Chaos, Planned Detour, and bad Dispatching- Texas Eagle

Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum

Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

illinoisandy

Train Attendant
Joined
Jul 30, 2014
Messages
37
Location
Chicago, Rail City USA
About a week ago, I was on the Amtrak Web page looking around and found that the Lincoln Service and Texas Eagle had a service disruption alert for track work in Illinois and that the Eagle was being rerouted through the 23rd. ** just as a heads up, this is long report for a shorter trip, **

Great, I finally am off midnights at the job and my schedule will let me take it down the 23rd via the reroute and then back the normal route through Normal.

Chaos at Union Station

The basic consensus that I pick up is that Union Station is almost Mecca like to many Amtrak riders on this forum, I understand the history and the Great Hall, etc. but the coach boarding experience was poor.

My parents of their mid 70's joined me for the ride, which afforded us the luxury of the "Coach"? Lounge.

Crowded and full of people who did not meet the special categories displayed on the monitors for utilizing the coach lounge and staff that seemed like they had no concept or care to come up with a reasonable concept to load a train.

First we are called (ticket check #1) to go to a secondary seating area, why couldn't this have been used in the first place was what I was thinking. Then we went to get on the train (as I recall Ticket check # 2) then on the platform the on board staff was checking tickets to guide people to the proper car. (Ticket Check #2 or 3)

This is just bad, bad, bad, hundreds of people getting on a train and someone looking at tickets to direct them.

"This car is for St. Louis coach passengers" being yelled out, a piece of paper taped to the car by the door with " St. Louis STL coach", loading the train based destination and any other reasonable plan would have worked better I believe.

Finally on the train and we are on our way!

Detour on the old C&EI

Based on the start of this report you might think I'm a hater but I really like trains and the Superliner experience I do enjoy greatly. After the ticket scanning, I go to the Sight Seer Lounge, find a table, set up my Hot spot, Delorme Street Atlas with GPS, ATCS (train dispatching screen) on my laptop and begin to enjoy the passing scenery, it is both an exciting and a soothing experience for me.

The reroute is why I am here and I make the most of the experience. Some may find the slower speeds and flat corn fields boring but this somewhat rare mileage, Chicago Hts., Villa Grove, Tuscola, Pana all are Railroad towns past and present that I'm riding through on a train!

Our first BAD dispatching move came in Chicago Height about 40 minutes after leaving Chicago, The National railway of our Northern Neighbor decided the 20 minutes out, 100+ cars, 20 mph drag was to special to let two short 30 axle trains through (21 and 22 was on the other side) so we sit and sit, all this talk about trains slots and so on is just nonsense, 2 30 axle trains at the crossing vs. a 400 axle train 20 minutes out. If engineers could run reds and get away with it, they should have. (Not condoning unsafe practices)

The rest of the trip was enjoyable.

"Dinner in the dinning car nothing could..." well maybe. Although the food is very captive audience, it is decent and the experience was worth the cost even though the Mica cuts take a little or a lot away. We had to persuade my mom that lounge car snack meal is just not the same, afterwards she agreed.

This train and all the LD trains that I have been on are really two worlds, the "this is better than a bus" and the "sleeper snobs". Frankly, spending some time in the lounge I find the "better than" a more interesting group to talk to, real people in real situations brings them on board, the "sleeper snobs" are very typical, kind of boring in a way, I’ll get back to this in a bit. Several people were on their first rides and seemed positive about their experience, "this is much better than the bus".

So we arrive in St. Louis about an hour and half late (not bad for the detour or even in general)

To the hotel and bed.

So checking on #22 early the next morning and find the train is only about 15 minutes late, great, a quick breakfast then back to the station. I had been watching its arrival into STL and it was running 2 hours late most days.

Got to the station, which I will say, although better than the old station, it still seems too small.

Sleeper Snob

I also was looking at sleeper availability from the night before, coming out of Chicago the train and passengers are fresh, coming into St. Louis not so much was what I was thinking. So a Family sleeper was available for about double our coach fares, I ran through the numbers and a high bucket coach fare to low bucket for a sleeper, then the cost of the room. Price went from about $40 something to $80 something but with two meals plus the privacy made it well worth it. I am a sleeper snob especially if the numbers work and the wife (not on trip) and mom are, no questions. So I check and the train is losing time fast and the line is started to build even though it is still early for even an on time train. So I walk to the agent and ask if the sleeper is still available, yes, I'll take it, so he starts typing. I don't know if it just me but this type of situation always make me nervous. Will something go wrong and I'll somehow lose both my coach and sleeping ticket and be stuck until the afternoon to get on a lousy regional train home. So then after a few minutes everything is processed, I go back to my parents and say follow me and we walk to the first class waiting room and enter a small, quite, and more comfortable space. We wait for a while as we see the coach line get longer and longer. Good move, if i can say for myself.

