Coast Starlight Tracking

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AMTRAK-P42

Conductor
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Messages
1,181
Location
Redlands, CA
Since I moved from California about 8 years ago, I have always missed it. I have missed quite a few things about it, especially the Starlight. Well, In late May I made my reservations on the coast starlight for the end of july/beginning of August. I make a hobby out of tracking a trains status, especially when I'm on them. I really love being on board a late train (as some of you may know). Whether its the fact that you get to see scenery normally covered by darkness, or just see a town at a different time of day, or simply that you end of getting to spend more time on the train, I find a late train extra enjoyable :) .

Anyways, here is what brings me to this post. I have been tracking #14's (Northbound Starlight) arrival into Sacramento and #11's (Southbound Starlight) arrival into Los Angeles over the past 2 months. I have compiled a list of every arrival into these stations. For those of you that really enjoy the same aspects that I do, or maybe you are just traveling on the Starlight and are curious how it does timekeeping wise, I hope you can find this interesting. Here you go:

If anything this def. proves that the starLATE is keeping its name!

#11 Los Angeles Arrival Status         Date      Late   On Time     Early

6-Jun-05  8h 25m  

7-Jun-05  6h 50m  

8-Jun-05  15h 40m <--Latest

9-Jun-05  6h 24m  

10-Jun-05  5h 42m  

11-Jun-05  3h 52m  

12-Jun-05  1h 58m <--Most on-time

13-Jun-05  4h 6m  

14-Jun-05  2h 45m  

15-Jun-05  5h 29m  

16-Jun-05  3h 5m  

17-Jun-05  6h 28m  

18-Jun-05  3h 58m  

19-Jun-05  3h 24m  

20-Jun-05  4h 0m

21-Jun-05  4h 0m

22-Jun-05  5h 21m

23-Jun-05  4h 39m

24-Jun-05  3h 47m

25-Jun-05  6h 21m

26-Jun-05  2h 3m

27-Jun-05  7h 56m

28-Jun-05  3h 3m

29-Jun-05  8h 5m

30-Jun-05  5h 5m

1-Jul-05  8h 23m

2-Jul-05  4h 39m

3-Jul-05  2h 51m

4-Jul-05  4h 39m

5-Jul-05  3h 41m

6-Jul-05  8h 21m

7-Jul-05  4h 30m

8-Jul-05  5h 31m

9-Jul-05  7h 9m

10-Jul-05  1h 48m

11-Jul-05  5h 22m

12-Jul-05  4h 11m

13-Jul-05  4h 11m

14-Jul-05  2h 38m

15-Jul-05  5h 4m

16-Jul-05  3h 48m

17-Jul-05  4h 16m

18-Jul-05  4h 14m

19-Jul-05  4h 44m

20-Jul-05  6h 55m

21-Jul-05  7h 22m

22-Jul-05  5h 43m

23-Jul-05 10h 3m

24-Jul-05 13h 3m

25-Jul-05 4h 40m

26-Jul-05
Click to expand...
#14 Sacramento Arrival Status         Date       Late    On Time       Early

