example of padding built into Amtrak schedule

[richm49]

I will be riding on 59/CONO in late October and after reading the timetable for that route I discovered what appears to be an example of "padding" built into the schedule for that train.The penultimate station for this route is Hammond,LA at milepost 881. NOL is next and last station at milepost 934. The schedule indicates 59/CONO departing HMD at 1:28 P.M and arriving NOL at 3:32 P.M. That is a distance of only 53 miles yet the schedule indicates that it will take 2 hours,4 minutes to travel that distance.The timetable also indicates that 59/CONO departs Jackson,MS(milepost 751) at 11:20 A.M. and gets to Hammond,LA(milepost 881) by 1:28 P.M. That is a distance of 130 miles traveled in only 2 hours,8 minutes. This would indicate to me that the HMD-NOL segment includes an awful lot of "padding" built into 59/CONO schedule. Would love to hear comments or feedback on this.

 

[Orie]

I can't speak to train 59, but I just took #90 from NY to Savannah. The schedule was depart Penn at 6:05am and arrive in Savannah at 9:03pm. We had about half an hour of freight delays and another 45 minutes due to an emergency brake trip (or some other unexplained sudden stop we encountered), but we still got into Savannah by 9:15. I assume there were about an hours worth of expected delays padded into the schedule, it turned out to work perfectly sans ten minutes.

 

[the_traveler]

Most every route has extra padding time at the endpoint.

2 examples are LAX. The SL/TE is "scheduled" to arrive about 5-5:30 am. I don't think I've arrived later then 4:30 am! And the SWC between FUL and LAX shows 20-30 minutes eastbound, but over 1 hour westbound!

 

[Bob Dylan]

As was said Most LD Routes have padding built in @ the end of the Route but in the case of NOL and #59 the Train has to do a slow approach thru the City and then a backing move into Union Station usually resulting in a slightly late arrival even when on time into Hammond!

 

[richm49]

As was said Most LD Routes have padding built in @ the end of the Route but in the case of NOL and #59 the Train has to do a slow approach thru the City and then a backing move into Union Station usually resulting in a slightly late arrival even when on time into Hammond!

I was wondering how all the photos of 1/SL boarding passengers in Union Station had the train facing in the right direction to leave the station. Do they use a wye to get 59 in position to back into the station?

 

[railiner]

Amtrak has long included extra padding at the last city on most long distance routes, and in some cases, at major intermediate stops, as well. The easiest way to see this is to simply compare the running time between the second to last stop and the last stop; and then the opposite direction (be careful when doing this and not be mislead in cases of time zone changes).

The reason the bulk of the padding is before the last stop, is to take full advantage of the padding at the end of the run, where it may really count, in making a connection.

That way, a train doesn't have to spend time at an intermediate point "waiting on time" to proceed, only to need that extra time as a result of a subsequent delay...

If you really want to see a difference, look back at pre-Amtrak long distance trains, where even on a 40 hour transcontinental train, there was relatively very little padding as compared to what Amtrak finds necessary to employ in today's reality....

 

[PRae_Train]

Most every route has extra padding time at the endpoint.

2 examples are LAX. The SL/TE is "scheduled" to arrive about 5-5:30 am. I don't think I've arrived later then 4:30 am! And the SWC between FUL and LAX shows 20-30 minutes eastbound, but over 1 hour westbound!

Another example is LSL 448 into Boston. If it's [only] an hour late getting to WOR, it's likely going to be on time in BOS. And, as mentioned, you can see this by comparing the WB schedule to the EB.

And if [rarely] on time into WOR, it will be an hour early into BOS.

 

[offroad437]

As was said Most LD Routes have padding built in @ the end of the Route but in the case of NOL and #59 the Train has to do a slow approach thru the City and then a backing move into Union Station usually resulting in a slightly late arrival even when on time into Hammond!

