well today (6/8) Amtrak shuts down their California Zephyr due to flooding. The empire builder also sees a bitched up route due to Flooding. Other routes that saw the devastation of flooding and service changes were the City of New Orleans and the Texas eagle. I think the Southwest Chief also saw some service changes as well. All this service changes can also come with less ridership on cross country routes, And that’s not good for “profit”.
Ma Nature - 5
Amtrak - 0
Here is the Amtrak service alert for the noted service disruptions, due to BNSF-owned trackage, to wit: http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?c=AM_Alert_C&pagename=am/AM_Alert_C/Alerts_Popup&p=1237608345018&cid=1248543788588 It saddens me, if and when there are unfavorable effects of natural disasters.
Profit? When has Amtrak ever made a profit? Delays/re-routing is expected when there is flooding. Even before Amtrak, I remember seeing the Empire Builder detouring in the C&NW. BNSF/CP usually have done a pretty good job of re-routing for weather or large track projects. Sometimes there just is not a good alternate route available. When one follows ‘water level’ grades - there is always the possible service delay or outage!
Jim
Rock Island and M-K-T both had water level routes along the Missouri River. You could always tell when the Big River was flooding because their trains would come through Kirkwood on the MoPac.
One has to wonder if Amtrak is rerouting passengers onto the SW limited and the Eagle thru LAX. Since the cancellations and short runs of the EB and CZwill leave idle equipment why couldn’t the idled cars go onto the operating trains? Would only increase expenses very limited.
Amtrak the best advertisement any Airline could ask for.