Replying to Auto Train Arrives Nine Hours Early

Checking the status for #53 (1), I found that it departed LOR one hour and change late (due to cascading delays from the past few days, anyone know what caused that?). However, the train was said to arrive in SFA around midnight, 9 hours early.

I'm not kidding:




This warranted a check of Amtrak itself. I found that there had been a simple error.





Status Maps mistakenly substituted 12:20 AM for 12:20 PM.

@JB: Do you know what went wrong?

Yes. Amtrak initially posted the wrong time and delay information. ASM takes the times and delay information from Amtrak AS IS. Amtrak later corrected the time and delay. I just deleted that time from the train's file. It'll be reexamined tonight and the revised time will be recorded.

JB

Amtrak bring back the turbos for this run? LOL

...ah, well...so much for the thought of a 20-car bilevel train carrying a mile of auto carriers doing 125 down the A-line. It would've been a sight for the ages, that's for sure!

They got it wrong. Those were the times for the AutoPlane!

Either that or the train was carrying race cars!

There is a fixed turnaround time provided for AT at both terminals. If it arrives more than three hours late, it may depart late as a consequence. If CSX has issues getting the train over the road, it may arrive late again. Eventually it will straighten out.

Linda, while I'm flattered to be credited with making this observation, could you credit NY Penn with his remark;)

Thanks for catching that. I hit reply to your message, and then decided to cut and paste NY Penn's message in, and forgot to change the authorship. Geez, it's one of those days.

Interesting mistake. Just goes to show that manual data entry may still be the rule at Amtrak.
We are going to our sixth trip on the Autotrain in May. Every experience that we had on the train was that it either arrived early or on-time. The Autotrain regularly departs early and has two hours of extra time built into the schedule.
A few years back we were caught in a storm/power outage situation that caused all of the line signals to go dead. We crept along at about 10 MPH in Virginia for at least an hour but the next morning we still arrived in Sanford at 9:30 AM. Organizing six sleepers, a crew car, three dining cars, seating 300 people in 5 coaches, preparing dinner for everyone and loading about 25 cars on transporters every trip, is a job of immense proportions. If there is a route that can be described as a well oiled machine, it would have to be the Autotrain.
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Linda, while I'm flattered to be credited with making this observation, could you credit NY Penn with his remark;)

NY Penn wrote: "Checking the status for #53 (1), I found that it departed LOR one hour and change late (due to cascading delays from the past few days, anyone know what caused that?). However, the train was said to arrive in SFA around midnight, 9 hours early."

Of course, as it says on the status page "Trains often make up time en route."

...ah, well...so much for the thought of a 20-car bilevel train carrying a mile of auto carriers doing 125 down the A-line. It would've been a sight for the ages, that's for sure!

I'm willing to bet the mistake was initially Amtrak's: that someone entered 12:21 AM by mistake and it was later corrected by Amtrak to 12:20 PM.