I was wondering how all the photos of 1/SL boarding passengers in Union Station had the train facing in the right direction to leave the station. Do they use a wye to get 59 in position to back into the station?

Yes there is a Wye. However the last few weeks the trains have been pulling in and getting turned around later. When asked a conductor said it is due to yard work and passenger safety????

 

[gmushial]

#5 has some 15-20 minutes of padding btwn ELK and WNN, likewise about a half hour built in between RSV and SAC... learned of these on the last trip: where we had been running two hours late, and "magically" we were only an hour and a half late, and then a couple hours later less than an hour late - even though we had spent time on sidings waiting for freights etc.... actually caused a problem for my wife who had to pick me up in DAV, a three hour drive from home... she was monitoring the lateness of the train across country, and assumed that because it was n hours late only a half dozen hours out that she should plan on being at DAV n hours late... as we got closer I'd call her from the train and let her know where we were, and more than once her comment was: how you get there so quickly... luckily she had planned on arriving in DAV quite a bit early to do some (store) browsing: in fact she got there about two minutes before the train did.

 

[richm49]

#5 has some 15-20 minutes of padding btwn ELK and WNN, likewise about a half hour built in between RSV and SAC... learned of these on the last trip: where we had been running two hours late, and "magically" we were only an hour and a half late, and then a couple hours later less than an hour late - even though we had spent time on sidings waiting for freights etc.... actually caused a problem for my wife who had to pick me up in DAV, a three hour drive from home... she was monitoring the lateness of the train across country, and assumed that because it was n hours late only a half dozen hours out that she should plan on being at DAV n hours late... as we got closer I'd call her from the train and let her know where we were, and more than once her comment was: how you get there so quickly... luckily she had planned on arriving in DAV quite a bit early to do some (store) browsing: in fact she got there about two minutes before the train did.

Well it certainly sounds as though padding the schedule can play havoc with those who need to communicate with friends/ family who may be driving long distances to meet them at their destination.Just imagine arriving at an unstaffed station that has only a small shelter and a concrete slab in the middle of nowhere and finding out that your friends/family are still an hour away because they thought you would arrive much later!

 

[AmtrakBlue]

#5 has some 15-20 minutes of padding btwn ELK and WNN, likewise about a half hour built in between RSV and SAC... learned of these on the last trip: where we had been running two hours late, and "magically" we were only an hour and a half late, and then a couple hours later less than an hour late - even though we had spent time on sidings waiting for freights etc.... actually caused a problem for my wife who had to pick me up in DAV, a three hour drive from home... she was monitoring the lateness of the train across country, and assumed that because it was n hours late only a half dozen hours out that she should plan on being at DAV n hours late... as we got closer I'd call her from the train and let her know where we were, and more than once her comment was: how you get there so quickly... luckily she had planned on arriving in DAV quite a bit early to do some (store) browsing: in fact she got there about two minutes before the train did.

Well it certainly sounds as though padding the schedule can play havoc with those who need to communicate with friends/ family who may be driving long distances to meet them at their destination.Just imagine arriving at an unstaffed station that has only a small shelter and a concrete slab in the middle of nowhere and finding out that your friends/family are still an hour away because they thought you would arrive much later!

Unless it's a flag stop, the train cannot leave until the scheduled time, so if you arrive early, just stay on the train until they tell you to get off. Terminus stations are manned and are usually big stations. That is where you're most likely to get in really early.

 

[gmushial]

#5 has some 15-20 minutes of padding btwn ELK and WNN, likewise about a half hour built in between RSV and SAC... learned of these on the last trip: where we had been running two hours late, and "magically" we were only an hour and a half late, and then a couple hours later less than an hour late - even though we had spent time on sidings waiting for freights etc.... actually caused a problem for my wife who had to pick me up in DAV, a three hour drive from home... she was monitoring the lateness of the train across country, and assumed that because it was n hours late only a half dozen hours out that she should plan on being at DAV n hours late... as we got closer I'd call her from the train and let her know where we were, and more than once her comment was: how you get there so quickly... luckily she had planned on arriving in DAV quite a bit early to do some (store) browsing: in fact she got there about two minutes before the train did.