7-Jun-05  2h 55m  

8-Jun-05  5h 49m  

9-Jun-05  5h 15m  

10-Jun-05  16h 0m <--Latest  

11-Jun-05  1h 43m  

12-Jun-05  3h 30m  

13-Jun-05  3h 14m  

14-Jun-05  3h 34m  

15-Jun-05  1h 59m  

16-Jun-05  3h 26m  

17-Jun-05  3h 22m  

18-Jun-05  3h 33m  

19-Jun-05  1h 11m  

20-Jun-05  0h 49m    

21-Jun-05  1h 29m

22-Jun-05  1h 11m

23-Jun-05  3h 11m

24-Jun-05  2h 33m

25-Jun-05  0h 32m <--Most on-time

26-Jun-05  4h 58m

27-Jun-05  2h 7m

28-Jun-05  3h 0m

29-Jun-05  1h 18m

30-Jun-05  3h 31m

1-Jul-05  2h 50m

2-Jul-05  3h 47m

3-Jul-05  5h 55m

4-Jul-05  1h 47m

5-Jul-05  2h 13m

6-Jul-05  1h 9m

7-Jul-05  2h 49m

8-Jul-05  1h 15m

9-Jul-05  3h 17m

10-Jul-05  3h 45m

11-Jul-05  1h 12m

12-Jul-05  2h 18m

13-Jul-05  3h 4m

14-Jul-05  1h 18m

15-Jul-05  2h 26m

16-Jul-05  3h 18m

17-Jul-05  1h 38m

18-Jul-05  1h 32m

19-Jul-05  5h 3m

20-Jul-05  5h 20m

21-Jul-05  4h 47m

22-Jul-05  6h 5m

23-Jul-05  4h 18m

24-Jul-05  7h 1m

25-Jul-05
Click to expand...
 
Damn!!!!

That is about as bad as the Sunset Limited!!! I like to rid on late trains to. I did a trip report on a 10 hour late City of New Orleans from last October. It is in the trip reports section.
 
Tell me about it. If you think that is bad, #14 has arrived into Seattle ALTEAST 7 1/2 hours late everyday for the last 5. Most have been 8-9.
 
Steve4031 said:
Damn!!!!That is about as bad as the Sunset Limited!!!
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Worse, much worse when you consider that the StarLATE LATE LATE route is less than 1/2 as long as the Sunset Limited's and therefore has less than 1/2 the mileage to accrue lateness, compliments of YouPee RR.
 
Well I'm glad you all get excited about late trains. Only a true rail fan can do that.

But on the other, this really frustrates me seeing the poor performance. I wonder how much money this costs Amtrak. And you'd think something would have been done about on-time performance in the last 20 years or something. It's kinda rediculous. If this were an airline, somebody would be all over them.

Chris
 
I usually check on the Chief and the CZ every morning. The SWC usually isn't too bad and often on time. The CZ is usually anywhere from 3-9 hours late into Chicago. BUT! that means that the poor weary passenger waiting in McCook, Hastings or Lincoln NE or anywhere in Iowa, are actually 6-12 hours late, and thats the real crap about seriously late trains; especially when many of those folks drive 40-70 miles to a station.
 
Well it looks like I am going to have to update #11's list. #11 was running about 13 hours late yesterday so they stopped it in Oakland. A stub train was then sent down to continue as #11. #14 was also a stub train; being sent up to meet the real #11 in Oakland. The southbound stub train however (considering it is still #11 for all due purposes) is running about 18 hours late and is not even into SLO yet. This is one a going to be interesting.
 
Some on this board have been saying the Coast Starlight actually does worse than the SL. I have been turning a deaf ear but I think it is about time I agree with them, esp. since the CS's route is much shorter.

Any thoughts, Amtrak P 42, on our hometown (Atlanta) Crescent? DId you and I just have bad luck recently, you being 1 hr. late s.b. and me being 2 hrs. late both directions?

I do know that the Crescent through the years has gone through spells of good o.t. and spells of bad o.t. I fear it is entering bad o.t. times now, What do you think?

And I am so sure that no other industry would tolerate this. Can you imagine the airlines running like this?

I check the Crescent (and the SUnset) periodically but probably not as often as you do.

I do agree with you that it can be neat to see scenery in daylight which is normally seen in darkness. (but within reason--not every single day!!)
 
Yea I have to agree bill. The Crescent typically seems to go through spells of poor performance. Interestingly enough though, these spells seem to occur most often during the summer. The Crescent consistently runs later during the summer than any other season throughout the year. It does encounter those periodic late streaks throughout the year, but nothing is like summer time. I think it has more to do with luck then anything else (and maybe the occasion of a Hurricane or TS).
 
