Empire Builder's Troubles continue into the Fall

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montana mike

Conductor
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Apr 21, 2012
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Whitefish, Montana
Just when we thought things were settling down a bit to "only" 2-3 hour delays for arrivals into CHI and close to normal arrival times (albeit with the extra time built in) into SEA/PDX, the Hi-Line route is starting to experience major delays again--and on weekends, which used to offer a little bit of better news. Today's EB in MN is now well over 7 hours late and getting worse. #7 in WA is over 6 1/2 hours late. Thank goodness for the extra train set.

I will be traveling on the EB's in late October and Amtrak informed me yesterday that the "extended and padded schedule" will continue for the foreseeable future, as BNSF would not offer assurances to Amtrak that the Empire Builders would be able to run anywhere close to normal transit times at any time in the near future. I wonder how that one train made it on time a couple weeks ago???

:-(
 
Today's update:

#8, still in MN, is now 10 1/2 hours late-rats!

#7, in eastern MT is now 5 1/2 hours behind

#7 in WA is 4 1/2 hours behind.

It has NOT been a good weekend for ANY of the Empire Builders.

:-(((
 
Today's update:

#8, still in MN, is now 10 1/2 hours late-rats!

#7, in eastern MT is now 5 1/2 hours behind

#7 in WA is 4 1/2 hours behind.

It has NOT been a good weekend for ANY of the Empire Builders.

:-(((
#8 was very late 2 days in a row (9/11 and 9/12 departures), but on both trips, it lost a lot of time between GFK and FAR, over 5 hours one day, 4 hours the next. So there may have been a specific problem or stoppage for track work that stabbed those #8s.

Meanwhile #8 (9/13) departed MSP only 19 minutes late today. #8 appears to be changing from almost always at least 4,5,6 hours late to a random distribution between on-time and 12 hours late.
 
Those two days Amtrak got stuck behind a freight train that had no crew and was not able to get around it via a siding, etc.
Is the BNSF really that short of crews, and if they are, why can't the dispatcher anticipate it and put them in a hole before they run out of time so they can wait for a crew there rather than bring everything to a halt?
 
Got into Portage yesterday on 8 (11) six and a half hours late. The operating crew went dead on the law somewhere south of Fargo and we had to wait at a crossroads for a relief crew. During that time one of the passengers opened a door, jumped off the train, hiked to the highway and was not seen again. A sheriff's vehicle appeared twenty minutes later but the wayward passenger evidently had disappeared.

On the other hand, the on-board service crew was excellent and so was that on No. 7 a couple of weeks earlier. The food on both runs was okay, as always. I didn't really miss any of the former amenities except for real china—we had AmPlastic dishes both ways. The diner crews told us that they were to have had real china on both runs but something went wrong with that train set's diner and they had to take one from the pool. I think both my trips had the same train set. The sleeper on both runs was the same one.

Only real downer to the trip was that we had to overnight at a motel in Portage because none of us wants to drive at night (we are all geezers). We resumed our journey home to Upper Michigan via auto the next morning.

It could have been a LOT worse.

A few days before, we took the Canadian from Jasper to Vancouver and it was a couple of hours late into Vancouver because of Alberta oil sands traffic.
 
FWIW, #8 arrived into CHI today 12 minutes early.

#7 arrived into SEA 4 minutes early.

#27 arrived into PDX 27 minutes early.

Granted, that's all with the benefit of the extra, extra padded schedule. But still! :)

And of the 5 Builders currently on the Status Maps, none are in the red. The worst is 8(17) which

is about 80 minutes down just entering North Dakota (granted, it could lose a lot more overnight).
 
FWIW, #8 arrived into CHI today 12 minutes early.

#7 arrived into SEA 4 minutes early.

#27 arrived into PDX 27 minutes early.

Granted, that's all with the benefit of the extra, extra padded schedule. But still! :)

And of the 5 Builders currently on the Status Maps, none are in the red. The worst is 8(17) which

is about 80 minutes down just entering North Dakota (granted, it could lose a lot more overnight).
I've been following the EB (#7) closely ever since we booked our trip. We depart tomorrow on #7 and then to PDX.

Fingers crossed!
 
And of the 5 Builders currently on the Status Maps, none are in the red. The worst is 8(17) which

is about 80 minutes down just entering North Dakota (granted, it could lose a lot more overnight).
Apparently it did. unless I mixed up dates. It's now "disrupted"". Track-a-clack has it stopped. Anybody know what happened? No news I could find. Thanks.
 
#7 is only 33 min late leaving Fargo. Let's see what happens as it traverses North Dakota. :angry2:

And I'm boarding #7 this afternoon!
 
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Showing #8 in MN now well over 6 hours late--almost all of the time lost between Grand Forks And fargo---arrrrrgh!
If this is another instance of BNSF blocking the line with a freight train without a crew...

(That's what happened to me on Sunday morning going through that area on #8. It's frustrating.)
 
From my log on 26-Aug EB 8:

[SIZE=10pt] • At Williston, 3.5 hours late at 7:30pm, but they sounded optimistic about Stanley and Minot, and I thought I’d get off for an evening walk in Minot about 9pm, but NOOOOOOO…a freight train just ahead of us near Stanley didn’t have enough power to get up a hill and was awaiting another engine…estimated additional delay an hour or so. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]I found that whenever they announced ETA for a station ahead, it was always optimistic.[/SIZE]
 
I've often wondered why Amtrak doesn't sell scanners aboard the train at this point. After the sixth or seventh inexplicable delay they'd probably have some takers.
 
Amtrak has it's own tracker on the first page of their website, on the lower left.
 
I'm scheduled to depart on the EB from Seattle on December 9th. When I purchased my ticket over the summer I was scheduled to depart at 4:40 pm. I just received an email stating my departure time has changed to 1:20. Why the earlier time? Are they padding their times for a better "on-time" appearance?
 
The very heavy BNSF freight traffic on the route of the Empire Builder continues, and while the construction season will be over by that time BOTH Amtrak and BNSF have admitted the Hi-Line just has too much traffic to go back to the old schedule in the "foreseeable future" (quoted to me by a BNSF employee this month). The extra three hours of padding eastbound and 90 minutes westbound has allowed a handful of trains to arrive in CHI on time (most arrive about 2-3 hours late) and perhaps 1/3 of the westbound trains to arrive in SEA/PDX on time. Without the padding none of these would likely even come close to the old schedule.

My BNSF contacts say realistically that 2016 is when things "could" get back to where they should be able to consider looking at the old schedule again.
 
My BNSF contacts say realistically that 2016 is when things "could" get back to where they should be able to consider looking at the old schedule again.
By 2016, not only will BNSF's improvements be coming to fruition, but new pipelines will start coming on line, removing oil traffic from the Hi Line.
 
My BNSF contacts say realistically that 2016 is when things "could" get back to where they should be able to consider looking at the old schedule again.
By 2016, not only will BNSF's improvements be coming to fruition, but new pipelines will start coming on line, removing oil traffic from the Hi Line.
I thought they were not going to do the pipeline? Did something changed?
 
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