CL 29 (24) 5 hours late Rockville to Harpers Ferry?

[Railroad Bill]

See that Capitol Ltd 29 lost nearly 5 hours between Rockville and Harpers Ferry after leaving WAS on time. Accident? Mechanical breakdown? Other? CL having tough times lately.

 

[KnightRail]

Residual effects from a recent Silver Service grade crossing incident and that locomotive attempting to return to the mothership.

 

[the_traveler]

How would the Silver Service incident affect the CL? Except for WAS, they do not even share a station - and the CL uses the upper tracks while the Silvers use the lower tracks.

 

[Acela150]

Blame it on "Precision Railroading".

 

[AmtrakBlue]

How would the Silver Service incident affect the CL? Except for WAS, they do not even share a station - and the CL uses the upper tracks while the Silvers use the lower tracks.

"locomotive attempting to return to the mothership."

I imagine the mothership is Beech Grove and the loco in question was having difficulty keeping up with the lead engine.

 

[brianpmcdonnell17]

How would the Silver Service incident affect the CL? Except for WAS, they do not even share a station - and the CL uses the upper tracks while the Silvers use the lower tracks.

As previously stated, it appears that the damaged locomotive is on the CL en route to Beech Grove. Also, the CL does sometimes use the lower tracks. Multiple times when I have passed through on the SS there was a Superliner consist on an adjacent lower track. I have also rode the CL into WAS twice, with the westbound trip boarding on the upper level and the eastbound trip detraining on the lower level.
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[the_traveler]

Are you certain that the "Supérliner consist on the adjacent lower level track" was Amtrak? VRE uses the lower level tracks and their coaches are bi-level.

 

[RPC]

I've boarded and disembarked from the CL on the lower level tracks multiple times.

 

[Ryan]

It usually departs from 15ish, but the handful of times I’ve arrived it’s been down on the lower level.

 

[Thirdrail7]

Typically, it departs from 15 or 16 on the upper level which are the only two tracks on the upper level that have low level platforms on both sides. It departs from the upper level to avoid crossing it over from the lower level and blocking almost the entire interlocking enroute to the CSX connecting tracks. It used to really interfere with 178 since they had to crisscross in front of each other. Eventually, they even rescheduled 178 between WAS-PHL to keep these two from interfering with each at departure time.

It usually arrives on the lower level since if the train is close to on time, the upper level is typically filled with MARC trains doing their daily inspections.

 

[chakk]

How would the Silver Service incident affect the CL? Except for WAS, they do not even share a station - and the CL uses the upper tracks while the Silvers use the lower tracks.

"locomotive attempting to return to the mothership."
I imagine the mothership is Beech Grove and the loco in question was having difficulty keeping up with the lead engine.

Over on Trainorders it says the SS damaged locomotive was being hauled to Beech Grove on the CL via Chicago, suffered a fault that triggered an emergency brake application and the crew could not get the brakes to release. The crew eventually ran out of hours-of-service and a new crew had to be delivered to the stopped CL.