Auto Train 11/2

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53 of the 2nd departed 5 hrs 59 mins late because 52 of the 1st arrived 7 hrs 8 mins late. 53 of the 31st had arrived 2 hrs 15 mins late. Don't know the root causes of delays. The Silvers haven't run catastrophically late in recent days.
 
52(31) departed SFA 11 minutes early, but arrived in LOR 7h8m behind. That seems to be the trip that started this round off, no idea what happened.

The other set seems to be running on time.
 
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As xyzzy stated, #53(10/31) was 2:15 late at Sanford, which likely lead to the 32 minute departure of northbound #52(11/01) that day, but 32 minutes is usually made up. Something happened to #52(11/01) because it was very late arriving at Lorton. This was over Saturday night, so the AT had an extra hour due to switching to Standard time. Equipment problem, grade crossing incident, or broken down freight train would be the usual suspects for that long of a delay. The status maps data for 52(11/01):

Code: 
* Train 52 of 11/01/2014.
* Auto Train
* +---------------- Station code
* |    +----------- Schedule Arrival Day 
* |    |  +-------- Schedule Arrival time
* |    |  |     +----- Schedule Departure Day
* |    |  |     |  +-- Schedule Departure Time
* |    |  |     |  |     +------------- Actual Arrival Time
* |    |  |     |  |     |     +------- Actual Departure Time
* |    |  |     |  |     |     |     +- Comments
* V    V  V     V  V     V     V     V
* SFA  *  *     1  400P  *     432P  Departed:  32 minutes late.
* LOR  2  930A  *  *     438P  *     Arrived:  7 hours and 8 minutes late.
 
32 minutes out of the gate on 10/31 - could've lost its slot. But not to the tune of 7 hours. Interestingly, this was about when the cold front really hit hard - especially on the Northern portion of the route.
 
trainorders.com reports two contributing factors to the seven hour delay.

(1) a passenger was found deceased on board, which had to be investigated and the body removed from the train at Richmond.

(2) engine problems, and a CSX locomotive was added to the train at Richmond.
 
Trying to follow this, but confused by the dates. The trains are identified by their ORIGIN dates; not their arrival dates. The overnight Auto Train that arrives on the

second day of the month should be identified as Passenger Operation (PO) train number (52) plus date (01). Thus, train PO- 5201 is the northbound Auto Train, departing Sanford on the first and arriving Lorton on the second of the month.

Two conflicting train identifications:

xyzzy: "52 of the 1st arrived 7 hrs 8 mins late" This would be PO-5201

RyanS: "52 (31) departed SFA 11 minutes early, but arrived in LOR 7h8m behind. This would be PO-5231

afigg's info is evidently for train PO-5201

But I'm still not sure which dates were involved. Anybody want to clear this up?
 
afigg's dates are right, I misread the column headers on the Status Maps Database and subtracted an extra day. PO-5201 took the mega-delay, apparently because someone died onboard. I'm sure that was a right pain in the neck to get sorted out.
 
I'm sure this has been discussed somewhere before, but in this case, the train is now scheduled to arrive in Sanford at 2:38. FormerOBS, what's the fastest you've seen a train turned around?
 
On Saturday Nov 1, 53 went through Folkston, GA with 3 locomotives on the front. A short time later 91 came through with only one locomotive. Yesterday morning, Nov 2, about 10 am, I saw 52 crossing the James River Bridge at approximately 10-15 mph. I don't know if these events are connected.
 
RyanS said:
afigg's dates are right, I misread the column headers on the Status Maps Database and subtracted an extra day. PO-5201 took the mega-delay, apparently because someone died onboard. I'm sure that was a right pain in the neck to get sorted out.
Click to expand...
The passenger died of old age, he had a children's ticket when he boarded!

:help: :blush: :wacko:
 
Oh disappointment! I'd forgotten that old joke & now it's back in my brain & I can't get it out! Prairie Home Companion's annual joke show was Saturday. You should have sent that one in. It could have been included.

The VERY fastest turnaround would be about 4+ hours. This basically means no rest at all for OBS on the turnaround, and it's not a good idea IMO.