Well it certainly sounds as though padding the schedule can play havoc with those who need to communicate with friends/ family who may be driving long distances to meet them at their destination.Just imagine arriving at an unstaffed station that has only a small shelter and a concrete slab in the middle of nowhere and finding out that your friends/family are still an hour away because they thought you would arrive much later!

Unless it's a flag stop, the train cannot leave until the scheduled time, so if you arrive early, just stay on the train until they tell you to get off. Terminus stations are manned and are usually big stations. That is where you're most likely to get in really early.

Surely you jest ;-) Amtrak early... those two words in the same sentence cause cognitive dissonance... unless maybe the sentence is: Amtrak is never early; or maybe: never known to be early ;-) But I think what Rich was alluding to was my situation, where my wife had been following #5's progress for the previous 24 plus hours and the status boards had had it n hours late, and getting later; only to run into some of that padding, where the lateness shrunk by an hour, and so, although it arrived late, it wasn't as late as she was expecting. ...

slowly walking away, with a confused look on his face, muttering to himself: Amtrak early, surely they jest...

-greg

 

[AmtrakBlue]

Actually, I thought about modifying that because it is a rarity these days.

Train 3 of 09/03/2014.

* LAX 3 815A * * 724A * Arrived: 51 minutes early.

 

[gmushial]

Actually, I thought about modifying that because it is a rarity these days.

Train 3 of 09/03/2014.

* LAX 3 815A * * 724A * Arrived: 51 minutes early.

Clearly a typo, or incorrectly reported data... ;-)

 

[City of Miami]

Well it certainly sounds as though padding the schedule can play havoc with those who need to communicate with friends/ family who may be driving long distances to meet them at their destination.Just imagine arriving at an unstaffed station that has only a small shelter and a concrete slab in the middle of nowhere and finding out that your friends/family are still an hour away because they thought you would arrive much later!

Track-a-Train works really well for seeing where a train really is at any given time. Also reading the schedule backwards and comparing to forward reveals any padding between 2 given stops. You can infer your own ETA from these bits of info.

 

[jis]

I can't speak to train 59, but I just took #90 from NY to Savannah. The schedule was depart Penn at 6:05am and arrive in Savannah at 9:03pm. We had about half an hour of freight delays and another 45 minutes due to an emergency brake trip (or some other unexplained sudden stop we encountered), but we still got into Savannah by 9:15. I assume there were about an hours worth of expected delays padded into the schedule, it turned out to work perfectly sans ten minutes.

What is interesting is that 89 and 90 probably has the tightest schedule of all the LD trains (LD as in more than 750 miles Amtrak system trains).

 

[afigg]

I can't speak to train 59, but I just took #90 from NY to Savannah. The schedule was depart Penn at 6:05am and arrive in Savannah at 9:03pm. We had about half an hour of freight delays and another 45 minutes due to an emergency brake trip (or some other unexplained sudden stop we encountered), but we still got into Savannah by 9:15. I assume there were about an hours worth of expected delays padded into the schedule, it turned out to work perfectly sans ten minutes.

What is interesting is that 89 and 90 probably has the tightest schedule of all the LD trains (LD as in more than 750 miles Amtrak system trains).

Checking Amtrak Status Maps Archive Database tool, the #89 Palmetto has gotten into SAV early 7 times out of 37 trips since August 1. And over an hour late 7 times, so the padding gets used most trips.

The database tool is quite useful as I used it to display all the arrival times for #89 into SAV for a month. I then looked up the individual trips that were more than a little late, > 45 minutes for the Palmetto, in the Status Map Archives. I then did it for the month of May. The pattern jumps out: when the southbound Palmetto gets into SAV late, it is almost always due to delays encountered between Alexandria and Rocky Mount. This came up in a recent discussion, but improve that segment - which will see some improvements in the coming years from HSIPR grants and VA funds - Amtrak could take padding out for the Palmetto, the Silvers, and the Carolinian.

