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Amtrak Chicago operations nearly back to normal
This is nice, but they are still late getting the Empire Builder out of Chicago, although today it was “only” 63 minutes late, compared to as much as 7 hours late leaving Chicago last week.
Maybe NEXT year Amtrak will be better prepared for winter…
Sounds like they added stuff to the Eagle, probably to position a trainset to make the return trip. Crew probably wasn’t available at this end.
How can they cancel one trip without canceling one going the other direction?
W
Can think of many times in my travel experience when the “free enterprise” airlines and their airports were shut down and Amtrak was running late, but running. Last year both St. Louis and Kansas City International were shut down during a blizzard, but the Missouri River Runners arrived half hour early at each end. BWI was shut down for two days and Amtrak ran the whole time. No, all is not well with the airlines.
Try the Texas Eagle for delays. Compounded onto the Sunset. Last week one train was 14 hours late into Dallas. The good news the Eagle has been on time since.
Amtrak prepared for winter next year? Will hell be freezing over? Everybody seems to forget reality. This is big government railroading at its best. When was the last time big government was prepared for the weather? Reality dictates that big government is never prepared for the weather, except for the military. Which brings up an idea. Turn Amtrak over to the Coast Guard. They kept the Soo Locks running all winter one year back in the 1970’s as an experiment that actually worked. Mostly because they had experienced Yoopers armed with high output steam jets in key positions. Those winters make what happened last week look like spring break.
Yes, snow happens. And every now and then, a lot of it. And that disrupts a lot of transportation. For anyone who was around here, I’d suggest that we had some significant weather. We had a fair amount of really light, fluffy snow that blew around a whole lot. Then extreme cold. I’m not sure that anyone here was out volunteering to sweep switches or empty waste tanks in minus 40 wind chills. I live near the BNSF and the IHB and there are plenty of switch heaters around here and yet the railroads were still out hand sweeping.
Amtrak has limited numbers of cars and crews. They are also highly dependent upon the freight railroads to get through. If the BNSF wasn’t keeping the tracks clear – or was running freight slower than normal, they were stuck. Once the schedules went to heck, it should be expected that it would start screwing with schedules for days. On a good day, the California Zephyr and Southwest Chief can be hours behind schedule. Unlike airlines, Amtrak can’t reposition its fleet in a matter of a few hours – if the equipment and crews are hundreds of miles out of position, it is going to take time to get them where they need to be and get the equipment serviced. And that time causes repercussions with hours of service laws in place.
Thanks for the thoughtful and balanced comment Patrick. I’d add that tax dollars in northern municipalities and at the county and state level amply fund both snow removal equipment and personnel, which demonstrates more public policy bias to rubber tired transport modes.
Amtrak operations at Chicago seem to be crippled every winter regardless of the nature or severity of the weather. And here’s something that people who don’t live in the north country may not apprciate–the polar vortex and the winter snowstorm that preceded it are well within the range of “normal” winter weather for this part of the country, including Chicago.
I flew out of MSP on the Monday morning when it was 27 degrees below zero F. Our plane de-iced. That was it. We left on time. Operations at MSP seemed to be as normal as ever that morning for all the airlines.
When you go to a “hub-and-spoke” concept of operations combined with a “lean” equipment fleet and maintenance force (the folks that clear out the brush to keep trees off the tracks in ice storms, repair inoperative signals, and perform spot repairs on cars), you have a network that can be easily disrupted.
The Midwest got hit with a blizzard and ice storm. That’s why everything went to hell. We were under that polar vortex with temps at -30 at times. I am in towards port huron and got hit with 22 inches of snow 4 inches of ice. Trees down everywhere. And power lines were out for a week. In some places up to two weeks. That’s why amtrak had issues just like the other lines did as well. It’s the weather we can’t predict it.