anir dendroica
OBS Chief
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2009
- Messages
- 507
The past two weeks of delays, and possibly a much longer stretch of deferred maintenance, have really taken a toll on the Empire Builder. I rode it from St. Paul to Portland, arriving 7:40 late yesterday. Our delays were 75% Amtrak equipment failure, 25% BNSF stuck red signals and frozen switches. Kudos to the BNSF dispatchers, as we never waited more than five minutes for a freight, despite heavy freight traffic between Marias Pass and Portland. I'm afraid I can't say the same for Amtrak, since our delays forced BNSF to delay their hotshot trains behind us. With winter weather difficulties, I would expect most trains to incur 2-3 hours of delay over the route, but the EB has been reliably 5-10 hours late on the days that it actually manages to run.
About that equipment failure...
We lost 45 minutes in Minot with a failed headlight. Descending Marias Pass, we had dynamic brake problems, forcing the engineer to use the air brakes exclusively and to stop the train briefly in order to recharge the brakes. That was an easy fix (MU cable). In Spokane, two of our engines failed (air compressor on one and a more serious issue with the other). They decided to use a freight unit on the Seattle train and to send the one remaining good unit with the Portland section. The two dead engines wouldn't move or release the air, so they had to do all the switching with #29. The whole operation, as heard on the scanner, seemed poorly organized, and it didn't need to take 2 1/2 hours. Coming out of Spokane, the horn on #29 froze, forcing us to slow to 20 mph for every road crossing. Nothing hurts a train fan's ego more than watching his train slow down for cars :-(. We arranged for BNSF mechanical to work on the horn at Pasco, but they decided to just give us a Dash-9 instead. Just outside of Spokane, someone left the water running on the top level of the lounge car, causing it to rain downstairs and blowing the electrical circuitry, so from that point on the lounge had no ventilation, heat, or working toilets.
Failure of an engine on a route, as happened on my previous trip, seems normal. Failure of ALL THREE engines, when those engines are less than 15 years old, is unacceptable and has to point to inadequate maintenance. It looks like yesterday's 8/28 and possibly today's are canceled (service disruption at least), likely because Amtrak is now short two engines (assuming the horn fix was easy enough) and a lounge car.
So...
1) Why so much trouble with trains 7/8 and not with the rest of the system? Are P42s somehow not designed for cold weather?
2) How will this situation improve? Does Amtrak have enough spare P42s/Superliners to put together one or two consists so that the existing ones can be overhauled, or might it be better to cancel service for a week in order to perform deferred maintenance?
About that equipment failure...
We lost 45 minutes in Minot with a failed headlight. Descending Marias Pass, we had dynamic brake problems, forcing the engineer to use the air brakes exclusively and to stop the train briefly in order to recharge the brakes. That was an easy fix (MU cable). In Spokane, two of our engines failed (air compressor on one and a more serious issue with the other). They decided to use a freight unit on the Seattle train and to send the one remaining good unit with the Portland section. The two dead engines wouldn't move or release the air, so they had to do all the switching with #29. The whole operation, as heard on the scanner, seemed poorly organized, and it didn't need to take 2 1/2 hours. Coming out of Spokane, the horn on #29 froze, forcing us to slow to 20 mph for every road crossing. Nothing hurts a train fan's ego more than watching his train slow down for cars :-(. We arranged for BNSF mechanical to work on the horn at Pasco, but they decided to just give us a Dash-9 instead. Just outside of Spokane, someone left the water running on the top level of the lounge car, causing it to rain downstairs and blowing the electrical circuitry, so from that point on the lounge had no ventilation, heat, or working toilets.
Failure of an engine on a route, as happened on my previous trip, seems normal. Failure of ALL THREE engines, when those engines are less than 15 years old, is unacceptable and has to point to inadequate maintenance. It looks like yesterday's 8/28 and possibly today's are canceled (service disruption at least), likely because Amtrak is now short two engines (assuming the horn fix was easy enough) and a lounge car.
So...
1) Why so much trouble with trains 7/8 and not with the rest of the system? Are P42s somehow not designed for cold weather?
2) How will this situation improve? Does Amtrak have enough spare P42s/Superliners to put together one or two consists so that the existing ones can be overhauled, or might it be better to cancel service for a week in order to perform deferred maintenance?