Amtrak will suspend NEC service north of New York early this afternoon and other northeast service has already been suspended. This is predicted to be a severe snow storm, the worst since 1978 so it is hard to argue against Amtrak’s decision. I do recall the days when service was never suspended. The schedule was forgotten about as railroads did the best they could and everything ran very late but it ran. I miss those old days but I wonder if I am mistaken.
In the past, railroads also had a lot more employees that they could call out to man plow and flanger extras, sweep out switches, tend to switch heaters, etc.
In the recent past, Amtrak has managed to keep operating through some pretty awful blizzards including 2 feet of snow in Boston and 30" of snow in Phila. I wonder what’s different about this one?
Perhaps that it follows Sandy so closely?
That could be. I’m hoping they get up and running in short order afterward. They’ve been the only thing running after the big snows in the past.
I know. Back in the pre Amtrak days when I was in the Army and a few years later there were a couple of times when I got by train to Providence when nothing else was running. The trips were long–not my best train riding experiences. But the train did get me through.
Even in the past 20 years, the NEC operating folk have shown a lot of gumption keeping things going thought some pretty big blizzards. They’ve run reduced schedules (who can get to and from stations, after all!) but they’ve kept going. Have no idea how they got crews to trains…but they did!
Amtrak seems to be getting things together. Reduced service to Boston will start at 10:00 am tomorrow and from Boston at 11:40. There will be some (but reduced) service between New York and Albany and some service seems to be starting on other lines in the northeast.
Since the Governors of CT, RI, & MA all shut down the roads, operating trains thru the storm would have sent all those passengers to stations with no place to go and potential no power and heat.
Mike,
Even if the Governors had not shut down the roads you still couldn’t get anywhere because of the snow. It really must have overwhelmed the plows. I talked to my brother today; he lives between Providence and Boston. It took him and his wife 7 hours to clear their driveway and walkways. After they were finished they were unable to go anywhere. I’m sure everyone else was in the same situation.
John
One thing many overlook when discussing ‘back in 1908 we never shut anything down account snow’ - in 1908 you did not have a mobile population - people (most of them anyway) lived within walking distance of their place of employment. Now, virtually no one does, including those charged with keeping the means of transportation open.
John, you are not mistaken. I remember riding the Wabash Blue Bird from Chicago to St. Louis once in the early 1960’s when a blizzard forced the closure of airports in Chicago. Several heavy weight cars were added to the streamlined Blue Bird to handle the stranded airline passengers and I expect the IC and GM&O did the same. We ran at reduced speed the first 50 or so miles out of Chicago probably because the snow had taken down the wires of the signal system. Despite this we arrived in St. Louis only about 40 minutes late. In those days the railroads were like the US mail, neither rain nor sleet nor snow caused the trains to stop running.
Mark
Even though I’m usually disappointed when service is suspended due to forecasts, I think they got it right this time. Up here in Vermonter territory we got somewhere between 6 and 18 inches of light fluffy snow which packed down to about half that depth by Sunday morning. Freight trains continued running but had nothing to connect to. Down in Connecticut between Stamford and New Haven Metro North got 30"-38" of heavy wet snow that packs like concrete when pushed by plows. MTA had photos of MNCR equipment in New Haven with snow up to the carbody frames. Despite this Metro North and Amtrak had some service Sunday afternoon, and more service Monday morning. Even with lots of tree trimming and removal there were still trees or parts of trees that had to be cleared before service could resume.