Amtrak train has 11-hour journey from DC to NYC

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MrEd

MrEd

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PHILADELPHIA — Amtrak says power problems between Baltimore and Philadelphia turned one train's trip between Washington, D.C., and New York City into an 11-hour journey.

Amtrak spokesman Steve Kulm says problems started when a commercial power line fell on overhead wires around 8:45 p.m. Thursday, impacting eight trains.

Kulm says one train got stuck on the tracks north of Perryville, Md., with more than 400 passengers onboard.

..

http://online.wsj.com/article/APc54202f871674424b049241d7cac50e7.html
 
Has Amtrak ever considered using diesel locomotives (assuming there were any on hand) to get stranded trains on the NEC when the electric lines die to a station instead leaving them dead on the tracks?
 
From the Washington Post, 12/17/10:

WJLA reporter Stephen Tschida has become a local star after tweeting about his Thursday night 10-hour Amtrak train ride from Baltimore to Philadelphia.
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The full story, including the tweets, is HERE.
 
This story is developing some legs. It surfaced in Gizmodo, which normally doesn't deal with trains, and on The Atlantic Wire(the online part of "The Atlantic" magazine), as well as in Politico. Major black eye for Amtrak, one hopes that training for conductors will stress the importance of explaining the big picture at times like this (namely there was a major power failure). Sad story for a major route.
 
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I was on Thursday night's 66 from WAS to WIL. Scheduled to leave at 10pm, we finally boarded at 2:30am and arrived in WIL at 6:00am.
 
eagle628 said:
Has Amtrak ever considered using diesel locomotives (assuming there were any on hand) to get stranded trains on the NEC when the electric lines die to a station instead leaving them dead on the tracks?
Click to expand...
Can Amtrak operate diesels on the NEC tracks? Aren't there sections (like tunnels) where it would be unsafe?
 
Cho Cho Charlie said:
eagle628 said:
Has Amtrak ever considered using diesel locomotives (assuming there were any on hand) to get stranded trains on the NEC when the electric lines die to a station instead leaving them dead on the tracks?
Click to expand...
Can Amtrak operate diesels on the NEC tracks? Aren't there sections (like tunnels) where it would be unsafe?
Click to expand...
They can and they do. When AEM7's are tight on availability, the power change for the southern trains is sometimes made in Philadelphia with the train running diesel from that point south. However, even if a diesel was available to rescue the train, the problem with the railroad may have been more serious.

The incident Thursday night was a utility power line that came down across the tracks. The Amtrak signal power feeders are located on the catenary structures with the catenary, and when a line falls it hits and trips everything off, including the signal system. Then there is the issue of what damage the power line caused to Amtrak. If the utility line was higher voltage than the Amtrak signal feeders, the surge of voltage and power into the Amtrak system could have caused lots of problems with the signal equipment. Even a short burst of high voltage can damage lower voltage equipment. So, while the obvious problem was the catenary power outage, signal and communications issues may have been the more serious issue, and the diesel power would not solve that.
 
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PRR 60 said:
Cho Cho Charlie said:
eagle628 said:
Has Amtrak ever considered using diesel locomotives (assuming there were any on hand) to get stranded trains on the NEC when the electric lines die to a station instead leaving them dead on the tracks?
Click to expand...
Can Amtrak operate diesels on the NEC tracks? Aren't there sections (like tunnels) where it would be unsafe?
Click to expand...
They can and they do. When AEM7's are tight on availability, the power change for the southern trains is sometimes made in Philadelphia with the train running diesel from that point south. However, even if a diesel was available to rescue the train, the problem with the railroad may have been more serious.

The incident Thursday night was a utility power line that came down across the tracks. The Amtrak signal power feeders are located on the catenary structures with the catenary, and when a line falls it hits and trips everything off, including the signal system. Then there is the issue of what damage the power line caused to Amtrak. If the utility line was higher voltage than the Amtrak signal feeders, the surge of voltage and power into the Amtrak system could have caused lots of problems with the signal equipment. Even a short burst of high voltage can damage lower voltage equipment. So, while the obvious problem was the catenary power outage, signal and communications issues may have been the more serious issue, and the diesel power would not solve that.
Click to expand...

