Surprise detour

On the SL #2 yesterday, after being stuck waiting for freight trains just east of the HOU station, we took a different route than what shows on the Amtrak route maps. Instead of going through Dayton, Liberty et al, we went on a north track through through Kennefick, Hardin and so on. There are no stations or stops between HOU and BMT so I doubt most of the other passengers even noticed but it surprised me. I wondered if it was due to the freight traffic on the usual route; I suppose this is a fairly common occurrence?

It probably was a detour due to traffic conditions. UP dispatcher probably has the option to send the Sunset over two different routes since there's no intermediate stations, hopefully he (or she) made the right choice.

That's pretty much what I thought; The north detour is a little bit longer and we got into BMT about an hour and a half late. But it might have been worse if it had been the regular route.

This is quite common... UP uses directional running here, the one shown on the maps is westbound, the northern one is eastbound.

It happened on our eastbound, #2(19) out of HOS a couple weeks ago. We left the station, stopped, waited, then backed up a mile or two. and headed down a different route. When we crossed Lake Houston, I knew we were on the former MoPac route from Houston to Beaumont. It could be standard procedure to run eastbounds on this route. I don't know, and I'm not sure what, if anything, the backup move had to do with it.

JoeBas said:

This is quite common... UP uses directional running here, the one shown on the maps is westbound, the northern one is eastbound.

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rusty spike said:

It happened on our eastbound, #2(19) out of HOS a couple weeks ago. We left the station, stopped, waited, then backed up a mile or two. and headed down a different route. When we crossed Lake Houston, I knew we were on the former MoPac route from Houston to Beaumont. It could be standard procedure to run eastbounds on this route. I don't know, and I'm not sure what, if anything, the backup move had to do with it.

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Oh, that explains it! I figured the backup had to do with switching but it never occurred to me that there would be directional routing. That makes sense. Thank you!

The backup move is necessary to get to the alternate route. It's sort of like a "Y", or maybe "X" move. I'm sure there is some official name for it. When it happened to the SL I was on a few years ago we seemed to back onto a bridge over a freeway before starting north on the alternate route.

We did it today on 2. I tried to follow on the gps and got confused.

Do not put much stock in Amtrak's route maps. Not only do Amtrak's maps ignore directional running, they also show impossible turns across impossible grades.

Please see attached a diagram of the move to get to the (former) MoPac Beaumont Subdivision.

That explains it perfectly. I assumed that the train could go straight through that junction. Apparently reality doesn't match the gps map.

Thanks, JoeBas, for the diagram. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

The wife took a photo crossing a large body of water and I could not figure out where it was until i realized we were not on what Amtrak shows on the route map. And the large body of water was Lake Houston. Always like to label my photos accurately.

We also crossed Lake Houston on our Amtrak Loxton Family winter vacation 2017. It sure is a sight to see when we are sitting in the observation car racing across that huge body of water.

That is a nice highlight to look forward to seeing leaving Houston going to NOL.

Lonestar648 said:

That is a nice highlight to look forward to seeing leaving Houston going to NOL.

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Leaving Houston is a nice highlight to almost any trip, regardless of reason or timing or method of conveyance. h34r:

Huh! Looking at that Houston map and then looking at it more closely on Google, I wonder if there has ever been any consideration given to moving the Amtrak station to the line just north of there, the one running along Winter Street, and putting the station at Burnett TC Casa De Amigos on the Main Street light rail line. Plenty of room for parking *and* better connectivity, I'd think. It even reduces the number of grade crossings.

My handy SPV atlas calls this the Hardy Street Yard, but it seems to have been mostly vacated, and there's no yard there any more.

neroden said:

Huh! Looking at that Houston map and then looking at it more closely on Google, I wonder if there has ever been any consideration given to moving the Amtrak station to the line just north of there, the one running along Winter Street, and putting the station at Burnett TC Casa De Amigos on the Main Street light rail line. Plenty of room for parking *and* better connectivity, I'd think. It even reduces the number of grade crossings.

My handy SPV atlas calls this the Hardy Street Yard, but it seems to have been mostly vacated, and there's no yard there any more.

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The Hardy Street Yard used to be the SP's major maintenance facility in the Houston area, but after the merger with UP maintenance operations were consolidated at the more modern ex-MoPac Settegast facility a few miles north (Hardy Street dated from the days of 4-6-0s). Now, as you note, it's a ghost town.

There was a proposal floating around town a few years back to build a new intermodal passenger terminal, and I believe that this was the general area they were looking at although I never saw detailed info. However, it would have required that the local authorities actually spend real money on something eminently sensible, and so of course it never came to pass....