BaltACDThis is all account of the contracts between the freight carriers and the passenger carriers. While the passenger carriers (Amtrak and commuter carriers) may specify ON TIME - the freight carrier will come back with what is the 'tolerance level'. Those who deal with manufacturered products understand that all 'parts' are manufacturered with a + or - tolerance - it may be specified in thousandths of an inch or even finer - but there is a tolerance (there are other areas of tolerance than just distance measurement). The freight carriers insist on the tolerance or they won't sign the contracts for the passenger carriers to operate. Simple business negotiations.
The Canadian Pacific agreement according to WisDOT is that "they will meet the schedule if the improvements that are necessary to meet the schedule are completed by WisDOT". I didn't see any verbage in there about tolerance or about attempting to meet your schedule or an asterisk stating they would only meet the schedule if there was 15 min of padding in the measurement of "On Time". Maybe it exists, just not visible in any of the feasibility studies.
Furthermore, as a Freight Railroad contractor for switching the Hiawatha in Milwaukee......... the local CP switcher is late and sometimes misses the train arrival and departure times. Does Amtrak hold CP accountable when it is late? I have my doubts since it is a corridor......it probably blames the private car owners for this.
Look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlxKTVGYPw0 (Oops!, you can see the switcher approaching in the distance from cutoff tower)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEtnh1K6nv0
Lots of private railcar switching at the Amtrak Depot in Milwaukee as you can see they have two other private cars here other than the Friends of the 261 Hiawatha cars. Additionally, they have the Charter Steel Trainset which is usually stored in the Depot, along with passenger railcar rehab traffic for the passenger railcar outfit on the South Side of the Stadium up the track a little ways on the former airline branch (sometimes VIA Rail cars). So it's not like CP Rail doesn't have the practice for switching this location.
oltmanndSpent 2-1/2 hours watching trains zoom by in Ridley Park PA today. Two of four SEPTA trains late 5-7 minutes. All Acela on time. All southbound Amtrak trains on time. Northbound Meteor over two hours late. Northbound Norfolk train, 30 minutes late. All other NB Regionals on time.
For the money lavished on the NEC, which never seems to be enough per Amtrak's measurement annually (more than likely because the tenants never pay enough in), the trains there should be close to the high 90 percentile on-time with little schedule padding.
Spent 2-1/2 hours watching trains zoom by in Ridley Park PA today. Two of four SEPTA trains late 5-7 minutes. All Acela on time. All southbound Amtrak trains on time. Northbound Meteor over two hours late. Northbound Norfolk train, 30 minutes late. All other NB Regionals on time.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
CMStPnP charlie hebdo It is 15 minutes. The Hiawatha Service has the best on-time record of any route, exceeding even the Acela NEC target of 90%. But not good enough for you? Correction: best on-time record of routes on Amtrak. Southwest Airlines has a better ontime record between city pairs I fly than the Hiawatha does.
charlie hebdo It is 15 minutes. The Hiawatha Service has the best on-time record of any route, exceeding even the Acela NEC target of 90%. But not good enough for you?
Correction: best on-time record of routes on Amtrak. Southwest Airlines has a better ontime record between city pairs I fly than the Hiawatha does.
You apparently have trouble with reading comprehension or more likely, are just a very negative person who thinks he is always right. There was no correction needed as the context was a comparison of on-time performance of Amtrak routes, not comparing with any airlines.
Deggesty"Not for no reason is "On the advertised..." the appropriate metric for timekeeping, instead of something like "On the achievable"..." Yes, Wayne Johnston believed that "on time" meant ON TIME. The report was that he was extremely unhappy if the Panama Limited was even one minute late in arriving in Chicago--and he wanted know WHY?.
Back then freight customers rode the passenger trains so there was considerable damage done to a railroads reputation if the train was late and a major frieght customer was on that crack train. Some of that persists today as the Class I railroads really do not like it when Amtrak does a press release that blames them for delays. You can see it with Chicago's METRA as well. If METRA does a press release that blames BNSF railway for trains being late.........BNSF PR is always quick to respond or explain in another press release.
In my view Amtrak could be more saavy and use that embarrassment to it's advantage but it very rarely does and honestly I think Amtrak has given up on respectable passenger train operation that adheres closely to a tight schedule.
