As to being run around a hotshot train and good dispatching, there are some great dispatchers in the railroad industry. But I've also had my fair share of god awful ones too. A few months ago on 660 to NYP we got held at swift for a Transit train to come on the corridor and instead of putting NJT on A track at Secaucus they left them on the Main that Amtrak uses to pass by. To the point where the Engineer got on the radio and said "I thought A track was so we could pass Transit". That is a bad dispatching move. Or commonly referred to as "PPD" P*** Poor Dispatching.
Yeah Amtrak does some seemingly pretty weird stuff on the Corridor. But since I don't have all the info about what tracks are OOS at that time, I cannot vouch for it to be bad dispatching necessarily. Maybe they are just trying to do their best with what they have available.
There is a nothing weird about it and it is amazing that Jis has a better understanding of the probabilities than a railroader. However, most railroaders only look at "their' craft or "their" situation without regard to an entire situation, which often remains fluid.
So, allow me to educate Acela150 (who may want to pass this to the engineer of 660) on why "this was NOT a bad dispatching move."
First, let's look at Secaucus Jct station. The tracks are programmed based upon the flow of traffic. Outside of rush hour, the tracks are used for the direction of the flow of traffic. In this case, they use 2 track only to NYP since it is the only destination (as opposed to westbound train which have multiple destinations). This pattern must be adhered to as much as possible. The reason is based upon the short period of time between SEC-NYP. Tickets are not collected on the train. As such, passengers insert their tickets into a turnstile and descend to the platform. It is much like using an old subway token. Once it is used, it is gone. The passengers would have no means to go up and over to another track without tracking down and alerting passenger services, and making them manually open all of the gates (and it is basically an accessible gate so imagine a few hundred people squeezing through it). You'd delay the train.
As such, the NJT should remain on its programmed track. If anything, you could make an argument for running the Amtrak around the train in SEC. However, this only works if there aren't westbound train on the tracks.....and PSCC can handle an out of order train...because equally important: 660 is a WEEKEND only Keystone.
As such, Penn station is set up for single track operation. There is a wave of trains that depart NYP near the top of the hour while the inbound wave starts arriving towards the bottom of the hour. That means around 45mins after the hour to the top of hour, you have the outbound trains in the stations as the inbound trains are arriving. This requires a great deal of track space. You often have train double up on tracks or you have to wait for an outbound to make sure there is space for an inbound.
If you were to operate 660 around the NJT, and now it has to wait for a specific track (remember, they often turn the keystones on the lower platforms in NYP on weekends), you'll block the NJT train, which will need a longer platform.
This of course leads to the final piece. OTP. 660 is due into NYP behind the NJT. If you were to run it ahead of the NJT, and PSCC can't handle it out of order, you've now lost the NJT. While leaving it in timetable order will likely allow both trains to arrive in tolerance.
So Acela150, you and the engineer of 660 not only don't know if is is the dispatcher on the High Line or the dispatcher controlling NYP that made the decision to...you know...run the trains according to the schedule in the timetable. Whomever made the decision, it is EXACTLY what the schedule calls for and that is based upon the greater needs of Penn Station.
