Empire Builder delays

I've been noticing the Empire Builder has had an abysmal on-time record into Chicago the last few weeks---this from a train that has always had a good record. One day last week it was nearly 13 hrs. late. Anyone have any explanations????

There were several late turns of Equipment plus several other things go wrong with Freight Trains, Engines in a STATE OF GOOD REPAIR. My Mom and Brother's 8(25) arrived over 8 Hours late due to a comedy of woes, all was well til they hit Stanley, ND, where a person decided it was her time to "expire" and had to call the corner in that took 3 Hours, then Twice the Crews ran out of Hours, then Freight Trains plus Signal Woes. It gave new mean to the word Poseidon Adventure, but it didn't take nearly as long as the 20 Years Poseidon trip took.

My wife and I were on the #7-27 of July 14th. We went dead(both engines crapped out) in 100 degree heat near Havre, MT....and had to be towed the next 1,000 or so miles into Seattle by a BNSF freight unit, arriving over 9 hours late!

I think that the equipment for the #7 turns into the #8 in that same day. If on time, that's about a 7 hour turn around. Obviously, the #8 missed its slot because we were so late, and was annulled for that day. Now, that was over 2 1/2 weeks ago, but it could have started the problem for several days to come(??)

From the Florida Funnel(now back home)

Foodman53

Foodman53 said:

My wife and I were on the #7-27 of July 14th. We went dead(both engines crapped out) in 100 degree heat near Havre, MT....and had to be towed the next 1,000 or so miles into Seattle by a BNSF freight unit, arriving over 9 hours late!

Click to expand...

Did the A/C stop when the engines died? That must have been miserable!!!

My family and I were on the EB from Seattle that arrived in Chicago

7 hours late on Friday, July 27. (11 pm versus 4 pm)

The root cause of that delay was that an elder passenger died

Thursday night. The train was stopped in Rugby ND for several

hours while the authorities sorted it out. (It is never a good thing

when there is a PA announcement asking if a doctor or an EMT

is on board...)

By breakfast, we were 4 hours late. Add another hour at a siding

in the "middle of nowhere" because the engineer turned into a

pumpkin at the end of his shift. :blink:

The remaining 2 hours were due to waiting for traffic in front

of us to clear.

In our case, the A/C kept running.....thank God!! The interesting thing was that on the EB, there are several "smoke stops" built in along the route. However when the train stopped, the PA told everyone not to get off because of being right next to BNSF's two track mainline.....and, because of "rattlesnakes"!!

Before that wait was over, I'm sure there were some smokers who would have opted to brave the rattlers :lol:

From the Florida Funnel

Foodman53

Guest said:

My family and I were on the EB from Seattle that arrived in Chicago7 hours late on Friday, July 27. (11 pm versus 4 pm)

The root cause of that delay was that an elder passenger died

Thursday night. The train was stopped in Rugby ND for several

hours while the authorities sorted it out. (It is never a good thing

when there is a PA announcement asking if a doctor or an EMT

is on board...)

By breakfast, we were 4 hours late. Add another hour at a siding

in the "middle of nowhere" because the engineer turned into a

pumpkin at the end of his shift. :blink:

The remaining 2 hours were due to waiting for traffic in front

of us to clear.

Click to expand...

Yep that is correct, my Mom and Brother were on that train. They were just happy to get off that thing, when I saw them at home the next morning.

The east-bound Empire Builder from 8/11-8/13/13 was 4 hours into Chicago late due to a 3 hour wait overnight somewhere in Montana while 3 west bound freights passed and heavy passenger loads boarding and getting off. Mary H

#8 today in MN is now over 5 hours behind!

:-(

Amtrak and BNSF need to get together and establish a realistic schedule for this train, like UP and Amtrak did with Sunset a few years ago. It is better to have a slower schedule that can be met than a faster schedule but trains run hours late. And the upside is when things got better, UP and Amtrak revised the Sunset schedule to one pretty close to what it had been.

I know there are issues with that, specifically the connections in Chicago mean that most of the impact will probably be to the times at Seattle/Portland. The same day turnaround at the West Coast terminals would get squeezed, and it might mean that the 14/28 connection breaks in favor of keeping the Chicago connections. Still, it really seems time to face reality about this and reflect it in the schedule.