CMStPnP charlie hebdo It is 15 minutes. The Hiawatha Service has the best on-time record of any route, exceeding even the Acela NEC target of 90%. But not good enough for you? Correction: best on-time record of routes on Amtrak. Southwest Airlines has a better ontime record between city pairs I fly than the Hiawatha does. Either make the schedules more realistic or increase the speed of the train to make the current schedule. Silly to say the train arrives at a fixed time and rarely have the train pull in on that time. The Europeans do a lot better and so do some of our airlines. BTW, Amtrak Inspector Generals Report on Amtrak timekeeping and it's timekeeping database below. Some of the reports by the Inspector General make you openly wonder about the competence of Amtrak Management in securing an IT system. https://amtrakoig.gov/sites/default/files/reports/OIG-A-2017-007.pdf
Either make the schedules more realistic or increase the speed of the train to make the current schedule. Silly to say the train arrives at a fixed time and rarely have the train pull in on that time. The Europeans do a lot better and so do some of our airlines.
BTW, Amtrak Inspector Generals Report on Amtrak timekeeping and it's timekeeping database below. Some of the reports by the Inspector General make you openly wonder about the competence of Amtrak Management in securing an IT system.
https://amtrakoig.gov/sites/default/files/reports/OIG-A-2017-007.pdf
So, Amtrak gets their time keeping from their conductor's iPhone devices for their station arrival and departure info. This is also how they collect their delay info. The conductor inputs the delay duration, cause and comments, often with input from the engineer and the host road train dispatcher.
They keep time for all the stations and some other points in the schedule. For example, they keep the locations where the train passes from the control of one road to another.
Amtrak also has available to them, OS data from the host roads, although these locations may not match up exactly with the spots in Amtrak's contractual schedules.
In order to get "credit" for making a train, the host road has to have delays they caused under the contractural threshold for that route. Amtrak submits their data from the their "conductor iPhone" system and the host road reviews it and they negotiate any disagreements and conflicts.
It really isn't very adversarial - more of a "matter of fact" relationship.
charlie hebdoKeep in mind that the Century, Broadway and other surcharged deluxe trains were operating on track RoWs with more capacity: four vs two or two vs one main.
And they were being operated by the company that was responsible for all aspects of their operation.
Other than the NEC, Amtrak is responsible for 'all aspects' of their trains in very few locations. Amtrak has never, to my knowledge, has NEVER had a PREMIER train to base their company's reputation upon. Operation of the Acela trainsets is about as premier as it gets and with multiple trips a day the Acela's are just another train on the NEC.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Keep in mind that the Century, Broadway and other surcharged deluxe trains were operating on track RoWs with more capacity: four vs two or two vs one main.
DeggestyYes, Wayne Johnston believed that "on time" meant ON TIME. The report was that he was extremely unhappy if the Panama Limited was even one minute late in arriving in Chicago--and he wanted to know WHY?
There's a difference here, and I think important enough to take up in this discussion.
The Panama, the Century, and other crack trains for which 'management took a daily interest' were all significant priority trains. Were anything to make them late, action could and would be taken promptly to fix the situation ... Or Else.
That is no longer strictly true for Amtrak trains running on other people's trackwork into facilities they don't own and likely don't administer. Theoretically great political 'influence' could be brought to bear on freight railroads to give Amtrak full and unconditional priority regardless of circumstances -- we've had discussions on this over the years -- but it still doesn't cover the situation when something unexpectedly breaks down or stalls, or operations at a terminal facility are conducted with less than perfect foresight and attention, or weather and other natural factors rear their heads.
We then encounter Amtrak's predilection for 'going the other way' and padding schedules, often so dramatically that trains hours late at one point will be 'on time' if they even dawdle in terms of peak or average speed subsequently. Here the nominal requirement for 'higher speed' from all the prospective expensive modifications, frustration of NIMBYists, etc. becomes one of the important perceived factors. Already we can understand that the actual time gains from even substantial acceleration of a Hiawatha service train are in the under-10-minute range. I think even the usual terminal dwell for 'short final' arrival in Chicago is a meaningful range of variance for whatever end-to-end speed gets advertised for the Milwaukee trains even outside the range of 'peak hours' for the Chicago plant.
The key being, again, that many if not most of the actual passengers have made their arrangements based on a nominal arrival time, not some mealymouthed excuse that their train is "only" 14 minutes late so technically on time. We would need to adapt statistical methodology to include this assumption, for example to determine (as I think likely) that timekeeping reliability will be better for some off-peak trains, or that schedule times for some trains should be artificially longer to account for "likely" congestion and other effects while enabling a best-case timing for publication that shows (at least politically) that the money spent on improvements has produced results.
I also think that efforts, some of them recent, to keep passengers apprised of timekeeping (and perhaps the stated reason(s) for lapse in it) by a variety of up-to-the-minute or socially-enabled means are a Good Thing and should be continued and expanded in the future. This might even extend to the ability to call Uber or the like for prompt emergency pickup at intermediate stations if it is understood the train will be 'significantly enough' delayed that alternative transportation might be of actual or perceived value. (It should also, perhaps, extend to automatic holding of anticipated connections ... but that might tend to exacerbate scheduling problems or congestion 'down the line'...)
