Be interested to see if Amtrak adjusts the schedule or just adds more time on either end as a buffer.
The sensible thing to do would be to leave it alone for a few months to see how the running times play out in practice, *then* propose a tighter schedule.
If they actually build the Valley View double track promptly now that the bureaucratic obstacles have been resolved, they might want to wait until that's done to see how the running times play out. (The funding for that was contingent on Amtrak moving to TRE.)
Anyway, great news that this is *finally* done. Hopefully the schedule will be tightened eventually.
The On-Time Performance of the Texas Eagle in November, according to the Amtrak website, was 41.7%. Which was an improvement over the 29.8% OTP of the last 12 months. The TE was still being re-routed between CHI-STL for the first part of November, so that affected the November OTP. I also expect they won't change the TE schedule for a while; if nothing else get the OTP numbers up. Besides, there will more rounds of track work next Spring and Summer between CHI and STL which is likely to cause delays and perhaps more re-routes in IL.
Do they wait for trip time improvements between CHI and STL for a schedule revamp of the TE? Then there is the matter of the Sunset Limited which is arriving at LAX really early on a regular basis. As UP doubles tracks more of the El Paso to LA route, at some point, Amtrak is going to have to weigh the options on a major revamp of the combined TE and SL schedules.
That said, the southbound TE #21 (12/19) spent a lot of time laying over in Dallas and Fort Worth on Sunday. Lighter freight traffic and no TRE traffic on Sunday, so easier for the TE to stay on schedule. but still, there were probably some on that train impatient for the train to get moving.
* Train 21 of 12/19/2015. Formatted Data
* Texas Eagle
* +---------------- Station Code
* | +----------- Schedule Arrival Day
* | | +-------- Schedule Arrival Time
* | | | +----- Schedule Departure Day
* | | | | +-- Schedule Departure Time
* | | | | | +------------- Actual Arrival Time
* | | | | | | +------- Actual Departure Time
* | | | | | | | +- Comments
* V V V V V V V V
* CHI * * 1 145P * 145P Departed: On time.
....
* MIN * * 2 925A * 936A Departed: 11 minutes late.
* DAL 2 1130A 2 1150A 1109A 1150A Arrived: 21 minutes early. | Departed: On time.
* FTW 2 125P 2 210P 1229P 210P Arrived: 56 minutes early. | Departed: On time.
* CBR * * 2 252P * 252P Departed: On time.
Look at the times. Stopped at Dallas for 41 minutes, then parked at FTW for 101 minutes. Enough time to get off the train and buy lunch twice.