Empire Builder eastbound - what sort of winter delays possible?
- Thread starter user 6862
- Start date
Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:
Stay overnight in Chicago.
brianpmcdonnell17
Conductor
I'm connecting same-day from the EB to the CL (to the SS) in January, but I have no plans for a few days after I arrive at the end of the trip so the worst case is I get a free vacation day in Chicago. If you have continuing trip plans such as hotels or other problems would be caused by a day late arrival, it would be advisable to stay in Chicago if possible. However, some connections are much more likely to be made than others (for example, the #48 connection is missed much less frequently than the #30).
Sent from my SM-J327P using Amtrak Forum mobile app
Sent from my SM-J327P using Amtrak Forum mobile app
Last edited by a moderator:
the_traveler
Engineer
v v stated that he is only going from Seattle to Minneapolis. So an overnight in Chicago wouldn't apply!
KmH
Engineer
Possible winter delays:
Frozen switches
Avalanche covered tracks
Stalled freight train ahead
Grade crossing collision (vehicle or trespassing pedestrian)
Frozen switches
Avalanche covered tracks
Stalled freight train ahead
Grade crossing collision (vehicle or trespassing pedestrian)
brianpmcdonnell17
Conductor
You're right. It is implied he is referring to connecting travel so is he planning on flying out of MSP? If so, I would recommend planning for an overnight or at the very least a late departure because a different carrier would not have guaranteed connections. The same applies if the connecting travel is a bus.
Sent from my SM-J327P using Amtrak Forum mobile app
bmjhagen9426
OBS Chief
Also, be advised that there are only 6-hour turnaround at either SEA or PDX for the EB, so if the train is at least 6 hours late, late return at best (at least 2 to 4 hours upon departure), SPK turn-around at worst (which means busing from SEA or PDX to SPK, or vice versa).
- Joined
- May 17, 2015
- Messages
- 2,807
The EB is plagued with winter storm delays, forest fires in the summer or fall, spring rain or snow melt causing floods, etc. and these are not the man made delays, like a truck running to the train.
NW cannonball
Conductor
There's a good historical record at ASMAD. That search was for last year Feb 15 to Apr 15 2016 and in that 2-month range shows 3 arrival delays of 11,31,86 minutes. Not bad. Yes, worse can happen, and I, who have lived in Minnesota for a half-dozen decades, have met some of those blizzards et al.
Stay overnight, lodging will be low-bucket (unless there's some kind of high-school basketball or hockey tournament on your chosen days)
Also, if you are flying out of MSP in March, be aware that flights, also, may be delayed or cancelled for weather reasons. (Not as bad nor as often as ORD in Chicago)
Stay overnight, lodging will be low-bucket (unless there's some kind of high-school basketball or hockey tournament on your chosen days)
Also, if you are flying out of MSP in March, be aware that flights, also, may be delayed or cancelled for weather reasons. (Not as bad nor as often as ORD in Chicago)
Our route as planned up until 2 days ago was simple-ish, but after reading Margo's thread re the EB, CZ and CS in winter we've been hooked into adding travel through the north west too.
We are keeping our original route from Denver to San Francisco and onwards but will probably fly to SFC from London in place of Denver now. From there north on the CS, Seattle for a few days then the EB. The original idea was to stop at Fargo which we have a joint fascination for (blame the movie and tv series), stay a few hours and then bus back west to Butte - Salt lake City - Denver.
We travelled the EB from Chicago to Portland 2 years ago and then Coast Starlight to SFC but we were disappointed with the journey as it rained most of the way. We have never visited the north west in any manner apart from that but think we missed something, so thought going back and forth through the various mountain ranges would be spectacular in March.
Arrival and departure times in Fargo are awful, both around 2:30am so not possible to connect even if on time, and it would mean we'd have to book a hotel for two days to maybe get 4 or 5 hours sleep during the day (even if all was on time). The Bus depot in Fargo is an unknown too so that makes life interesting if there's a blizzard blowing.
That took me on to riding through to Minneapolis (a whole extra $9 for the 2 of us), stay one night and bus back to Fargo during the day for a bus out that night at 2:30am.
That's about it so far but it is looking difficult at the moment due to less than easy connections and weather as per the help above. We try as hard as possible to avoid flying, neither frightened but so peed off by the manner in which passengers are treated all through the process, better ways to spend precious hours of your life if there is an alternative.
This will probably be our last Amtrak LD journey so we decided to try make it spectacular if we can, but we are on a budget we have to try to hold to.
Thanks as always for the opinions and help here, unrivalled in my experience. If anyone has further suggestions to unravel this journey please keep them coming.
ps: Is it normal for a rail station to open at 12 midnight and close at 7am as at Fargo, are they vampires up there?
We are keeping our original route from Denver to San Francisco and onwards but will probably fly to SFC from London in place of Denver now. From there north on the CS, Seattle for a few days then the EB. The original idea was to stop at Fargo which we have a joint fascination for (blame the movie and tv series), stay a few hours and then bus back west to Butte - Salt lake City - Denver.