Overmod Note also that this is cumulative worst-case tolerance, which is treated differently from most measurement metrics in, say, component design. The 15-minute 'late' metric is arbitrary but has comparatively long standing in various industries. While I find it reasonably significant, there is far more perceivable importance (in dealing with public users of a transportation service) in rolling 'padding' or other compensation into the operating schedule to be able to offer nominally on-time operation net of the factors tending to produce an up-to-15-minute delay. That at least eliminates the frustration of 'being late' which is more important to many, perhaps most, actual riders than a perceived minutes-quicker travel time. "Not for no reason is "On the advertised..." the appropriate metric for timekeeping, instead of something like "On the achievable"..." [CMStPnP -- please get that miserable greengrocer's apostrophe out of your topic and post. In the headline, especially, it's like a sharp stick in the eye every time I have to look at it...]
Note also that this is cumulative worst-case tolerance, which is treated differently from most measurement metrics in, say, component design.
The 15-minute 'late' metric is arbitrary but has comparatively long standing in various industries. While I find it reasonably significant, there is far more perceivable importance (in dealing with public users of a transportation service) in rolling 'padding' or other compensation into the operating schedule to be able to offer nominally on-time operation net of the factors tending to produce an up-to-15-minute delay. That at least eliminates the frustration of 'being late' which is more important to many, perhaps most, actual riders than a perceived minutes-quicker travel time. "Not for no reason is "On the advertised..." the appropriate metric for timekeeping, instead of something like "On the achievable"..."
[CMStPnP -- please get that miserable greengrocer's apostrophe out of your topic and post. In the headline, especially, it's like a sharp stick in the eye every time I have to look at it...]
Yes, Wayne Johnston believed that "on time" meant ON TIME. The report was that he was extremely unhappy if the Panama Limited was even one minute late in arriving in Chicago--and he wanted know WHY?.
Johnny
The 15-minute 'late' metric is arbitrary but has comparatively long standing in various industries. While I find it reasonably significant, there is far more perceivable importance (in dealing with public users of a transportation service) in rolling 'padding' or other compensation into the operating schedule to be able to offer nominally on-time operation net of the factors tending to produce an up-to-15-minute delay. That at least eliminates the frustration of 'being late' which is more important to many, perhaps most, actual riders than a perceived minutes-quicker travel time. Not for no reason is "On the advertised..." the appropriate metric for timekeeping, instead of something like "On the achievable"...
BaltACD zardoz charlie hebdo The Hiawatha schedules have little to no padding. They are pretty similar to schedules pre-1971. I live about 1/2 mile east of the CP main in Pleasant Prairie, and most of the Hiawatha's are so punctual that I can reset my mental clock when I hear the crossing horns. This whole thing about "on-time" arrivals (in all modes of travel) being within 5 or 10 or 15 minutes of the posted time kinda bugs me. I guess I'm too "old school", because to me "on time" means "on time"--not 1 minute late, not 5 minutes, and certainly not 15 minutes. What about 30 minutes? How about an hour? At what point does 'on time' become meaningless? Maybe timetables should have a disclaimer on them similar to what you see in your car's side mirrors, "Times listed in this schedule are later than they appear". This is all account of the contracts between the freight carriers and the passenger carriers. While the passenger carriers (Amtrak and commuter carriers) may specify ON TIME - the freight carrier will come back with what is the 'tolerance level'. Those who deal with manufacturered products understand that all 'parts' are manufacturered with a + or - tolerance - it may be specified in thousandths of an inch or even finer - but there is a tolerance (there are other areas of tolerance than just distance measurement). The freight carriers insist on the tolerance or they won't sign the contracts for the passenger carriers to operate. Simple business negotiations.
zardoz charlie hebdo The Hiawatha schedules have little to no padding. They are pretty similar to schedules pre-1971. I live about 1/2 mile east of the CP main in Pleasant Prairie, and most of the Hiawatha's are so punctual that I can reset my mental clock when I hear the crossing horns. This whole thing about "on-time" arrivals (in all modes of travel) being within 5 or 10 or 15 minutes of the posted time kinda bugs me. I guess I'm too "old school", because to me "on time" means "on time"--not 1 minute late, not 5 minutes, and certainly not 15 minutes. What about 30 minutes? How about an hour? At what point does 'on time' become meaningless? Maybe timetables should have a disclaimer on them similar to what you see in your car's side mirrors, "Times listed in this schedule are later than they appear".
charlie hebdo The Hiawatha schedules have little to no padding. They are pretty similar to schedules pre-1971.
