Amtrak: 5 hr. delay can be expected

[Anonymous]

A friend of mine leaves LA for Oregon on 3/16/03 on Amtrak, and was called on Friday and told to expect a 5 hour "Strand-by" in Oregon, due to delays necessitated by "track repairs".

On the one hand "Way to go Amtrak", good heads-up advance warning!!

On the Other hand "Way to go Amtrak", and drive yet two more fares into the Airlines domain.

Makes one wonder about the urgency with which "redundant" lines are summarily abandoned with scarcely a second thought, these days

[Anonymous]

Alan,

Why kudos to Amtrak. They are not paying for track repairs, Union Pacific is. Amtrak pays the railroads nothing for the use of the track. They are a bunch of freeloaders!

The delay is due to detour via the "inside gateway" route of BNSF.

Mac

[cabforward]

mr. mculloch-- i have to make sure i read you right.. uncle sam signed a cotract w/amtrak to operate pass. trains.. amtrak signed a contract (i assume) with various r.r.s to provide the right-of-way for amtrak under terms friendly to both..

now you are saying, tell me if im getting this yes or no, amtrak pays ZERO to the r.r.s for the use of their track; the asistance of their personnel; the use of mainlines, sidings, etc.; emergency rescue when needed; the assurance that amtrak will maintain priority over designated class(es) of trains operated by the r-o-w owner; plus a myriad of other services, labor, and the class 1s do all this GRATIS? excuse me, but i must ask for a second opinion (nothing personal)..

i have never heard word one about a r.r. doing ANYTHING for free, forget about scheduling & supporting the movements of another line's loads on turf the r.r. owns.. in other words, bnsf, ns, csx all say (in effect), no problem, we have to maintain this trackage anyway, so you're not doing anything our trains wouldn't do; and our personnel have to be one-site anyway, so we'll install and support the use and maintenance of additional hardware, which must be compatible with what you're using, to allow communication between our dispatcher and amtrak crews and our dispatcher and amtrak dispatchers.. and, since your crteria for smooth rides demanded by passengers and light-weight amtrak rolling stock is much stricter than freight operations, we will gladly maintain our r-o-w to provide a smoother ride with less swaying, greater stability and reduced wear & tear of amtrak eqpt.. it's costing only a few $M more and, after all, we must work together to encourage the traveling public to return to using pass. trains again, to reduce traffic on roads and airlines and restore pass. service to its rightful place as america's premier mode of efficient, fun, not-always-cheaper, reliable, convenient or available in many states..

but that will change in, oh, 15-25 years, give or take..
now, all us class 1s have to do is to get "uncle" to appropriate freight subsidies 3x-4x what we are allowing amtrak, and by golly, we're back where we were a few years after we ran stagecoaches out-of-business..

you may be right, but i have to ask, given the r.r.s historical attitude to doing anything to cast an image of the fun, friendly people to do business with: what is wrong with this picture? actually, it's easier to ask, what is right with this picture? NOTHING, in my humble opinion..

[Jackflash]

Here is your second opinion- Amtrak does indeed
pay to use other railroads track, long story short, the host railroad gets paid more if they
promote a good on time preformance.

[Anonymous]

Amtrak does pay the railroads for using their exisiting right of way, and pays a bonus if their trains arrive on time 90 percent of the time. Can the earn more money on freight trains, yes. However, when Amtrak was created some 30 years ago, the railroads were losing money on passenger trains. Therefore the railroads made a deal with the federal government favorable to themselves, they now make money on the passenger trains running down their tracks.

All of the railroads, except one, earn the bonus last year. The one exception is Union Pacific. How can all of the other railroads earn their bonus whereas Union Pacific couldn't? The answer lies in your previous post. UP doesn't have enough patriotism to care if Amtrak runs on time.....


Yet, the short lines and the class 1's have their tin cups out for federal FRA funds. The railroads are some $20-30 billion behind on infrastructure improvements. Neither can maintain their tracks adequately, especially the short lines.

One state in particular, TEXAS, Department of Transportation has noticed the above fact. It has developed a plan to remedy the situation. It is called the Trans Texas Corridors. Already, several construction companies have placed bids. Luckily, the state of Texas sees the need to separate freight and passenger rail traffic. The sooner the rest of the nation follows, the better....

[Anonymous]

I find it hard to believe that CSX could earn their bonus based on my experience in the Washington, DC area. The latest incident had CSX imposing a 15 mph speed limit on passenger trains (potential flash floods) while maintaining a 40 mph limit on their freights. They even further delayed the passenger trains by stopping them so that the faster freights could go by.

I don't think we'll ever have acceptable passenger service unless these type of agreements are changed. It would probably require federal legislation.

In fact, I often question the concept of RR rights of way. They constitute barriers which it is often difficult to get around, grade crossings are dangerous and produce many fatalities and injuries and how much time is lost waiting for that long slow freight to get by, not to mention the stopped freight train. Seems to me we deserve more public spirited railroad management.