Central Florida SunRail Delaying Silver Meteor NB

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gordonlee

Train Attendant
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May 14, 2011
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I'm currently riding the Silver Meteor #98 from Miami up to Philly and as we made our way through central Florida we were stopped half a dozen times waiting for one of the new SunRail regional trains to move ahead of us.

Amtrak sharing the same tracks with Tri-Rail in South Florida might work, but I'm not so sure it's going to work too well in Central Florida with the new SunRail trains.
 
I was on the Silver Star yesterday (NYP-ORL) and the same thing happened. We arrived about an hour late.
 
Give them some time to work out the schedules. I know part of the reason (see the topic in the Commuter Rail part of the forum) is the extreme overcrowding causing station delays. Some of that should go away as the route goes from free rides to a paid system either this week or next. In the long run, this should prove to be better for Amtrak.
 
Free rides? No wonder all the SunRail platforms were so crowded!

I'm not so sure it's a scheduling issue because we were running about 30 minutes late pretty quickly after leaving Miami, so any schedule "coordination" between SunRail and Amtrak would be thrown out the window so to speak if an Amtrak train is delayed.
 
Well there's your problem. Amtrak's probably scheduled to run a half hour ahead of the Sunrail local. Missing its slot puts it in the following mode, unless there's some way for the dispatcher to run Amtrak around the Sunrail.
 
Exactly which is why I think it may not have been too wise to have Amtrak and SunRail share the same tracks.
 
For reference, Amtrak gets routinely delayed on Tri-Rail tracks. This will probably happen to some degree on SunRail tracks too.

But things are going to be better in a year or two than they were this week. The free rides are overcrowding SunRail and slowing it down... and there's still construction on either end of the running section of SunRail, for SunRail Phase II. (Which probably reduces dispatcher flexibility.)
 
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I ride Amtrak into/out of Miami about 4 times a year and today was the first time I have ever been delayed in the Miami - W. Palm Beach segment (and I'm not even sure it was due to Tri-Rail). Perhaps I've been lucky. Do you have any reference that would show how often Amtrak is delayed by Tri-Rail? Would be interested in seeing those numbers.
 
gordonlee said:
I ride Amtrak into/out of Miami about 4 times a year and today was the first time I have ever been delayed in the Miami - W. Palm Beach segment (and I'm not even sure it was due to Tri-Rail). Perhaps I've been lucky. Do you have any reference that would show how often Amtrak is delayed by Tri-Rail? Would be interested in seeing those numbers.
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Amtrak monthly reports; they report delays by host railroad, including TriRail ("Florida DOT").

It's possible that the delays are consistently to one service on particular days of the week, or something like that, and not to the trains you're riding on.

----

FWIW, free rides on SunRail end today; they'll be charging on Monday. We'll see how it goes.
 
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I rode 98 north from Orlando last Friday (which had been the busiest day for SunRail). We were not delayed at all by SunRail, however we noticed the platforms were packed. (The train was delayed prior to SunRail and delayed again in the Carolinas)

A SunRail conductor told me that now Florida DOT owns the tracks on which SunRail travels. I have no idea if that is accurate or if CSX still owns them. Either way, Amtrak does not own them.

As was previously mentioned, today is the last day of free rides. Ridership has been more than double what was anticipated during the "free" period.
 
The FDOT definitely owns the tracks now and not CSX, I can say that much with certainty. Coupled with the full double tracking, should at least improve reliability a lot.

Do the Amtrak trains in the corridor use platforms on both sides or do they use just one? I know in West Palm Beach Amtrak uses the eastern platform regardless of direction and don't know if that's the case here or not, but they also deal with checked baggage at WPB.
 
In Orlando, Amtrak uses the east platform and in Winter Park, Amtrak uses the west platform. The ORL station is on the east side and the WPK station is on the west side of the tracks. Both have checked baggage.
 
pennyk said:
A SunRail conductor told me that now Florida DOT owns the tracks on which SunRail travels. I have no idea if that is accurate or if CSX still owns them. Either way, Amtrak does not own them.
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The track is owned by Florida DOT. However, full control of operations, maintenance, upgrades, etc. are with the "Central Florida Commuter Rail Commission" who operates SunRail. (I'm not sure whether FlaDOT leases the tracks to CFCRC or what, but FlaDOT is being completely hands-off.)

In short, SunRail is in charge of the tracks.
 
As far as delays, the same happens on METRA. I have been on many EB's where the Conductor announces that the stop at MKE will be shortened because "otherwise we'll be behind a (local) METRA train making many stops". Sure enough, when me got stuck behind it, we were delayed.

pennyk said:
In Orlando, Amtrak uses the east platform and in Winter Park, Amtrak uses the west platform. The ORL station is on the east side and the WPK station is on the west side of the tracks. Both have checked baggage.
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What Matt was saying is that at FLL, the station is on the west side and Amtrak uses the west tracks always. Tri-Rail uses the west side southbound and east side platform northbound. One other station (I think Deerfield Beach) is opposite. The station is on the east side and Amtrak always uses the east platform, but Tri-Rail goes as above.
 
gordonlee said:
I'm currently riding the Silver Meteor #98 from Miami up to Philly and as we made our way through central Florida we were stopped half a dozen times waiting for one of the new SunRail regional trains to move ahead of us.

