Edit post

Edit your reply below.

Post Body
Enter your post below.
This thread is relatively short, so I would rather post info regarding the Sunset Limited/ Texas Eagle transfer in San Antonio to it. I was in Alpine, TX over the last five days. On Saturday night I was at the station to watch No. 2.  Alpine is a crew change point for Amtrak and UP.  It is also a great place to chat with the crew members who are waiting for their assigned train. Whilst I was waiting for No. 2 to come in, I struck up a conversation with the Amtrak engineers.  They are based in San Antonio. They run from there to Alpine and back. One of the engineers told me that the procedure in San Antonio is to drop the through cars for the Texas Eagle, as per prior comments in this thread. Both of the Sunset locomotives continue on to New Orleans, but the second locomotive is run in dead mode.  However, according to the engineers, it provides electric power for the cars. I found out something interesting about Amtrak's engineer crew assignments.  According to the aforementioned engineers, if the engine crew is scheduled to be on the train for less than five hours, only one engineer is assigned to the run.  However, if the crew is scheduled to be on the train for more than five hours, two engineers are required. The engineers told me that because of increased freight traffic on the UP, they are more challenged getting into San Antonio on time. They also clarified a question that I had regarding the Austin engine crew change.  Apparently Amtrak determined that it is more cost effective to have one engineer run from San Antonio to Austin, and another engineer run from Austin to Fort Worth as opposed to having both engineers run from San Antonio to Fort Worth.   The San Antonio based engineer drives the Texas Eagle from San Antonio to Austin. The northbound Eagle is scheduled into Austin at 9:31 a.m.  He lays over in a hotel during the day, and then drives the southbound Eagle, which is scheduled to depart Austin at 6:30 p.m., to San Antonio.     Both the engineers I spoke with are qualified to run from San Antonio to Alpine, San Antonio to Beaumont, and San Antonio to Austin.
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag