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Amfleet

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Aug 24, 2002
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Southeastern, Massachusetts
I was just looking around Amtrak's website and it seems that the LSL is now leaving boston at 9am/new york at 12:45pm and arriving in chicago at 7am the next day. Eastbound seems to be the same except about an hour faster. This was probably done to give daylight service between boston and buffalo. The LSL still seems to stay in albany for an hour to change locomotives, but it won't have to wait for express shipments to be shoved on the back (since express is being eliminated).

The Pennsylvanian seems to be back on its 8am departure from philly and 2am arrival in chicago and 1am departure in chicago and 9:15pm arrival in philly.
 
I think you are mistaken. I used the reservations sight to check train times from Boston to Chicago on October 26.

This is what I got:

449

Boston-South Station, MASSACHUSETTS (BOS) Chicago, ILLINOIS (CHI) 1:45pm

10/26/02

10:45am

10/27/02

The online timetable for the LSL shows the same thing.
 
Amfleet said:
Timetable change is Oct. 27 forgot to metion it above :) I did my LSL intinerary on Nov. 1.
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That's confirmed it is effective with the new timetable change. I tested it myself. This however is the first that I'm hearing about it. 7:00am is a rather yucky calling time for Chicago.
 
Amfleet said:
Alan, it's the LSL were talking about here. It's going to be late into chicago practicaly everyday. :lol:
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Yeah, but if everything does go right and it sometimes does, then that's a horrible time to get into Chicago. Worse you could now have a situation like happened once on the Sunset into LA. It ran basically on time for it's entire run and therefore didn't need the padding into LA. So the train arrived into LA at like 6:00am. They woke all the passengers up at that hour and kicked them off the train at that hour. Needless to say there were many upset passengers.

So if that were to happen with the LSL, which does manage to arrive on time more often than the Sunset, you could find yourself getting up at a very early hour. Also let's not forget that for the moment it appears as though freight will get dropped. This will take away one of the bigger delay problems for the LSL.

I assume that part of the reason this is being done is to improve connections with the west coast trains. I also suspect that one of the reasons for this is to save on the cost of serving breakfast.
 
Yes, true. I think it might make more sense to move the whole schedeul up an our. So arrival time in chicago is 8 am (late enough so your not so grogy in the morning, but early enough so breakfast does not need to be served). Also I think before when the LSL arrived later in the morning it did not have enough time to get cleaned and wyed and backed into the station. If you did not wan't to have to deal with an early arrival you could take the Three Rivers which seems to be arriving an hour later (than its old schedule) into chicago at 9am. However, the Three Rivers lacks the dining car. B)
 
Amfleet said:
Yes, true. I think it might make more sense to move the whole schedeul up an our. So arrival time in chicago is 8 am (late enough so your not so grogy in the morning, but early enough so breakfast does not need to be served). Also I think before when the LSL arrived later in the morning it did not have enough time to get cleaned and wyed and backed into the station. If you did not wan't to have to deal with an early arrival you could take the Three Rivers which seems to be arriving an hour later (than its old schedule) into chicago at 9am. However, the Three Rivers lacks the dining car. B)
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Yeah, the schedule should have a few minutes added here and there and not kick people off till 8:00.

As for anyone whos taken the Three Rivers, is it really bad not having the diner on the route? Also how much would it cost us to run one? Or is it an issue of the availible diner fleet?
 
Viewliner said:
As for anyone whos taken the Three Rivers, is it really bad not having the diner on the route?  Also how much would it cost us to run one?  Or is it an issue of the availible diner fleet?
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Viewliner,

Well I wouldn't say that the trip sucked, but I'd still rather have a diner on the 3 Rivers. They do give you free food from the Amcafe, but it doesn't quite compare to what's served in the diners.

As to why there isn't one, I think that it's due in part to a lack of them. However, I think that the diner originally got cut because of lack of ridership on the train. Since then ridership has gone back up, but the fleet of available diners has gone down. So I don't think that they could put one back if they wanted to. Of course ridership would probably go up even more if they could put a diner back.
 
