Might as well start this thread as it seems a continuing reaction by Amtrak!
https://www.amtrak.com/alert/modified-service-in-advance-of-winter-storm.html
Partial listing of Amtrak’s cancellations,
Canceled service for Saturday, Jan. 19, and Sunday, Jan. 20, includes:
Capitol Limited(Chicago – Washington, D.C.): Trains 29, 30
Lake Shore Limited (Chicago – New York/Boston): Trains 49, 449, 48, 448
Before anybody complains too loudly, keep in mind that railroads no longer have the sheer manpower that they did 60+ years ago that could be employed to keep the trains running.
Quite true, and those they do have have to drive to get to work. Double whammy.
Amtrak ever canel all these trains back like 10 years or in 90s. Very hopeless with all these Airplanes people Now canellations all these trains. The 90s and early 2000s was Good Old Days of Amtrak. [2c]
Amtrak and today’s freight carriers don’t want the publicity that the below pictured event caused.
And add in social media and the need for instant gratification.
10 years ago, if a train got stuck, people dealt with it. Now it goes viral.
0Let us see. Passengers going to or coming from areas affected buy storm. Cannot get to or from stations that are not heated. Station locations not on the beaten track and will be last to get cleared of snow. Rail workers stranded at hoome and may not be allowed to come to work! No FRA exemptions from HOS rules so when the train stops in a snow drift near the 12 hour limit ? ? ?
Mainly passengers traveling thru an area of blizzard might want to travel but the above reasons > One last item the local M of W forces are no longer there. but maybe hunders of miles away. Even one switch heater failing on a route can tie the route up in knots! Extra long freights can stall from an air hose separating tieing up the route also.
Signal maintainers and Maint of Way may be hundeers of miles away from a problem! No way to get to cleared roads to a problem. It is not like years ago when there were tower operators and track walkers every 8 miles or so.
Amtrak has changed their cancellations and modifications for SAT and SUN.
January 18, 2019 1:00 PM
Amtrak will operate a modified service on Saturday, January 19, and Sunday, January 20, due to forecasted severe winter weather. Full scheduled service will be restored pending improved conditions. Canceled service for Saturday, January 19 includes: Capitol Limited(Chicago – Washington, D.C.): Trains 29, 30 Lake Shore Limited (Chicago – New York/Boston): Trains 49, 449, 48, 448 Cardinal(Chicago – New York): Train 50 Canceled Service for Sunday, January 20, includes: Acela Express service (Boston – New York – Washington, D.C.): Train 2290 |
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It was nice to hear the NPR news person say the Capitol Limited was cancelled. I had images of B&O E units and Budd observation cars in the snow. It was like Christmas. It was like I time travelled, like I was listening to the news on an AM radio in a huge Plymouth cruiser, while snow hit the windshield. “News flash…blizzard conditions…The Capitol Limited has been cancelled until further notice.”
The “Blizzard of '78” which dumped 28 inches of snow accompanied with sustained hurricane force winds of 86 MPH and gusts recorded to 111 MPH had iiterally shut down the entire Northeast and guess what? Amtrak shone! Scheduled service could not be maintained but trains moved albeit slowly but they moved and stopped along the right of way to pick up anyone at anyplace and deposit them at the place of their choice. Amtrak was the first and only form of public transportation moving in the Northeast for days! The storm of December 26,2010 was miniscule by comparison and Amtrak ‘dropped the ball’ so to speak. Why? In 1978 Amtrak had Conrail employees under contract to dispatch and operate it’s trains. These were seasoned railroad employees, a resource that Amtrak squandered, that is why.
Now we cancel service and park our ‘high speed trainsets’ which are not winter friendly. GMAFB.[^o)]
Sadly true. In Chicago, this predicted “snow event” of 8-12" leading to wholesale cancellations has turned into a piddly 2-3" non-event.
On the Northeast Corridor (NEC) when airline flights were cancelled due to weather conditions the railroad was the go to form of transportation. What happened? Amtrak has, they claim, state of the art equipment and signalling all the better to serve the traveling public with yet they virtually shut down at the forecast of inclement weather.
The 500 mile and under market, primarily the NEC, should belong to Amtrak over the airlines in good weather and definitely in bad weather.
So now we have airline personnel running Amtrak. What does that tell you?
Would you hire a stonemason to give you a haircut?
What that tells me is the MofW personnel required to keep control points operating on a continuing basis no longer live within walking distance of the facilities they need to keep in operation.
VW a few years ago had a advertisement about how the Snow Plow Driver to the the Snow Plow. The reality of todays’ railroading is that MofW personnel are probably one tenth or less in head count than they were 50-60 years ago and they have territories the may be a hundred or more miles in length - territories that they cannot get to unless highway traffic is moving fluidly. What was common 50-60 years ago is very uncommon today.
I speak only of where I am qualified which is the NEC.
Before Amtrak and it’s ‘cadre’ of inexperienced supervisors took over operations, when a major storm was forecast appropriate measures were taken to have essential personnel in position. This was commonly referred to as ‘snow duty’. All departments were o
The numbers of people that were there then, don’t exist today.
Where did you obtain that data?
From a 51 year career of ever decreasing MofW employees as every company tries to decrease their Operating Ratio - even Amtrak. When I hired out a Roadmaster would be responsible for about 20 miles of track and have 15 to 20 men to maintain that track. Every interlocking tower had a Signal Maintainer and a assistant to keep it operational.
Now Roadmasters have 100 or more miles of territory that may have one or more track and 4 to 5 men to cover it. Signal Maintainers generally have 4 Control Point interlockings for their territory as well as the automatic crossing protection installations and defect detectors within that territory to keep working. There is no surplus of man power to shovel out and sweep non-operating switches and keep every thing else working in the absence of fluid highway transportation.
Amtrak staffing may be different but the pattern is the same.
I left Amtrak five years ago and upon inquiring with co-workers still in the employ there has been no reduction in staff. MOW and the signal department have actually increased their numbers since 2014 due to ‘projects’ for the State of Connecticut.
I prefer to assign the onus for these cancellations to Amtrak because of their ineptitude.
BaltACD is correct. 50-60 years ago, the railroads were a lot more labor intensive and thus had the workforce to clear the ROW of snow, including the laborious task of keeping switchpoints open and working. So when flights were cancelled from winter snowstorms, you could take the train. From Chicago east, the Pennsy was the better choice in winter because of less exposure to lake effect snow. By 1976 when Amtrak took ownership of all the NEC except from NYC to BOS (Amtrak operates and maintains the MA section), the size of the labor force on PC had declined from earlier levels.
Technology doesn’t defeat Winter Storms on the railroad…the only thing that holds the storms at bay is manpower and a lot of it.