Anyone know why #20 has been runing upto 13 hours late. This has been going on for at least two weeks.
Thanks,
Railroad65
it’s not just #20…Amtrak has ALWAYS been known for running late, with almost all it’s trains
I’m not really sure, but I think #20 has been running late because #19 has been running late into NO and there is a crew rest issue. #19 has been running late for a variety of reasons. There has been bad weather in the northeast, there are 3 pairs of CSX detour trains a day over NS into NO and there has been quite a bit of congestion in Atlanta.
Once a #19 gets in so late that you have to hold #20’s departure for a rested crew, you start to get into a vicious cycle. Looks like it’s still going on. Yesterday’s #20 was 3 hrs late out of NO and is now about 10 hrs late just north of Atlanta.
Personally Amtrak should be the late Amtrak in more ways than one. Want to go Chicago to Philadelphia. Plan to get off the train in Pittsburgh at 4:30AM and wait three hours for the Pennsylvanian to take you the rest of the way if it is on time. This sure makes you want to ride it doesn’t it? The only advantage is you are sure of going around the curve in daylight. Amtrak needs to be put out of its misery in my opinion.
Why not just ride thru to DC on the Capitol and go to Phila from there? Amtrak shows a connection to train 156 on thier schedule card - 1-1/2 hour connection, but you could do better by an hour or so.
Or take the LSL to NYP and then on to Phila.
Either way avoid having to detrain at 4AM and costs almost nothing in overall trip time. Pittsbugh to DC scenery rivals Pittsburgh to Phila, plus you get to stay in your roomy Superliner coach or sleeper rather than ride in an 80 seat Amfleet.
Let’s remember that CSX is running all manner of detour trains over the NS route from NOL to ATL. CSX had their line destroyed by a hurricane, so they have to detour. This track is single track, which means that all of the trains are delayed, not just Amtrak. It isn’t Amtrak’s fault if the freight railroads are having capacity limitations.
This isn’t the only stretch of line that was single tracked years ago to save some money. Nowadays all of the single tracking that made so much sense during the 1980s is returning to haunt the RR’s big time. Just look at U.P. SErious congestion issues throughout the Sunset Route, and into the Pacific Northwest. It isn’t Amtrak’s fault that the trains are late. Remember who owns the rails, folks.
It’s three a day, each way.
NS has 5 pair of road trains of their own into/out of NO, plus 3 more pair on/off at Meridian. Not an outrageous amount for a single track line.
It would be well to examine the reasons for delays to Amtrak trains (and others) before assuming that it’s all Amtrak’s ‘fault’ (e.g. the comment from ndbprr). It would also be well to examine overall performance rather than one single route before condeming the entire operation (a problem on some other threads, too, by the way). And it would be well to determine whether the problem is just rail transportation, or other modes as well.
In terms of overall performance, Amtrak does about as well as most other forms of public transit in the USA – which, granted, isn’t saying much.
While not all delays are pretty well beyond Amtrak’s control, it must be remembered, too, that Amtrak operates over the host railroads and under their control, except in the northeast corridor.
Blaming Amtrak for traffic-related delays on certain routes is almost as silly as blaming Delta Airlines for weather related delays at Chicago. Of course, come to think of it, people do do that, don’t they? Ah well…
all I can say is…thanks to Amtrak, I got a 10 hour ride in a limo the last time I tried to travel by train…we were 3 hours late into Chicago, so those of us heading out toward Michigan got a limo to take us from there…courtesy of Amtrak, of course…(they musta run out of vans and buses that day)…