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Westbound ‘Empire Builder’ rerouted through summer, ridership dips
Bob Johnston, who for some reason never has anything critical to say about Amtrak, left out the many, many delays caused by Amtrak’s own failure to dispatch the Empire Builder on time from Chicago, often due to its chronic inability to maintain a sufficient number of roadworthy locomotives, or, evidently, to staff its own field operations. Someone in North Dakota might want to ask Joe Boardman why he hasn’t invested any new capital into the Empire Builder or the Chicago yards to protect the integrity of Amtrak’s highest-grossing, and highest output, single train.
I think the westbound issue out of Chi…is lack of manpower to keep up with the maintenance & upkeep of equip…, I assume this only because on the Amtrak site, there’s ALWAYS open positions for machinist, carman, sheet metal etc. I was born & raised in Chi… I would apply but this SoFlo weather keeps me here. I guess its either not hiring but still have open positions or its just hard to find good people. Thats my catch on it that its maintenance becuz I RARELY see Conductor and even fewer Engineer positions open in Chi…it always starts and ends w/ maintenance, I know Im an aircraft mechanic and that motto is aviation gospel. I hope Amtrak finds and hires more maintainers, The Empire Builder is a great train, I hate to see it deteriorate.
OK, that’s it, I’ve had it. I grew up with Amtrak. I was dismayed when the North Coast Hiawatha got the ax in 1979, and the North Star went in 1985. But what the heck, I thought, I’m sure this is just temporary and we will eventually have more than one train each way in Minnesota, and surely they will run another daily train from the Twin Cities to Chicago so I don’t have to stay overnight there to make a connection. Things will get better, right? Now it’s 30 years later and the Empire Builder is a joke. New Superliners and some semblance of timekeeping? It’s a dream. Amtrak and Congress have no intention of making the train viable again, it is all empty talk. And BNSF is completely indifferent to running the train on time. I was planning to take the train to Seattle from Grand Forks this summer but there is no way I am riding a bus to Minot after paying a fortune for a train ticket. Good bye, Amtrak. If I live long enough to see some real improvement in Minnesota train service, which I doubt, I may consider returning, but after 43 years of this nonsense, forget it. As Peter Finch shouted in the movie Network, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”
Amtrak has always had to eke out it’s existence on a starvation budget. Although ,in general Amtrak has enjoyed unprecedented gains in ridership, there are many politicians that can’t see the value of our only passenger carrier and call for it’s head. Sure some of you posters will call me an Amtrak loving liberal and tell me to lay off the Kool-Aid. But I see it as it is.
Mr. Streeter apparently believes that the nearly billion and a half dollars of free capital that congress already gives Amtrak every year doesn’t count. Mr. Boardman and his Board can choose to spend a tiny bit of that money outside the NEC–but they choose not to. That’s not congress’ fault, that is Amtrak’s doing.
Plenty of blame to spread around.
Mr. Selden: Tell Congress to give Boardman the capital and I’m sure he’ll spend some of it on new cars and maintenance facilities.
Messr. Selden and Reid: the article specified that 7 has been “more than an hour late 45 percent of the time after departing Chicago on time.” The point was to show how often CP is delaying the train. The article is not blaming CP for the times when it leaves Chicago late. Amtrak’s own delays are also a problem that needs to be discussed, but it’s not the point of this article.
I say BNSF needs to pay back some or all of the money spent by Amtrak and the government to fix up the Devil’s Lake sub so Amtrak could keep using it. BNSF didn’t need it because they weren’t running through trains on it. Now, suddenly, it’s vitally important to them.
Hope the BNSF (Big Nothing So Far) does better with all this planned work in North Dakota than they have with the signal system upgrade between the cities and Fargo…that has been dragging on for years now and still has far to go.
So THIS is why the Business Cars were on the tail end of 7 today!
This winter was the perfect storm: Snowfall 50% above average, a record crop throughout the upper Midwest, a shortage of railcars after, construction of Positive Train Control systems (that will not affect safety in any way) and much more. It is amazing that the Builder ran at all. Kudos to Amtrak for keeping it going. If you want to blame someone, call Congress and ask them how the Interstate Highway system is providing so much more efficient transportation than the railroads it destroyed!
This winter was the perfect storm: Snowfall 50% above average, a record crop throughout the upper Midwest, a shortage of railcars after, construction of Positive Train Control systems (that will not affect safety in any way) and much more. It is amazing that the Builder ran at all. Kudos to Amtrak for keeping it going. If you want to blame someone, call Congress and ask them how the Interstate Highway system is providing so much more efficient transportation than the railroads it destroyed!
I was under the impression that Congress specifies, at least somewhat, where the capital it gives Amtrak gets spent. In fact, this is why Amtrak is telling the states to pay for upgrades on the SWC route. Congress won’t let Amtrak spend the money on its own.
Mr. Selden needs to put the blame where it belongs.
A great deal of blame to go around it seems. As a frequent Amtrak rider I have always understood that the BNSF does care about keeping Amtrak trains on time as they have a dedicated individual covering Amtrak trains across their system. Now, it is obvious that with huge gains in traffic (particularly crude oil) work needs to be done in North Dakota to accommodate that capacity. Sometimes you have to take a step back to take two steps forward. It also sounds like there is an issue with lack of manpower in Chicago to service trains. That is an Amtrak problem and they need to solve that. Late departures out of CUS puts a train behind the 8 ball right away so that needs to be fixed. As far as equipment, I have been telling Amtrak for some time that in my opinion they should (as new single level equipment comes online) take the Capital Ltd. and City of NO Superliner train sets and put them out west so there is more capacity especially during the summer. No easy fixes but hope they get the Empire Builder situation resolved in the time frame they are presenting as it was always one of Amtrak’s best trains. Just trying to look at this whole thing objectively.
If I had known the Empire Builder had consistent delays, I wouldn’t have waited for it come last July in West Glacier, MT, which was during a nice trip away from home in Lethbridge. I was upset when I realized I had waited two hours for three BNSF trains pass and no Amtrak. At least it was a nice evening. I have no intent to wait for the Empire Builder again. I’ll stick with sitting and waiting for unscheduled freights, CP, CN, anywhere.