I know this train is often called the “Late shore limited” or the “Late for shore limited”.
My question is, why is it always late? Wouldnt Amtrak fix the schedule to deal with this, or change departure times to get around “roadblocks” .
I don’t think they can afford to fix the schedule!! Trains are increasing and there is no way to get around it except build more track and I dont look for that to occur anytime soon.
It is pretty much always late – sometimes by quite a margin (like hours and hours!). But, in all fairness to all concerned, I’m not sure that one can point to any one specific cause or problem – other than one rather glaringly obvious one: the line on which it runs carries very heavy freight traffic. Unlike the days 50 years ago, for various reasons passenger service does not have an absolute priority (not only on this line, but on others); this is not the thread, I think, to go into the reasons why this is so. But the result is that although I am sure that the CSX dispatchers do what they can, problems and conflicts do occur, and the Lake Shore – and everything else moving on the line – gets delayed. Added to that is that it is a fairly long run anyway.
At one time much of the line from Albany to Buffalo was four track, which allowed more flexibility. Most of it is double track now, but there is still a good deal of flexibility in that it is, I think, mostly bidirectional which it didn’t used to be.
The basic problem? The line is running close to capacity, and stuff happens…
The problem is much worse in the winter, by the way, very often due to weather related problems in the Buffalo, NY area.
Could CSX dispatch better? No doubt it could, but at the expense of more delays on the rest of the traffic. Various railroads seem to have various philosophies about their internal dispatch priorities for Amtrak trains. BNSF and CPR seem to try their darndest to give Amtrak top priority and do pretty well, for instance. But that is a very very complicated issue…
I have taken the “Late Shore Limited” a number of times over the past several year both in the summer & winter. In my travels, the train has been late just as often as it is on time. Several yrs ago, on the 4th of July, the crew outlawed within site of downtown Chicago.
Aside from the problems of too many trains & not enough track, Amtrak has a problem with the trainsets for the LSL. Because of the low clearances in the tunnels in New York, Amtrak cannot use the newer highlevel SuperLiner cars, so the number of replacment cars available is limited. Amtrak has about 10 hours to turn each trainset & get it ready for the return run. Each car must be cleaned, watered, waste emtpyed. repairs made, food stocked etc for the next run. Normally the schedule allows enough time to ready each trainset for the next run. But, if the train is late the amount of time to turn the trainset is less. Ice & snow packed around items that need to be serviced under the cars slows things even more, as the cars need to be thawed out before servicing or repairs made. Thus delaying the departure time of the next run. And on crowded tracks, it’s hard to make up much time. Plus, I would imagine it makes it more difficult for the dispacher when a scheduled train does not leave on time.
Toledo I believe is another bottleneck as the depot can only handle one Amtrak train at a time. Aside from passengers boardings, I believe Amtrak trains are serviced in Toledo. I have listened as the conductor negotiated with the dispatcher about letting his Eastbound train enter Toledo over a Westbound Amtrak. He told me it would save an hour or better.
One doesn’t have to sit in the parking lot of Carousel Mall in Syracuse (right next to the Chicago line) very long to see a train. Even if I’m just passing through, I can usually count on hearing the defect detector on the scanner. The line is very busy. Even though the freights can move along at a pretty good clip, it’s still not 79 mph.
As a by to by, I have had pretty good luck traveling on the Capitol Limited. Not that I am a frequent traveler, but at least the running between Chicago and Cleveland on the NS has been on time. Of course the Capitol diverts from the Lake Shore route at Cleveland, so this comment has nothing to do with CSX’s performance. It just got me to wonder if the Lake Shore looses more time on the CSX or the NS portion of the trip.
No, I don’t think the fault is with the dispatching. More likly a capacity problem and the equipment/turnaround issues.
Is the original 4 track size ROW east of Cleveland still pretty much intact? Who knows. CSX discovers a huge oil field under the headquarters building in Jacksonville and that produces money for an add a track program.
Jay
IIRC, when I was in Perry OH in September, we saw the Lake Shore Limited (so we were told by the local railfans standing there) on the NS line. Yes, east of Cleveland the CSX still has four tracks
Ric Hamilton
Berwick, NS
NS is beginning to install a new dispatching system with a movement planner that tries to optimize the movement across the entire RR. The algorithm it uses is a bit more complex than “this train has priority over that one”. It won’t be installed on the Dearborn Div. for another year or so, but it will be interesting to see if it improves the performance of the Amtrak trains…
That is going to be one big puppy in terms of software… I’d love to see it! If it works, it should improve the performance of everything. Good for NS[:)].
Of course, if it doesn’t work…[xx(]
Its been my experience that the trains running east of Chicago run on time better than the trains west of Chicago… An hour or less is nothing compared to the common eight hours or more for the Sunset Limited…
But isn’t the track that the sunset limited runs on once it is on UP very congested also? And also, it is not given the highest priority by UP either, right? Just asking.
Mike
I think priority issues with the UP were cleared up. I think you can hang most of the Sunset Limited’s problems on congestion. The UP is still fighting its way out of big problems due to crew shortages, and lately weather but even after those things are fixed up, any needed capacity is not going to come overnight.
Mark H. makes an excellent central point that relates to all Amtrak trains running on the Class1’s properties. In large messure it’s a case of follow the money! With the Class1’s truly struggling to handle the business they have(and in UP’s case turning some away) much of which pays them substantially more than Amtrak-their natural inclination is going to be to give priority to the best payer. When you include this basic truth into the equation it’s suprising that the overall performance is as good as it is(bad as that may be). When I was a member of the Amtrak BOD(1982-'87) I chaired the committee that instituted the first incentive provisions into the contracts with the host railroads. At that time, generally speaking,there was plenty of capacity and our incentives had a dramatic effect on overall performance. As a for instance the Silver service trains went from an annual o.t. performance of 65% to 96% in one year and the carriers involved earned incentives in the neigborhood of $4.5 million for their performance. Unfortunatly those incentives in todays world are “chicken feed” compared to the penalties the railroad will suffer if it falls down on one of its big freight customers(i.e. UPS, GM,Ford,Chrysler etc. etc. ) in todays highly competetive “JIT” world.
Therefore-either Amtrak has to revise the incentive program to make it sufficiently lucrative for the host railroad to treat its Amtrak trains as"premium" customers or continue as present knowing full well that when it comes crunch time out there on the railroad there’s a high probability that the Amtraker is going in the hole- not the UPS hotshot!!!
Ross Rowland