Makes sense, as I heard there were signal problems as well. An unfortunate situation. Sounds like a number of people from the DC area media outlets got cought up in the mess, so I'm not surprised the story got traction.
 
Anthony said:
I was on Thursday night's 66 from WAS to WIL. Scheduled to leave at 10pm, we finally boarded at 2:30am and arrived in WIL at 6:00am.
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I think I would have looked into alternate transportation---Megabus, Chinese bus, Greyhound. I ride 66 2-3 times a month, although usually only from Richmond to Washington. I would have seriously considered walking down to the Greyhound station or taking the Red line over to Chinatown. Wow. Eleven hours. WAS passengers boarded 4.5 hours late, then had to wait another 6.5 hours sitting on the train?
 
While it was inconvenient for those aboard: Honestly, have we stooped so low in our 'pain threshold' that a situation like this suddenly becomes "survival". Please. It wasn't like Zombies were attacking or such.
 
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At least the conductor was letting people off the train "at their own risk". Can't say that for an an airline.
 
guest said:
At least the conductor was letting people off the train "at their own risk". Can't say that for an an airline.
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The risk is both higher and obvious for airline passengers who might choose to get off in the middle of a flight.... :giggle: ;)
 
daveyb99 said:
While it was inconvenient for those aboard: Honestly, have we stooped so low in our 'pain threshold' that a situation like this suddenly becomes "survival". Please. It wasn't like Zombies were attacking or such.
Click to expand...
I think the issue is reliability for Amtrak's major corridor. One where it supposedly actually competes with airlines and buses for traffic. One would think that Amtrak would have contingency plans for these things as lately they seem to happen on a regular basis. Most certainly the Pennsylvania Railroad would never have let something like this happen. 11 hours on a train for a less than three hour journey. Ridiculous.
 
The Davy Crockett said:
PRR 60 said:
Cho Cho Charlie said:
eagle628 said:
Has Amtrak ever considered using diesel locomotives (assuming there were any on hand) to get stranded trains on the NEC when the electric lines die to a station instead leaving them dead on the tracks?
Click to expand...
Can Amtrak operate diesels on the NEC tracks? Aren't there sections (like tunnels) where it would be unsafe?
Click to expand...
They can and they do. When AEM7's are tight on availability, the power change for the southern trains is sometimes made in Philadelphia with the train running diesel from that point south. However, even if a diesel was available to rescue the train, the problem with the railroad may have been more serious.

The incident Thursday night was a utility power line that came down across the tracks. The Amtrak signal power feeders are located on the catenary structures with the catenary, and when a line falls it hits and trips everything off, including the signal system. Then there is the issue of what damage the power line caused to Amtrak. If the utility line was higher voltage than the Amtrak signal feeders, the surge of voltage and power into the Amtrak system could have caused lots of problems with the signal equipment. Even a short burst of high voltage can damage lower voltage equipment. So, while the obvious problem was the catenary power outage, signal and communications issues may have been the more serious issue, and the diesel power would not solve that.
Click to expand...
Makes sense, as I heard there were signal problems as well. An unfortunate situation. Sounds like a number of people from the DC area media outlets got cought up in the mess, so I'm not surprised the story got traction.
Click to expand...
Add to that the fact that one must also have qualified engineers and conductors around to take out those diesels, assuming that they even can do so based upon the signals and other issues with the tracks. This happened near the end of the day when staffing levels would be ramping down.

So now you'd have to get an engineer and conductor back into the house to take out the engine, without signals you'd be running at a slower speed than normal. Then run by the train in question to the next switch with may have to be moved manually, then back down perhaps many miles in reverse (at very slow speeds) to couple up with the train. Depending on location and circumstances, it could easily take 2 hours or more to get a rescue diesel into place.
 
henryj said:
daveyb99 said:
While it was inconvenient for those aboard: Honestly, have we stooped so low in our 'pain threshold' that a situation like this suddenly becomes "survival". Please. It wasn't like Zombies were attacking or such.
Click to expand...
I think the issue is reliability for Amtrak's major corridor. One where it supposedly actually competes with airlines and buses for traffic. One would think that Amtrak would have contingency plans for these things as lately they seem to happen on a regular basis. Most certainly the Pennsylvania Railroad would never have let something like this happen. 11 hours on a train for a less than three hour journey. Ridiculous.
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Not withstanding my previous post about the issues related to getting a rescue engine out to stranded train, I do have to agree with you Henry that 11 hours is ridiculous. I could understand 3 hours turning into 6, maybe 7 under the circumstances. But 11 is unacceptable.