The Hiawatha schedules have little to no padding. They are pretty similar to schedules pre-1971.
I live about 1/2 mile east of the CP main in Pleasant Prairie, and most of the Hiawatha's are so punctual that I can reset my mental clock when I hear the crossing horns.
This whole thing about "on-time" arrivals (in all modes of travel) being within 5 or 10 or 15 minutes of the posted time kinda bugs me. I guess I'm too "old school", because to me "on time" means "on time"--not 1 minute late, not 5 minutes, and certainly not 15 minutes. What about 30 minutes? How about an hour? At what point does 'on time' become meaningless?
Maybe timetables should have a disclaimer on them similar to what you see in your car's side mirrors, "Times listed in this schedule are later than they appear".
This is all account of the contracts between the freight carriers and the passenger carriers. While the passenger carriers (Amtrak and commuter carriers) may specify ON TIME - the freight carrier will come back with what is the 'tolerance level'.
Those who deal with manufacturered products understand that all 'parts' are manufacturered with a + or - tolerance - it may be specified in thousandths of an inch or even finer - but there is a tolerance (there are other areas of tolerance than just distance measurement).
The freight carriers insist on the tolerance or they won't sign the contracts for the passenger carriers to operate. Simple business negotiations.
Well said! The concept of tolerance is fairly analogous to the standard error of measurement in statistics, used in so many fields. The smaller, the better, but in most applications it is certainly not zero. The OW seems to have unrealistic expectations.
As posted earlier airlines can push back early if airplane full or all ticketed passengers are on board. However a limitation on the filed flight plan may eliminate any more than 20 minute early departures. With flow control procedures at most major airports the airline may get times for pushbacks of all flights.
One creavat is if the flight is slated for carrying post office material departure before posted would need post office clearances that are not easily gotten . If bag bins are full then postal clearances not needed. Used to have night trip from Nashville that would board passengers and would fill up with "green mail" and leave early.
Airline block times aren't takeoff to touchdown. They are scheduled gate to gate. DFW is a much larger and busier airport. That leads to longer taxi times and lines for takeoff.
I have no idea as to how much freight traffic was being handled that morning, but 2 1/2 years ago, I rode the Texas Eagle from Los Angeles to Chicago. I woke not long after we reached St. Louis by 5:00 the morning. We elft on time--and lost time because we used the former C&EI route to Chicago, and had at least one long wait for a freight.
CMStPnP The Texas Eagle is padded at least 4-5 hours in either direction. On my trip home for Christmas we arrived in St. Louis heading Northbound, 2-3 hours early and sat there until scheduled departure. Trip back we arrived in Dallas 45 min early and the train sat there until scheduled departure. To me that much schedule padding is sad.
To me that is the absence of normal conflicting freight traffic during a holiday period - not padding. The absence of freight traffic and its revenue is what is sad.
Electroliner 1935Southwest Airlines
takeoff to touch down, on average Southwests flight time to KC is 10-15 min faster from Dallas Love Field than a comparable American 737 flying from DFW Airport to Kansas City. Even the published schedules show a difference in flight time. Still scratching my head as to why that is. Does Southwest fly faster or is it able to take a faster or more direct air lane to KC because it flys out of Love Field? Anyways that is why I fly Southwest to KC, 10-15 min shorter flight compared to American. Go figure, same amount of time I am complaining about on the Hiawatha for roughly the same duration trip (give or take 20-25 min). Southwest gets my money for being faster (and faster to recover vs American if there are T-Storms in Dallas).
Jim200From reading online gripes about Amtrak, lateness is a major complaint by passengers. Amtrak adds a lot of padding to try to compensate for freight train interference. Today on "Track A Train" I found 2 hours of padding from Dallas to San Antonio, 2:40 from La Junta, CO to LA, 1:50 from Jesup, GA to Miami, and 1:12 from Richmond, VA to New York City. In the "Track A Train" pull down menu are all the lateness amounts for every train and every city, and no doubt, Amtrak has a spreadsheet with all the data, which could be presented just like the airline data.
The Texas Eagle is padded at least 4-5 hours in either direction. On my trip home for Christmas we arrived in St. Louis heading Northbound, 2-3 hours early and sat there until scheduled departure. Trip back we arrived in Dallas 45 min early and the train sat there until scheduled departure. To me that much schedule padding is sad.
BaltACDThe same 'pading' takes place in all forms of transportation - air, bus, ship. If you have a 'schedule' you build in allowances for known impedements that will affect running time between end point.