We travelled the EB from Chicago to Portland 2 years ago and then Coast Starlight to SFC but we were disappointed with the journey as it rained most of the way. We have never visited the north west in any manner apart from that but think we missed something, so thought going back and forth through the various mountain ranges would be spectacular in March.
Arrival and departure times in Fargo are awful, both around 2:30am so not possible to connect even if on time, and it would mean we'd have to book a hotel for two days to maybe get 4 or 5 hours sleep during the day (even if all was on time). The Bus depot in Fargo is an unknown too so that makes life interesting if there's a blizzard blowing.
That took me on to riding through to Minneapolis (a whole extra $9 for the 2 of us), stay one night and bus back to Fargo during the day for a bus out that night at 2:30am.
That's about it so far but it is looking difficult at the moment due to less than easy connections and weather as per the help above. We try as hard as possible to avoid flying, neither frightened but so peed off by the manner in which passengers are treated all through the process, better ways to spend precious hours of your life if there is an alternative.
This will probably be our last Amtrak LD journey so we decided to try make it spectacular if we can, but we are on a budget we have to try to hold to.
Thanks as always for the opinions and help here, unrivalled in my experience. If anyone has further suggestions to unravel this journey please keep them coming.
ps: Is it normal for a rail station to open at 12 midnight and close at 7am as at Fargo, are they vampires up there?
Last edited by a moderator:
brianpmcdonnell17
Conductor
Only two trains a day stop there and they both are scheduled to be there within that range so there is no reason to keep the station open the rest of the day. This situation is relatively common on LD routes.
Sent from my SM-J327P using Amtrak Forum mobile app
Last edited by a moderator:
bmjhagen9426
OBS Chief
For example, Indianapolis station is open overnight, but closed during the day, due to train schedules, as arrivals and departures are scheduled to be in range between 10pm and 7am. Also, the Klamath Falls depot (my current home station) is open between 7:30 and 11am and again between 8:30 and 10pm, due to the scheduling of the trains and buses, so that there is no reason to have it open mid-day or overnight.
The San Antonio Amshak is only open at night from 9PM to 8AM.
The Daily Southbound Texas Eagle #21 Arrives @ 10-1030PM/ the Northbound #22 Departs @ 7AM.
The Tri-Weekly Sunset Limiteds (#1,#2), Call around 11PM and 5AM and Depart around 245AM and @ 630AM.
The Daily Southbound Texas Eagle #21 Arrives @ 10-1030PM/ the Northbound #22 Departs @ 7AM.
The Tri-Weekly Sunset Limiteds (#1,#2), Call around 11PM and 5AM and Depart around 245AM and @ 630AM.
Last edited by a moderator:
Sorry, I do understand why stations only open at night if that's when trains arrive. But I was imagining a scene in the dead of night that when the clock struck midnight the door to the station creaked open slowly and a ghostly figure stretched out a hand and beckoned any one passing by with a crooked finger... really not been at the juice, honestly.
It doesn't help that when we passed through Fargo west bound a couple of years ago it was so dark with almost no lights on in the station you couldn't hardly see the platform, I've a photo to prove it too. Never visited a station that when a train was there was not fully lit up and it stood out.
On a more serious note it's a pity that these buildings can't find other uses during the day, like Kansas City has done on a grand scale.
It doesn't help that when we passed through Fargo west bound a couple of years ago it was so dark with almost no lights on in the station you couldn't hardly see the platform, I've a photo to prove it too. Never visited a station that when a train was there was not fully lit up and it stood out.
On a more serious note it's a pity that these buildings can't find other uses during the day, like Kansas City has done on a grand scale.
Spokane's station building is open 24/7, even though the Amtrak hours are from 10 PM to 5:30 AM. It is also used for intercity bus service, and there is a police station inside the building as well.
Last edited by a moderator:
The Fargo Amtrak station is the former Great Northern freight depot. The former Great Northern passenger depot is next door (just west) and is a nice bicycle shop, called Great Northern Bicycle Company. Its logo is a bicycle on a mountain, essentially the former Great Northern Railway's logo with the mountain goat replaced by a bicycle. (The Great Northern Railway was the empire built by James J Hill, the empire builder for whom its train was named, and the source of the name of Amtrak's train through Fargo.) Sad to say, it is closed at night, so even though it has found a day use, it isn't available when the trains are scheduled to call.
- Joined
- May 17, 2015
- Messages
- 2,807
Where the Amtrak station is part of the Bus station, many times the building is open 24x7. Seems like more cities are doing this.
Honestly, unless you want to spend the time to visit Minneapolis/St. Paul (which I highly recommend, but sounds like it may be impractical for this trip,) I'd get off in Fargo and use taxis or Uber to get around. It's a large enough town/small city that there should be either a taxi or Uber to get you where you need to go at that late hour, and there's plenty of inexpensive hotels near the interstate and the mall.