 

[afigg]

slowly walking away, with a confused look on his face, muttering to himself: Amtrak early, surely they jest...

-greg

It is not a LD train, but the westbound #43 Pennsylvanian gets into Pittsburgh early most days. It is enough to make one wonder why Amtrak does not trim 10 to 15 minutes off of the PGH arrival time. OTOH, it keeps the endpoint OTP % up.
Below is the Amtrak Status Maps Archive Database dump (edited) for #43 arrivals into PGH for the past month.

History for Amtrak 43 at PGH
Train #	Origin Date	Station	Sch AR                  Act AR	Comments            	    Data File
43	09/06/2014	PGH	09/06/2014 8:05 PM	7:30PM	Arrived: 35 minutes early.	X
43	09/05/2014	PGH	09/05/2014 8:05 PM	8:46PM	Arrived: 41 minutes late.	X
43	09/04/2014	PGH	09/04/2014 8:05 PM	7:43PM	Arrived: 22 minutes early.	X
43	09/03/2014	PGH	09/03/2014 8:05 PM	7:44PM	Arrived: 21 minutes early.	X
43	09/02/2014	PGH	09/02/2014 8:05 PM	7:36PM	Arrived: 29 minutes early.	X
43	09/01/2014	PGH	09/01/2014 8:05 PM	7:57PM	Arrived: 8 minutes early.	X
43	08/31/2014	PGH	08/31/2014 8:05 PM	7:45PM	Arrived: 20 minutes early.	X
43	08/30/2014	PGH	08/30/2014 8:05 PM	7:50PM	Arrived: 15 minutes early.	X
43	08/29/2014	PGH	08/29/2014 8:05 PM	7:49PM	Arrived: 16 minutes early.	X
43	08/28/2014	PGH	08/28/2014 8:05 PM	7:40PM	Arrived: 25 minutes early.	X
43	08/27/2014	PGH	08/27/2014 8:05 PM	7:47PM	Arrived: 18 minutes early.	X
43	08/26/2014	PGH	08/26/2014 8:05 PM	7:54PM	Arrived: 11 minutes early.	X
43	08/25/2014	PGH	08/25/2014 8:05 PM	8:33PM	Arrived: 28 minutes late.	X
43	08/24/2014	PGH	08/24/2014 8:05 PM	7:36PM	Arrived: 29 minutes early.	X
43	08/23/2014	PGH	08/23/2014 8:05 PM	7:51PM	Arrived: 14 minutes early.	X
43	08/22/2014	PGH	08/22/2014 8:05 PM	8:10PM	Arrived: 5 minutes late.	X
43	08/21/2014	PGH	08/21/2014 8:05 PM	8:18PM	Arrived: 13 minutes late.	X
43	08/20/2014	PGH	08/20/2014 8:05 PM	7:31PM	Arrived: 34 minutes early.	X
43	08/19/2014	PGH	08/19/2014 8:05 PM	7:32PM	Arrived: 33 minutes early.	X
43	08/18/2014	PGH	08/18/2014 8:05 PM	7:53PM	Arrived: 12 minutes early.	X
43	08/17/2014	PGH	08/17/2014 8:05 PM	8:40PM	Arrived: 35 minutes late.	X
43	08/16/2014	PGH	08/16/2014 8:05 PM	7:49PM	Arrived: 16 minutes early.	X
43	08/15/2014	PGH	08/15/2014 8:05 PM	7:52PM	Arrived: 13 minutes early.	X
43	08/14/2014	PGH	08/14/2014 8:05 PM	7:47PM	Arrived: 18 minutes early.	X
43	08/13/2014	PGH	08/13/2014 8:05 PM	7:43PM	Arrived: 22 minutes early.	X
43	08/12/2014	PGH	08/12/2014 8:05 PM	7:47PM	Arrived: 18 minutes early.	X
43	08/11/2014	PGH	08/11/2014 8:05 PM	7:50PM	Arrived: 15 minutes early.	X
43	08/10/2014	PGH	08/10/2014 8:05 PM	7:39PM	Arrived: 26 minutes early.	X
43	08/09/2014	PGH	08/09/2014 8:05 PM	7:34PM	Arrived: 31 minutes early.	X
43	08/08/2014	PGH	08/08/2014 8:05 PM	8:17PM	Arrived: 12 minutes late.	X
43	08/07/2014	PGH	08/07/2014 8:05 PM	7:39PM	Arrived: 26 minutes early.	X