Today, Southwest Airlines has added about five to thirty minutes to dwell at an air port but I always remember on one flight I had from Chicago to Indianapolis, the plane was scheduled for twenty five minutes from arrival to departure. About 100 passengers deplaned (30 through) and another 100 boarded, luggage removed,and loaded, fuel added. I've seen this happen multiple times at KMDW Chicago Midway. Storms mess this up of course but that was one way SWA made money, by being efficient. A month later I was at O'Hare and Delta had a big 757 sitting empty at a gate and not scheduled to depart for about 90 minutes, Planes do not make money sitting at the gate.
My daughter just came back from LA and I was watching the bird on Flightaware (FA). Her plane was scheduled to come from Chicago (KMDW) via Albuquerque (KABQ) to KLAX Scheduled into KLAX @ 2:30 and dep @ 3:20.I noticed that the bird was delayed leaving KABQ. Texting her she said yup, now shown as dep @ 4:25. SWA substituted a bird that was arriving LAX on a different itinerary. She then texted me and said going to board at 3:10. FA showed the original bird still delayed. She said many passengers she talked to were connecting at Chicago. She arrived on time. The others made their connections.
On one of my ALL ABOARD AMERICA fare trips that I took to ride trains that were threatened to be cancelled, I was on the Desert Wind which was running about two hours late. My itinerary had me getting on a Thruway bus at Barstow to go to Bakersfield and my overall overnight layover was SAN JOSE. Talking to the CREW CHIEF, (remember them) I was told to stay on to LAX & I would be cared for. Sure enough, got in to LAX, waited and finally given a voucher for SWA to San Jose, directed to a Van that flew down the freeway at 70+ mph, got to the ticket counter, handed a boarding pass, got to the plane and they shut the door as I passed through it. Pushed back as I was seating myself. Got to San Jose before my Amtrak schedule. I think Amtrak lost money on me.
Backshop There's nothing illegal about early pushback. As long as all ticketed passengers are onboard and the captain has all his required paperwork, they are good to go.
Or she has all the paperwork! Delta featured recently a story of a female captain with her daughter as the co-pilot. The times are a changing! For the better!
Anyone that thinks trains, passenger or freight, can be operated over any territory at 'running time' has several screws loose in the bellfrey! Meet and Pass time is built in to all schedules because when everything is operating on schedule, those meets and passes will take place. Eliminate the allowance for them and every train, passenger and freight, will be late.
The same 'padding' takes place in all forms of transportation - air, bus, ship. If you have a 'schedule' you build in allowances for known impedements that will affect running time between end point.
From reading online gripes about Amtrak, lateness is a major complaint by passengers. Amtrak adds a lot of padding to try to compensate for freight train interference. Today on "Track A Train" I found 2 hours of padding from Dallas to San Antonio, 2:40 from La Junta, CO to LA, 1:50 from Jesup, GA to Miami, and 1:12 from Richmond, VA to New York City. In the "Track A Train" pull down menu are all the lateness amounts for every train and every city, and no doubt, Amtrak has a spreadsheet with all the data, which could be presented just like the airline data.
There's nothing illegal about early pushback. As long as all ticketed passengers are onboard and the captain has all his required paperwork, they are good to go.
Amtrak Hiawatha is on time 93-97% but that is not good enough. You act as though you are entitled to everything be absolutely on time 100% of the time. Perhaps you should charter a private jet?
JPS1For Milwaukee, in October 2018 on-time arrivals for all carriers was 84.5 percent. On-time departures for all carriers was 87.1 percent.
I fly American Airlines to Milwaukee and it is late frequently. So I don't dispute the Milwaukee numbers and I am going to guess American is worse than Southwest on that route.
I fly Southwest DAL to MCI and usually ontime or early departure.........yes I was surprised they do actually pushback early every once in a while...not sure how legal that is but been on the plane when they did it.
Additionally, this is an easier site to use (negative numbers means it is beating the published schedule.........take a random day and compare DEPARTURES from MCI and DAL):
https://www.transtats.bts.gov/ONTIME/Departures.aspx
So it says Departures but it measures both if you look there is an elapsed time column as long as that number is 0 or negative the flight was ontime per the schedule. Positive number means it falls within the 15 min BS fudge factor or worse.
If only Amtrak had a website like this one. We could capture how often the train is delayed Milwaukee to Chicago using their computer system tracking. Then possibly drill down via conductors reports and hopefully find where the majority of the delays were. Amtrak is a mess though.
So according to Amtraks stats published above 97% of the time it falls within the 15 min late window. What I am curious about is what the percentage of time it is early or exactly per the published schedule. Pretty sure based on my riding experience it is nowhere near Southwests record you will find on the above website.
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