#98 at Fort Lauderdale: Arrival and Departing

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Dakota 400

Engineer
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Mar 5, 2014
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I have watched the time keeping of the Northbound Silver Meteor for many months.  The train's arrival in Fort Lauderdale and then it's departure is within a very narrow time frame, usually.  To me, it seems to be a very short time to embark guests as well as luggage checked and being assigned to the Baggage Car.

How does the Fort Lauderdale Station personnel handle this?  Are guests pre-positioned on the station's platform as to where their car is expected to be in order to expedite boarding?  Is the luggage cart pre-positioned where the Baggage Car is expected to be to quickly load the checked luggage?
 
I have boarded the Silver Meteor a few times in Ft. Lauderdale.  I believe announcements were made as to where sleeper passengers and coach passengers were to stand.  The luggage cart was pre-positioned to the location of the Baggage Car.  In October, I traveled from Miami on 98,  and we arrived in FTL early  There was plenty of time to board passengers and luggage.
 
Yes, I believe they use orange traffic cones so passengers can be pre-positioned. That has been my experience when boarding in West Palm Beach and in Hollywood. In West Palm Beach, there are typically two cones for coach passengers with short haul passengers at one cone and longer haul at the other. Of course, if it's a busy train the conductor/coach attendant might have to do a last minute change up. I doubt Fort Lauderdale has that problem since it's only the 3rd station. 

Also, the train 99% of the time boards on the westernmost platform (Track 1) which is station or streetside. 
 
Many thanks to all that replied to my post.  Pre-positioning of travelers boarding the train really does make sense.
 
It may be to prevent problems for a southbound TriRail train ? Somebody check the schedule.
Southbound Tri-Rail trains would just use the northbound platform (track 2). This is also the case at the Hollywood station. Northbound Amtraks do board on the proper northbound platform at Deerfield Beach, Delray Beach, and West Palm Beach. 

Going southbound, West Palm Beach is the only station where Amtrak stops on the “wrong” (northbound) platform. The other stops are on the southbound platform. 

This is the case 99% of the time. I have seen the reverse happen, during track work or a weird operational requirement. 
 
Amtrak could use this procedure at all its manned stations to decrease dwell time.  That could dramatically improve on time operation.  But knowing Amtrak it might make Hollywood stop using this procedure.  Not doing this procedure is one more example of Amtrak ( Anderson ) not wanting  LD to succeed ?  
 
The only time I've ever experienced this was when we were waiting for #6 in EMY. Every other time I've taken Amtrak it's been a free for all. 
 
It may be a “free for all”, but they can pre-position passengers at any station. (Coach passengers wait at position 2 (or by the water pump) and sleeper passengers wait at position 8 (or by the A/C unit). That’s just what I was told to do at FTL.
 
Same thing at Deerfield: they tell you where to stand. In the case of sleepers, way down at the far end where there are a couple of benches.

One time upon return on 97, they didn’t pull down far enough and the door open in the bushes! We had to rush up two cars with the attendant to find a door opened on the platform.
 
My experience has been somewhat mixed, but actually pretty consistent for manned stations. Over the intercom - Waterloo IN, South Bend IN & Charlottesville VA tell you where to stand. Same thing happened at Marshall TX back when it was staffed.
 
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