City of New Orleans on time performance?

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caravanman

Engineer
Joined
Mar 22, 2004
Messages
4,800
Location
Nottingham, England.
Hi Folks,

Is there a website or somewhere that I can check the average on time/late running of the Chicago to New Orleans train.

I am interested in it's usual arrival time into New Orleans itself?

Thanks,

Ed 
 
Thanks for that, it looks like train 59 arrives over 30 mins early on average. 

Ed
It arrives 30 mins early on average? That really, REALLY surprises me, especially considering it runs on CN tracks, which is the railroad most hostile to Amtrak (from my observations).
 
When we rode it this summer it was about 30 minutes early. I didn’t know that it usually is.
 
Maybe its time to remove some of the padding from the CONO schedule, if it is consistantly coming in so early?
 
There must be a lot of padding northbound into Chicago.  I have been watching it recently and it will be 30 minutes to an hour late into Homewood and still arrive early or on time into Chicago. 
 
The CONO has one of the best on-time records in Amtrak's system. It consistently arrives at major stations enroute on time or early. For how horribly CN treats VIA Rail's Canadian (usually hours late), the exact opposite can be said of CN's treatment of the City of New Orleans. Living in Louisiana, I have taken the CONO many times to/from Chicago and have arrived at my destination on time or early about 85-90% of the time. On the occasions that the train has arrived late, it was usually extraordinary circumstances, such as frozen switches in the winter or a freight breakdown ahead of us.

There is also a fair amount of padding in the schedule. For example, the CONO can be an hour late into Hazlehurst, MS, and still arrive in Jackson, MS, on time. The same can be said for the padding into Memphis, TN, and Chicago as well.
 


Good comparison. :cool: In fairness, at that time the ICC had not issued/enforced the 79 mph speed restriction, and the Illinois Central passenger mainline was a racetrack in just about every sense of the word.
Additionally, let's not forget the loss of train "ownership" along the route, the loss of additional routes which cause congestion and the fact those railroads generated a lot of crippling expenses to keep their trains moving.  Expenses, that would not be generated these days.
 
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