AlanB said:
Viewliner said:
As for anyone whos taken the Three Rivers, is it really bad not having the diner on the route?  Also how much would it cost us to run one?  Or is it an issue of the availible diner fleet?
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Viewliner,

Well I wouldn't say that the trip sucked, but I'd still rather have a diner on the 3 Rivers. They do give you free food from the Amcafe, but it doesn't quite compare to what's served in the diners.

As to why there isn't one, I think that it's due in part to a lack of them. However, I think that the diner originally got cut because of lack of ridership on the train. Since then ridership has gone back up, but the fleet of available diners has gone down. So I don't think that they could put one back if they wanted to. Of course ridership would probably go up even more if they could put a diner back.
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I would not like to see a diner on the Three Rivers, but rather on the Broadway Limited (Name change as it is an important train in Railroad History) Maybe we'll have the diner when we can get some Viewliners (I'm talking a whole fleet, baggage, baggage dorms, more sleepers, including some all deluxe ones, diners, lounges (some f/c lounges eventually, and coaches), with necessary improvements that wouldn't make working in it such a hazard or a nuisance for the crew to work in.
 
Amfleet said:
with necessary improvements that wouldn't make working in it such a hazard or a nuisance for the crew to work in.
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The heritage diners aren't that bad. I actually thought the crews liked them. Especially the rebuilds. :)
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I was referring to the Viewliner Diners, but I do agree about the Temoinsa Rebuilt "Bistros"
 
Great site, everyone. I've been lurking for awhile without posting. Sadly it took one of those shutdown crises for me to come across this site. Just want to say that on my last westbound Three Rivers trip in June, the lounge car was all out of food as early as Harrisburg. I've always grabbed a big lunch before taking that train, but I'm afraid in the future I'll be stockpiling snackfood very early in the trip. So yes, it's horrible.

My question is, the Three Rivers is largely freight, and it's always been on time for me (westbound). I take LSL eastbound, and freight is usually considered the reason for its chronic lateness. Why the discrepancy?
 
Chris W said:
My question is, the Three Rivers is largely freight, and it's always been on time for me (westbound). I take LSL eastbound, and freight is usually considered the reason for its chronic lateness. Why the discrepancy?
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Welcome, :) I hope that you'll register and join our little forum.

As for your question, there are two types of delays due to freight. The first is the freight that Amtrak itself is pulling at the rear of the train. Typically delays are caused by problems attaching those cars.

The second type of delay is due to other freight trains running on the same tracks that Amtrak is using. Even though Amtrak is supposed to always get priority, the freight companies don't always give Amtrak that priority. Since they own the tracks and control the dispatchers, there isn't a whole lot that Amtrak can do.

Also different freight companies have different track records. The 3 Rivers runs largely on Norfolk Southern tracks, a company that lately has been doing a pretty good job of keeping Amtrak on time. The LSL on the other hand runs on tracks owned by CSX. They haven't been doing as good of a job. In addition there is simply more traffic on the CSX tracks, due in part to Amtrak itself. Amtrak runs many more trains in NY thanks to the Empire Service.

There is also a major choke point just west of Albany NY, where the line is single tracked. So if one train is late by even a few minutes it just backs everything else up. Thanks to some antiquated tax laws in NY State, which were finally just repealed last month, CSX would not double track this section because it would raise their taxes. Plus it would benefit Amtrak far more than it would CSX. So CSX didn't want to pay more to help Amtrak.
 
I deplore that stupidity about people on the westbound Sunset getting kicked off the train in LA on those one-time-in-a thousand events that it arrives when the padded schedule allows it to do so. Wish Gunn would fix that....what is the problem?....it is not due until 8.05...why can't people stay on board? Surely the train is some how "budgeted" to be in service until that time(whatever I mean by that)....it surely is not an economic issue? Is there something I am missing here?
 
Bill Haithcoat said:
My apologies....I should have created a new forum about the Sunset Limited.............
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Its ok we always get off topic here thats what makes us so unique B)

The schedules should not have ridiculous arrival times.
 
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