 

[Thirdrail7]

slowly walking away, with a confused look on his face, muttering to himself: Amtrak early, surely they jest...

-greg

It is not a LD train, but the westbound #43 Pennsylvanian gets into Pittsburgh early most days. It is enough to make one wonder why Amtrak does not trim 10 to 15 minutes off of the PGH arrival time. OTOH, it keeps the endpoint OTP % up.
Below is the Amtrak Status Maps Archive Database dump (edited) for #43 arrivals into PGH for the past month.

For the record, 43 is a long distance train from an operational point of view. That being said, 43 needs the recovery time, particularly in the summer.

 

[VentureForth]

How else do y'all think Amtrak is able to boast over 80% on time performance? 'cause it's only calculated at the end points.

 

[xyzzy]

There have been occasions where 91/92 were 90 minutes late at an intermediate point but arrived at the destination on-time.

Someone made a decision years ago that it was better to show a degree of consistency (such as it is) than to strive for the fastest times.

 

[jis]

All timetables are checked against reality and the ability to meet the projected times consistently, and adjusted accordingly. no one in their right mind publishes a timetable produced purely from simulation of from dividing distance by projected speed without checking it against reality. Now in the US, specially on freight lines the day to variability is so enormous that no attempt is made to account for it for intermediate stops and an overall slop is thrown in just before division points so hoping that things would come out almost right at the division points.

Incidentally it is not just railroads that do this. Airlines do this all the time in figuring out block times in their schedules.

 

[PaulM]

All timetables are checked against reality and the ability to meet the projected times consistently, and adjusted accordingly. no one in their right mind publishes a timetable produced purely from simulation

I'm not following this. By checked against reality, do you mean that statistics are kept; and it the train arrives on average x minutes late, x minutes are added to the schedule? Sort of like the EB?

Sure, you need realistic inputs; but I would have expected that simulation is the only feasible way to generate a schedule to start with, once you get beyond a very few trains a day on a given route. As you say, you can't depend simply on the rate times the time formla because congestion comes into play.

 

[NTL1991]

Even trains on the NEC have some pad time built-in. For example, just about every Northbound Acela Express has 10-12 minutes of pad time right after PVD, and then about another 15 minutes of pad between Route 128 and South Station.

The 10-12 minutes pad time used to be *before* PVD, which in many cases caused Acelas to arrive early. What many passengers didn't know was that the little "L" next to the train time on the Timetable meant that the train could depart early, ahead of schedule. This obviously wasn't too popular for those people in the habit of arriving 2-3 minutes before the scheduled train time, and finding their train has left just a few minutes before...

So, after numerous complaints, there no longer is an "L" next to NB Acela train times at PVD on the timetable, meaning the train cannot leave ahead of schedule.

 

[chakk]

There is also a lot of time padding built into schedules for western LD trains between intermediate stops. For example, #5 has about 20 minutes of padding built in between GSC and GJT. #6 has about the same amount between GRI and GJT. There are many more locations on the route of the CZ in Utah and Nevada with significant padding, plus the wb CZ between RSV and SAC has at least 45 minutes of padding, perhaps more.