and show no signs of ending. Run a railroad, run a airline, run a big box store, run a grocery chain - management is mangement.
cx500 From watching and listening to activity in the Jasper yard about a month ago, I got the impression that compounding the fundamental issues that SD70Dude has listed, is that some of the more recent hires are short on experience. No matter how good a training course is, it can never fully replace the knowledge that comes with a few years of actually running trains in the local environment. Troubleshooting is easier when you have done it before with a similar problem, or maybe you know a better way that avoided the problem in the first place.
Example: in 1973, my wife, her thre children, and I traveled from Chicago to Albuquerque and back. Going west, the dining car steward definitely was well-experienced--he knew what to do, what not to do, and what could be done. Among other non-essential things, he offered to take a picture of us as we ate. Returning, the steward had to rely on the Book, and could not deviate from it.
Granted, this does not pertain to the operation of the train itself, but it does pertain to customer relations.
Johnny
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