Silver Star Delays

Does anyone know why Train 91 (14) and 92 (14) were stopped for several hours overnight north of Denmark SC, and both will finish their runs several hours late today?

This was posted in the 91/CSX Collision thread in response to a similar question:

91's engine was disabled by an animal strike. After a spell, 92 was used to push 91 back into a siding to allow 92 to pass while waiting for a CSX rescue engine out of Columbia.

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Thanks for the info - I have been searching online, and couldn't find anything! Must have been a big animal.

Mister Monorail said:

Thanks for the info - I have been searching online, and couldn't find anything! Must have been a big animal.

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I believe it was a deer

Yep Rudolph was cut from the sleigh team and had to find alternate transportation.................

You mean Santa had to borrow a lead unit?

This may be a very naive question, but can striking a deer really disable the typical

Amtrak locomotive?

Does anybody wonder why it took Amtrak so long to replace a disabled locomotive and/or timed out crews that both the northbound and southbound Silver Star completed their runs more than 9 hours late? According to the timetable the running time between Columbia and Denmark SC is 57 minutes. From what I've seen, since January 4 there was a derailment in Savannah, a trespasser strike near Jacksonville, the collision at Cayce, a freight train fire in southern Virginia and now an animal strike near Denmark, all in less than 6 weeks. Each incident caused massive delays on the NYP-MIA route, which affected all 6 trains, 91, 92, 97, 98, 52 and 53. The Auto-Trains have arrived at destination more than 13 hours late. This unreliability is going to destroy passenger rail in this country.

I am certain at least one person and perhaps a few more do, who have difficulty accepting the simple explanation that a replacement locomotive or crew was not available for more rapid deployment [emoji52]

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