Tow the train back to DC if you can't move forward at least.
 
I suspect that better announcements from the crew might have helped somewhat. Simply saying we don't know and waving off passengers questions did not help. Granted the crew may not have known much, a more customer service friendly approach might have worked better.

Additionally, it is somewhat unreasonable to compare Amtrak unfavorably to other forms of transportation when passengers are inconvenienced. How long does it take to fly someplace out Ohare after a string of storms passes through causing flights to be canceled. Heck you might not get on a flight for days. I am sure greyhound and megabus have occasionally had huge delays with poor customer service.
 
HoosierStater said:
guest said:
At least the conductor was letting people off the train "at their own risk". Can't say that for an an airline.
Click to expand...
The risk is both higher and obvious for airline passengers who might choose to get off in the middle of a flight.... :giggle: ;)
Click to expand...
Well, obviously I mean an airplane sitting on the ground at a gate or on the tarmac, full of passengers stuck for hours at a time, effectively detained by the airline.
 
3 hour train trip turns into 11 hours. I agree tow the stupid train back to the closest station instead of leaving the train dead in the water. At least the conductor was letting off some of the passengers so i would have have hoped a fence and flagged down a cab. We can't amtrak get it though there heads and conductors with "leave me the hell alone" attitude does not help in situations like this. If you don't know whats going on JUST SAY SO. "we stopped but will be moving shortly" then 5 hours later same damn thing does not cut it.
 
henryj said:
daveyb99 said:
While it was inconvenient for those aboard: Honestly, have we stooped so low in our 'pain threshold' that a situation like this suddenly becomes "survival". Please. It wasn't like Zombies were attacking or such.
Click to expand...
I think the issue is reliability for Amtrak's major corridor. One where it supposedly actually competes with airlines and buses for traffic. One would think that Amtrak would have contingency plans for these things as lately they seem to happen on a regular basis. Most certainly the Pennsylvania Railroad would never have let something like this happen. 11 hours on a train for a less than three hour journey. Ridiculous.
Click to expand...
 
Maybe it's time to bury our electric infrastructure, catenary aside of course. Yea, something else could cause it, but hasn't there been a lot of "utility line dropped on catenary" here lately? If the homeland security morons are oh so concerned about our infrastructure, why not bury them rather than leaving them strung up like very long bullseyes?
 
Good morning,

Does anyone know if the NEC is having more electrical problems at the moment? I'm on #98 headed to NYP and we haven't had one southbound meet since leaving WAS about 45 minutes ago...no Amtrak, no MARC. The MARC tracker website says all NEC traffic in the vicinity of BAL is stopped but Amtrak.com doesn't say anything. Can anyone confirm? Many thanks!
 
acelafan said:
Good morning,

Does anyone know if the NEC is having more electrical problems at the moment? I'm on #98 headed to NYP and we haven't had one southbound meet since leaving WAS about 45 minutes ago...no Amtrak, no MARC. The MARC tracker website says all NEC traffic in the vicinity of BAL is stopped but Amtrak.com doesn't say anything. Can anyone confirm? Many thanks!
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According to WTOP (A DC all news radio station):

Mechanical problems and damaged overhead wires are delaying all trains on the MARC Train Penn Line between Baltimore and D.C. Monday morning.

Downed power lines at Penn Station in Baltimore and problems with southbound Train 407 are causing the delays on the busiest MARC line, the Maryland Transit Administration tells WTOP.

AMTRAK is also reporting 20 minute delays between Baltimore and D.C.

Washington Metro is honoring all MARC tickets.

It appears no trains are getting in or out of Penn Station, WTOP Traffic's Jim Russ reports.

Russ recommends commuters take trains on the Camden Line instead.
 
Ouch. Thanks guys. We've been stopped about 3 miles south of Severn for about 20 minutes. Looks like a SB Acela just went by so maybe things are getting better.
 
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