Is there a reason that you need to end in Denver? If you're just looking for flights back home, it might work to do a day in Fargo and either fly straight out of Fargo or take the bus/train to MSP or Chicago and fly out of there. Note that most of the buses to Fargo, if I remember correctly, start in Minneapolis, so while there's options for a connecting bus from St. Paul there likely are more options out of Minneapolis (with the Minneapolis Greyhound terminal being connected to the light rail to St. Paul and the airport/Mall of America by a few-block walk in the heated skyway.)
Is there a reason that you need to end in Denver? If you're just looking for flights back home, it might work to do a day in Fargo and either fly straight out of Fargo or take the bus/train to MSP or Chicago and fly out of there. Note that most of the buses to Fargo, if I remember correctly, start in Minneapolis, so while there's options for a connecting bus from St. Paul there likely are more options out of Minneapolis (with the Minneapolis Greyhound terminal being connected to the light rail to St. Paul and the airport/Mall of America by a few-block walk in the heated skyway.)
Last edited by a moderator:
jebr, the journey is in the planning stage but getting complicated and longer by the day it feels.
As mentioned elsewhere that although we were disappointed by our previous Empire Builder trip from CHI to PDX and Coast Starlight from PDX to EMY it may be in part because it was raining heavily almost all the way, and in winter without leaves on the trees and heavy rain it wasn't appealing. The weather also seemed to affect the passengers too so we mentally wrote that trip off as bad luck.
Then on a recent thread by margo she was given some good inspirational advice about north west LD trains and we foolishly started to consider adding them to our existing plans. The difference with the plans suggested to her to our previous trip was travelling the opposite way round and from Seattle and not Portland is preferred (we're easily convinced when it comes to Amtrak) .
We've realised this next Amtrak/Greyhound journey is probably our last so want to try to do and see all the things we want to within a budget, and if not within a budget at least without any unnecessary spending.
On top of riding the CS and the EB again we see we can now visit Fargo ND and also bus through the mountains by going across to Butte MT, down to Salt Lake City then eastwards again to Denver. Denver was our original fly into city to start our journey, now it would be a waypoint on the extended journey starting that starts in San Francisco.
Plotted on a map this new combined route look a total mess and very long, from arriving to leaving the US somewhere around 11,000+ miles, so we're going back to the drawing board again to try to include everything with a little better flow to the route.
The Fargo and MSP questions are mainly due to the horrible hours of arrival and departure, but have read what you have written and can see we can smooth that section out a little. But some lovely US friends now want to join us on part of our journey which creates complications, but worth it to have their company, watch this space...
Sorry this post is so long but as you see it is complicated to explain, but as with every journey there will be a solution that works for most parts.
Last, our trips are by design not logical, we don't need to get from A to B in the fastest or even the cheapest way, but we do want to travel through some or all the places that capture our imagination even if the route looks like nonsense.
Thanks for the help, enjoyed the history re the Empire Builder and the stuff about how stations are used.
As mentioned elsewhere that although we were disappointed by our previous Empire Builder trip from CHI to PDX and Coast Starlight from PDX to EMY it may be in part because it was raining heavily almost all the way, and in winter without leaves on the trees and heavy rain it wasn't appealing. The weather also seemed to affect the passengers too so we mentally wrote that trip off as bad luck.
Then on a recent thread by margo she was given some good inspirational advice about north west LD trains and we foolishly started to consider adding them to our existing plans. The difference with the plans suggested to her to our previous trip was travelling the opposite way round and from Seattle and not Portland is preferred (we're easily convinced when it comes to Amtrak) .
We've realised this next Amtrak/Greyhound journey is probably our last so want to try to do and see all the things we want to within a budget, and if not within a budget at least without any unnecessary spending.
On top of riding the CS and the EB again we see we can now visit Fargo ND and also bus through the mountains by going across to Butte MT, down to Salt Lake City then eastwards again to Denver. Denver was our original fly into city to start our journey, now it would be a waypoint on the extended journey starting that starts in San Francisco.
Plotted on a map this new combined route look a total mess and very long, from arriving to leaving the US somewhere around 11,000+ miles, so we're going back to the drawing board again to try to include everything with a little better flow to the route.
The Fargo and MSP questions are mainly due to the horrible hours of arrival and departure, but have read what you have written and can see we can smooth that section out a little. But some lovely US friends now want to join us on part of our journey which creates complications, but worth it to have their company, watch this space...
Sorry this post is so long but as you see it is complicated to explain, but as with every journey there will be a solution that works for most parts.
Last, our trips are by design not logical, we don't need to get from A to B in the fastest or even the cheapest way, but we do want to travel through some or all the places that capture our imagination even if the route looks like nonsense.
Thanks for the help, enjoyed the history re the Empire Builder and the stuff about how stations are used.
trainman74
Conductor
The Indianapolis station building is open 24 hours, but the Amtrak ticket office is only open 11:00 P.M. to 12:30 P.M. the next day (except on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, when it's only open until 6:30 A.M. -- I think you can see which are the weekend days for one particular agent shift!).
