Why has the Crescent been late into New Orleans lately?

Greetings all,

I have been watching the train status of the Crescent lately and have noticed that seemingly every day it has arrived significantly late into NOLA, 1,2 and 3 hours plus late.

Anyone know the reason for the constant lateness?

I don't think I've seen it arrive on time since September.

David

Perhaps the same black hole or Bermuda Triangle south of Atlanta that makes northbound trains typically an hour or more late at Toccoa or Greenville? Northbound, the delay is usually made up later in the night, so the Crescent arrives on time, or close to it, at Washington. Maybe not enough distance south of the black hole to allow the delay to be made up in time for an on-time arrival at NOL?

This is just guessing on my part, but northbound at least the problem has been chronic for a long time.

While it's built into the timetable... it doesn't help that the Crescent has a very slow move into New Orleans. They always turn on the wye and back into the station. And this is like a 5 mph wye. I'm not sure how long it adds to the trip, but when the train is already an hour late it sure feels like it takes forever when you can see the station right outside the window and you are ready to get off. (Can you tell I'm speaking from experience?).

Most of the delays occur between Meridian <> Birmingham & Anniston <> ATL. Often the CSX crossing just west of the ATL station has caused up to 1-1/2 hours for Crescent both directions.

It's not a new thing at all.

The train joined AA and has been trying to limit exposure.

Several years ago KCS and NS jointly spent over $300 Million to upgrade the KCS Meridian Speedway between Shreveport, LA and Meridian, MS. As a result, CSX, KCS, and NS moved their Dallas/Atlanta traffic that had been running through New Orleans up to the Speedway, saving at least a half day's transit time. That created a choke point on the NS single track between Meridian, Tuscaloosa, and Birmingham where #19 and #20 are put into the hole two, three, even four times each run for freight traffic. The last two times I rode just this fall, we had to back out of sidings because there were freights ahead of us on the same siding. I rode #20 on Thanksgiving Day in the hopes there would be less freight traffic due to the holiday, but we were still over an hour down into Atlanta due to freights.

The only way this can be solved is for NS to double-track their line between MEI and BHM, which I doubt will happen.