Empire Builder's Troubles continue into the Fall

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The plan, IIRC, is double track from Glasgow MT (very little oil or grain traffic west of there) to the point where the Devil's Lake route splits from the KO route -- presumably directional running east of there with sidings for wrong-way Amtraks & local freights.
 
What might schedules look like if they broke the route into two sections terminating at St. Paul? Perhaps a morning departure from Chicago turning for an overnight back? And an afternoon/evening #8 arrival at MSP turning back west by Midnight?

You can spend your layover at Mickeys. They're open round the clock.
 
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Any chance that BNSF can be made to pay the extra passenger and personnel costs (food, overtime, and hotels) for causing Amtrak delays and missed connections?
 
Looking at the "trend" over the past couple weeks, except for a couple really terrible delays, the EB's are at least doing somewhat better than the poor CL's and LSL's are now. I guess we need to be thankful for any modest improvements at this point. The extra padding will stay at least thru January (and likely thru next construction season as well), but perhaps there is a light at the end of the tunnel that transit times may not get any worse. Maybe.....
 
NorthShore said:
What might schedules look like if they broke the route into two sections terminating at St. Paul? Perhaps a morning departure from Chicago turning for an overnight back? And an afternoon/evening #8 arrival at MSP turning back west by Midnight?
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It would reveal that CP is delaying trains too. :-(
 
montana mike said:
Looking at the "trend" over the past couple weeks, except for a couple really terrible delays, the EB's are at least doing somewhat better than the poor CL's and LSL's are now. I guess we need to be thankful for any modest improvements at this point. The extra padding will stay at least thru January (and likely thru next construction season as well), but perhaps there is a light at the end of the tunnel that transit times may not get any worse. Maybe.....
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The westbound #7 is actually doing pretty decently over the past few months.....not great but far far better than #8's timekeeping.
 
Just when I thought things might have settled down to reasonable timekeeping for #8, the sucker drops almost 6 hours between Rugby and Grand Forks this AM and is now just under 7 hours behind!! Terrible. So it looks like the EB will pull into CHI very late tonight and once again miss all of the connections. This is really getting frustrating.
 
It aint just us Amtrak riders that are getting annnoyed.

Every week or so the local paper (the strib) has a piece on how the -- farmers, electric company, taconite producers, -- all getting really really poor service from the railroad.

You want coal for your power plant -- wait a few months -- burn your stockpile down to a week or two - then pay BNSF extra to get a few coal trains to SHERCO.

You thought you had a contract to ship your 2013 harvest -- ha ha ha ! BNSF might ship your grain in 2014 -- or 2015 -- he he.

The containers from the far east get through more or less on time.

Yeah, I know the BOP here (Ban on Politics) -- but --

Hey -- at least 3 states (MN,CO,ND) -- their politicians are forced to scream bloody murder -- and are doing so -- but -- BNSF don't give a --*- .

I think - BNSF - letting Amtrak's EB run "only" a few hours late -- BNSF is a sweetheart.

BNSF is being good to Amtrak, compared to how BNSF is not serving ag and mining customers.
 
The second day in a row that #8 has lost 5 or more hours in ND. Not looking good again. My BNSF guys say the "Fall shipping season" is picking up now and this could adversely effect the timekeeping considerably-again!!
 
montana mike said:
The second day in a row that #8 has lost 5 or more hours in ND. Not looking good again. My BNSF guys say the "Fall shipping season" is picking up now and this could adversely effect the timekeeping considerably-again!!
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And I guess the only difference between the "Fall" shipping season and the "Spring" and "Summer" shipping seasons is the name!
 
LOL. Usually, more grain moves in the Fall, especially for export. The choke point appears to continue to be the same stretch in ND that that plagued the EBs all year long. It makes one wonder what all of the hundreds of millions of dollars they spent this year on "improving performance" went to, when the delays now aren't substantially different than they were just a few months ago. Oh, well......
 
Something must be going on again in the "North Dakota Triangle". Even my local BNSF folks are a little puzzled by these long delays (they had been told by the BNSF HQ people that delays thru this area should average 2+ hours the rest of the year). I have asked them to see what they can find out. I do know the construction effort continues thru at least the end of October (officially until early November), so they may be doing a full court press on some key parts of the plan. But the added agro demand to move grain is likely not helping either.

I am scheduled to travel on the EBs at the end of Oct and "connect" to the LSL in CHI--should be an adventure!!!

Update: #8 lost another hour in MN, now well over 6 hours late--arrrrgh.
 
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Looking at the four EB's on the line right now, three are seriously late again!!! And Montana is now causing 3-4 hour delays-rats. Looks like BNSF is really struggling with keeping their system going on the Hi-Line. Their weekly service advisory had little to cheer about--tiny improvements on a very dismal operating performance. One of my BNSF guys got back to me and just shook his head and said while he hoped things wouldn't return to the problems experienced early last summer, BNSF people are telling him that "the Amtrak trains are going to struggle significantly with timekeeping throughout the winter". This is not a good sign.
 
My BNSF contact here in WFH pointed out to me last night that when you consider the 3 hour extra padding in the eastbound schedule and the still frequent 4-6 hour delays in arrivals at CHI, little has changed since the EB's were experiencing 8-10 hour delays early last summer. He has a point--sadly. This AM's #8 still in ND is now well over 7 hours behind btw.

:-(
 
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BNSF's stated plan was to double-track from Glasgow to Minot -- have they actually done that yet? Used to be that would be a month's work for a very large number of people....

Seems to me like the department in charge of hiring trackworkers at BNSF hasn't really gotten up to speed...
 
I believe they are about 30% thru that plan, with more to happen next year. I was reading the BNSF submission to the STB this week and an ominous flag popped up big time. The number of Ag shipments that are behind schedule is rising steadily and has risen every week in September. They are now considerably above their target and where they promised the STB they would be at this time. I guess the BNSF guy was accurate when he said the increasing Ag shipments were beginning to take their toll on the Hi-Line's ability to handle them in a decent manner. He also said the crewing situation is verrrrry strained, with trained and available crews in "tight supply". I have noticed that the yard in WFH is just chocked full of idle trains at the moment. There are always some trains here. It's a busy place, but it is very full right now.
 
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