Amtrak train #6 the California Zephyr is running around 20 hours late Today. It was scheduled to arrive in Denver at 8:00 PM last night… well now it’s 3:25 PM, and it hasn’t arrived yet! Why?? By the time it reaches Omaha, the Amtrak website predicts that it will be running 22 or more hours late. What is going on?
Willy
they have had a lot of snow out there(call the rotaries!!!) also could have a derailment mudslides power problems crew problems etc etc.
just some ideas
stay safe
Joe
“Practice makes perfect”, too.
a tad off topic…but my brother took a ride from IL to AZ on the southwest chief. it was 3+ hours late out of chicago, but made it to the stop in arizona less than 5 minutes late. i would’ve thought that passenger trains making up time was a thing of the past…guess not!
Willy:
Lots of things make trains late, however east of Sacramento the weather has been ugly. Heard the weather reports about Reno, Truckee, Tahoe, etc? - Guess where #5 and #6 (your train) go? Grand Junction to Denver is not great fun now either…beyond snow, cold & moisture do unspeakable things to air lines in the trains and being that brakes are a #1 safety appliance - if they don’t work, you don’t go…and if not mistaken, a coroner held the train somewhere out there as well (easilly 6-10 hours) after a pedestrian encounter in “the stupid zone”.
I figured part of the problem was the snow and mudslides I’d been hearing about. I heard that some of those areas have recieved several feet of snow in the past couple of days. Didn’t know that the train may have hit a pedestrian though. Anyway, thanks for the info!
sorry about the double post.
Brad
yeah, they have had 6-8 feet of snow up there, and where those tracks are, they can get even more from the storms we are having right now. It finally stopped raining today, so tomorrow in the Sierras it should be better. I hope that someone has some pictures of the Rotaries, as I am sure they had to use them for this storm. If they do, can they post them. thanks,
Brad
all I have to say is Dang 20 hours
kevin
I remember back in 86, I took the train to reno. I was 8 at the time, and the day before we were to leave, I saw number 5 leave reno early in the morning about an hour late. It had been nasty that whole day, and that night, I saw good old Number 5 backing in with an SP Unit on the back end. The next day, they flew both us and the people on the day before’s train 5 out to Oakland. I talked to some of the people on that train, and they said that there was a severe snow storm up in the mountains, an avalanche had occured. I bet they were glad that they were able to get back to Reno, and not stuck up in the mountains like the City of SF was many years ago!!
Brad
So-Given the reports on weather conditions, there no chance the the train is actually 4 hours early??
Jay
Jay - I love an optimist!
Mook