The train comes in and people start to board, someone in the lounge opens the door and says in frustration "they should have gotten us." The good thing is we have assigned space, if this was an early board option for general seating it would have been bad. My Dad says, "if this is early boarding you should get back your money", no problems dad, just follow me. We walk past the lines getting onto the coaches to the sleeper go to room 15, find the SCA explain we are last minute booking into room 15 and agree to go to breakfast and allow the beds to be turned up. It looked like prior riders had gotten off in STL.

Enjoyed breakfast, then the SSL again, lots of work on the High Speed Rail still going on, several siding being rebuild and one added from the ground up.

A quick, limited options lunch, even though by this point are 2 hours behind, the Dining car is in a hurry to close as if we are on time.

I have this false perception that the SCA will come around and say "Hi, welcome aboard, I'm so and so, your sleeping car attendant, I will be doing... if you need ..., let me know, enjoy your trip" This just doesn't happen, maybe it just been bad draws for me but to me is just bad customer service in this area, I have a general understand the whole operation but if I was new I think would walk away negatively.

Switching problem South of Joliet stops us, things happen I can give this one.

The second BAD dispatching experience is at one of the numerous bottle necks known as Chicago, in Brighton Park, to give an idea of the situation we are in, we are about 4 miles out of Union Station at this point, we stop for an outbound Metra to cross over tracks then somehow as I watch (on my ATCS monitor) two freights get the crossing. What?! Another 1 30 axle train vs. this time 2 long freights, another 20+ minutes lost plus again the thought that we are only a few miles away from the station. We get finally get in and are put on the same platform as a BNSF inbound Commuter train, the platform is almost at a mobbed rush situation, not good, border line dangerous at some level passengers with bags almost being ran over by rushed commuters.

Take away

Any option to go from one of the suburban stations will be taken after both the experiences at Union Station,

Hopefully the planned work will help this situation.

First / business class might be an option but still a lot to go through to get on a train.

I have used Naperville several times and find it very positive, easy experience.

I have always wanted to do this type of trip and can't wait to find my next adventure, as a side note I am still trying to track down Ocean View (Dome Car) as every time in Chicago seems to conflict with my availability.

Thanks for taking the time to read and until next time, enjoy the ride and be safe.
 
Enjoyed reading your trip report. I have been on the detour route three or four times in the last two years. First time was nice, second time, o.k. but the delays due to the crossings south of Chicago make it a long ride sometimes. Like it or not, Amtrak is at the mercy of the freight railroad dispatching and we are low priority in their minds.

Hoping to get a chance to ride the "regular TE route CHI-STL on our next trip.

Your experience in coach is one reason why we are always "sleeper snobs" Not really :)
 
As a frequent Rider on this Route on the Eagles,( my "Home" train) I would say your expierence is typical now a days. Its still better than a Bustitution on the regular Lincoln Trains/Eagle Route between CHI and STL.

Union Station is a zoo during Rush Hours, hopefully the remodeling/rennovations just starting will make the Waiting and boarding experience more pleasant and efficient!

I would suggest using a Red Cap @ Union Station when riding in Coach, it eliminates the multiple ticket "checks" by the Gate Furhers and the crazy long lines from the cattle pens!

As for the Lounge in St Louis , I have utilized it a few times and every single time they "forgot" to come get the First Class passengers, we were on our own to board!

With the current cutbacks going on in the Diners, the Eagle is operating with a short food service crew and is running short of food items on the trip North from San Antonio due to Management mandates which short the food orders in CHI for the 4 day/3Night Roundtrip of the Eagles.

As for the Reroute thru Amish Country, I agree with Bill, it was OK the first couple of times, but it is Slooooow with No stops ( except for a quick Crew Change in some burg) and the freight traffic/priority dispatching is bad!

Chicago has become a cork in Amtrak operations, and the bottle necks seem to be growing worse despite promises of track work that will bring higher speeds, better OTP yada yada yada!
 
Thanks for the feedback and reading through my grammar and spelling oversights, I do try to proof but it never fails that once I feel confident to send something out, I then go back and find them after sending, being up late trying to get it done has it consequences.

The detour is basically been there, done that, a one time or not for many years type of thing.

I will still be looking out for the Zephyr UP Chicago-Omaha, Empire Builder BNSF Chicago-St Paul, and maybe someday the Zephyr UP Wyoming detours even realizing some of the drawbacks to the detour experiences.

I did get bustituted once on a regional STL-CHI and as mentioned on that post a couple months ago, jokingly I said it was the worst train trip I have been on. The Red Cap option sounds good, especially with my parents with.
 
Back
Top