Worst on-time performance? Try Seattle - LA

[Datafever]

Seattle Post Intelligencer - Seattle / Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Seattle-L.A. train nation's worst for on-time arrivals

It was 8:45 Tuesday night at King Street Station, and the Coast Starlight, the Amtrak run from Los Angeles, was right on schedule ... hours late.

The scheduled arrival of 8:45 p.m. came and went with nary a whistle. Midnight, an Amtrak ticket clerk said, was more like it for the train almost never on time.

The Coast Starlight is not the only engine that can't.

Last year, Amtrak was late more often in the worst showing in a generation.

The Coast Starlight was on time a pitiful 4 percent of the time.

Full story here 

 

 

[DRGWfan]

and this is the reason I hate the PI

[Anonymous]

And another reason we need to track these trains in real-time so we can make our own schedule.

Truckers that late get fired even if they are hauling toilet paper.

[wallyworld]

and this is the reason I hate the PI

Don't shoot the messenger, otherwise, sooner or later you will run out of bullets as this is no well hidden factoid. Amtraks dismal non scheduals have been widely reported and discussed here. Those of us ancient creatures remember in the antiquated no longer relevant dim past wherein a railroad president would want on his desk ready in the morning when he arrived, a delay report for any flagship train. More importantly, the facts as to why. If you were in that chain of events, heaven help you. Now in an age of diminished expectations, it's just another day. Anyone recall Don Steffee's annual Speed Surveys in Trains? Regardless of any political, managerial rationales, those of us who are old enough to compare then to now and who still manage to give a whitt about passenger service, this current operation is humiliatingly pathetic regardless of all the excuses laid out bare on the table. Can you imagine private enterprise accepting this or even more to the point...making excuses..?