Amtrak sharing the same tracks with Tri-Rail in South Florida might work, but I'm not so sure it's going to work too well in Central Florida with the new SunRail trains.
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I just heard on our local news that the ridership that day (May 16th) was significantly greater than any other day. Apparently a lot of people waited until the last day to get in their free rides.
 
The tracks maybe owned by SunRail, but that doesn't mean they're any less rough riding then when CSX owned them, I'll tell you that much.
 
CFRC is operated by Bombardier, they have their own staff that does the dispatching for the corridor from Deland-Poinciana (just south of Kissimmee), as well as operate the trains. Now that SunRail is operating revenue service there will be a certain learning curve as the dispatchers learn how best to route trains to cause minimal delays to all parties involved. However, it is very explicit in the contract between FDOT and Bombardier that priority is to be given to SunRail, then Amtrak, then freight. If the dispatcher doesn't have track space to do anything but run Amtrak behind a commuter train, the commuter train will have the priority. Now, that's not to say that Amtrak can't be run around SunRail if there's room to make the move and won't cause delay to SunRail, that's perfectly fine. But it will likely take time for the dispatchers to figure out what moves will and won't work. With as much media attention as SunRail has on them now, being delayed by an Amtrak move would not be good PR for them.

As far as I know down in South Florida things are still dispatched by CSX (minus the bridge over the river south of FTL), but owned by FDOT (CSX has the contract for maintenance and dispatching). The Dispatchers that are on that territory have worked it for years, so they probably have a bit more knowledge on how to finesse things to cause minimal delays to both Amtrak and Tri-Rail.
 
The free rides period is over and passenger volume is much more reasonable now. Amtrak 91,97 and 98 are all scheduled during the late morning/early afternoon when SunRail only offers 2 hour frequency. I would think the preformance would improve now. There are 40 miles of new double track and zero frieght operations from 5am - 10pm. Also, the corridor added many crossovers (including in the double trackage between Orlando and Winter Park which used to have zero) and the Orlando Amtrak station now has an additional platform and could handle three trains simultaneously. (It is not uncommon for 97 and 98 to meet at Orlando which could make for all kinds of fun.) 92 comes as the evening commute has wound down.
 
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Every once in a while between PVD and BOS a regional gets stuck behind an MBTA commuter rail train, too, which can cause some delays. But that doesn't happen that often.
 
neroden said:
The on-time-performance should improve now -- for about a year.

It seems that the schedule for construction on phase 2 south (Sand Lake Road to Poinciana) has slipped and construction will start in 2015. Expect construction delays in 2015. Phase 2 North (DeBary to DeLand) is still underfunded, though they're pushing for 2015 construction.
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Amtrak could use some good news and improvements for on-time performance somewhere among the LD trains this year. If the Silvers can be more reliable in FL for OTP and SunRail expands the customer base by increasing awareness of the Amtrak travel option, we will see if the Silvers can sustain a ridership increase over the next year. The new Viewliner II sleepers and bag-dorms will help, but at the current pace, construction will start on SunRail phase 2 by the time the new sleepers are added to the fleet.
 
the_traveler said:
pennyk said:
In Orlando, Amtrak uses the east platform and in Winter Park, Amtrak uses the west platform. The ORL station is on the east side and the WPK station is on the west side of the tracks. Both have checked baggage.
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What Matt was saying is that at FLL, the station is on the west side and Amtrak uses the west tracks always. Tri-Rail uses the west side southbound and east side platform northbound. One other station (I think Deerfield Beach) is opposite. The station is on the east side and Amtrak always uses the east platform, but Tri-Rail goes as above.
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WPB & DFB are on the east (No. 2 main) side.

FTL & HOL are on the west (No. 1 main) side.

DLB is actually the Tri-Rail station and can be worked from either side since it does not handle checked baggage. The stations that handle checked baggage must be worked on the station side because there is no provision for the baggage carts to cross from one platform to the other.

edit: typo
 
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These scheduling and dispatching headaches are all results of an underfunded infrastructure being in place. And all this on Tri-Rail is for the want of a crossing protected by flashing red lights at those stations. The choice has been made not to have those put in and suffer through occasional delays and general reduction of overall maximum throughput of the corridor due to the necessity runa single train wrong track every so often. In the long run penny wise - pound foolish IMHO.
 
RampWidget said:
The stations that handle checked baggage must be worked on the station side because there is no provision for the baggage carts to cross from one platform to the other.
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This sounds like it would be a relatively cheap fix in the future. Baggage cart crossings can be quite minimal.
 
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