Tom
 
VentureForth said:
I'm sure this has been discussed somewhere before, but in this case, the train is now scheduled to arrive in Sanford at 2:38. FormerOBS, what's the fastest you've seen a train turned around?
Click to expand...
For the record, #53(11/02) arrived at Sanford at 2:30 PM, 5 hours late. Departed as #52(11/03) at 7:17 PM, 3 hours and 17 minutes late. So a 4 hour and 47 minute turnaround. Hopefully #52 will make up time on the northbound trip today, so both AT consists can get back on schedule.
 
dlagrua said:
I believe that the nationwide on-time record for all Amtrak routes hovers around 50%.
Click to expand...
You don't have to "believe", the on-time performance (OTP) numbers are available in the monthly reports and on-line for the previous month for each service. For the month of August 2014, which was a lousy month for OTP, the systemwide end-point OTP was 69.8% and the all stations OTP was 69.3%. The OTP for the AT in August was down at 80.6%, but looking up the on-line posted numbers, was back to 90.0% in September.

Obviously, the November OTP numbers will be affected by the locomotive problem and a passenger dying on the train.
 
afigg said:
VentureForth said:
I'm sure this has been discussed somewhere before, but in this case, the train is now scheduled to arrive in Sanford at 2:38. FormerOBS, what's the fastest you've seen a train turned around?
Click to expand...
For the record, #53(11/02) arrived at Sanford at 2:30 PM, 5 hours late. Departed as #52(11/03) at 7:17 PM, 3 hours and 17 minutes late. So a 4 hour and 47 minute turnaround. Hopefully #52 will make up time on the northbound trip today, so both AT consists can get back on schedule.
Click to expand...
#53(11/03) arrived early today in Sanford. Looks promising that maybe they can get the other set - #53(11/04) - out only about an hour and half late. Maybe they can catch up by the end of tonight's run.
 
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FormerOBS said:
Trying to follow this, but confused by the dates. The trains are identified by their ORIGIN dates; not their arrival dates. The overnight Auto Train that arrives on the

second day of the month should be identified as Passenger Operation (PO) train number (52) plus date (01). Thus, train PO- 5201 is the northbound Auto Train, departing Sanford on the first and arriving Lorton on the second of the month.

Two conflicting train identifications:

xyzzy: "52 of the 1st arrived 7 hrs 8 mins late" This would be PO-5201

RyanS: "52 (31) departed SFA 11 minutes early, but arrived in LOR 7h8m behind. This would be PO-5231

afigg's info is evidently for train PO-5201

But I'm still not sure which dates were involved. Anybody want to clear this up?
Click to expand...
Actually it's not PO. For most Amtrak trains its P-zero. For example, the CSX train id for Amtrak 52 of the 1st is P05201. Another example is Amtrak 125 of the 1st, on CSX is P12501.
 
To all those who ask why the Auto Train isn't a longer ride, this is a perfect example. I think it's crazy that it takes up to a week to get a train back on schedule after a major service disruption. Imagine if the route were a mere 100 miles longer.
 
Right, Venture!

And imagine the problems if that extra 100 miles were on the dense and high-speed NE corridor. 100 miles north, plus 100 miles south equals 200 miles of potential mayhem.

Tom
 
VentureForth said:
To all those who ask why the Auto Train isn't a longer ride, this is a perfect example. I think it's crazy that it takes up to a week to get a train back on schedule after a major service disruption. Imagine if the route were a mere 100 miles longer.
Click to expand...
The big delay happened over Saturday night on November 1. #53(11/04) arrived at SFA 2 hours late this morning with #52(11/05) heading north this afternoon 22 minutes late. So it took 4 days to recover in this case, not quite up to a week.
But, yes, that it took 4 days for the delayed trainset to get back on schedule shows that the limit of an efficient 2 consist operation for a daily AutoTrain is a circa 16 to 17 hour trip. Which has to be over good tracks with pretty reliable schedule keeping in order to work. The Palmetto works as a 15 hour trip between NYP and SAV. Any second AT or daytime train proposal that is over routes of 17 to 18 hours is going to require more equipment to be reliable enough and thus be less cost effective.
 
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