Sometimes when coming back up to Sacramento from the Bay Area I like to take 14 to maximize my time down there as it is the last NB train of the night. However, since it is on average at least 2 hours late I will always opt to take the last Capitol Corridor train so I can make sure to get home with enough time to get some rest before having to go to work on Monday morning. On Sunday when I was at EMY they had 14 listed for a 12:30 AM arrival at 6PM I can only imagine how much later than that it actually was.
 
AmtrakWPK said:
Silver Service trains are also in meltdown re OTP. 91 (26) and 97 (26) are both 3 and half or more hours late, in Florida, as of right now.
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I wouldn't call that a melt down, I'd call that everyday life.
 
battalion51 said:
AmtrakWPK said:
Silver Service trains are also in meltdown re OTP.  91 (26) and 97 (26)  are both 3 and half or more hours late, in Florida,  as of right now.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't call that a melt down, I'd call that everyday life.
Click to expand...
:lol: agree with you there
 
The Silvers have only gotten bad like this in the last couple of years or less. I can remember taking quite a few within-Florida trips on them and having them within a half hour of being on time, especially northbound, but also southbound a lot of times, which is a pretty good accomplishment, considering the southbounds are near the end of a 900 mile trip for them. Of course, I also can remember a trip to NOL from WPK on Sunset where we were less than 30 minutes late into NOL and less than 30 minutes late into WPK on the return trip. I should have bought some lotto tickets that trip, would probably have won big. The last trip on Sunset JAX-WPK got into WPK about 2:30 a.m. (sched arr ~8 pm previous evening), and even that could be considered early compared to some of the 24 hour+ late arrivals for Sunset.
 
AMTRAK-P42 said:
Just FYI #11 arrived 18 1/2 hours late into LAX today (should have been yesterday).
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I was really cuirous about this one!

Just got home from vacation! I was on this train! My traveling party and I had to bail off and take a flight down to LAX so we could catch our flight home. If we had stayed on the train, we darn sure would not have made it!

We left SEA two hours late from the start due to the #14's late arrival the night before as well as mechanical problems. We lost more time on the UP (not surprising) by the time we arrived at DUN around 05:00:00. I awoke around 06:00:00 to be told the news. A UP stack train (container/trailer) had derailed about four cars down down between DUN and CIC. The derailment didn't look real serious when we passed by it, but I am sure a lot of the wait had to do with UP forces to travel to the site as it looked hard to get to! This all tied us up as well as #14. I felt real bad for my fellow crewmembers out of the LAX crewbase on that train. They were REALLY tired from being late going North! It is good to be home now! Gotta go to work now! OBS...
 
Late everyday? UP has to be giving Amtrak the finger on purpose, theres no other explanation. They know the Bushies want to kill Amtrak and UP is doing what they can to help.

Ive been taking the Starlight for the last 18 years every couple months....never seen it this bad.
 
AMTRAK-P42 said:
Yea I have to agree bill. The Crescent typically seems to go through spells of poor performance. Interestingly enough though, these spells seem to occur most often during the summer. The Crescent consistently runs later during the summer than any other season throughout the year. It does encounter those periodic late streaks throughout the year, but nothing is like summer time. I think it has more to do with luck then anything else (and maybe the occasion of a Hurricane or TS).
Click to expand...

Amtrak P42, in your experince is the Crescent more often late (the really big delays) southbound rather than northbound?

That has been my experience.

You will note in my recent trip report that I was glad to see Danville, Va., (where my sister went to school years ago) in the daylight for the first time in all my years of travel in that direction. But that required it being only two hours late

S.b. I have been four or five hours late a time or two over the years.

Is that your experience as well?
 
The Crescent is def. more late southbound because unlike northbound, it does not have the almost 1 1/2 hours of padding that it receives on the northeast corridor. Southbound is much worse. The Crescent encounters a lot of single track south of Birmingham, so a lot of times it has to wait for freights. Once the Crescent switches from NS to KCS in Meridian it usually looses upwards of an hour for slow orders, freights, etc.
 
Do the freights operate on a specific schedule? I've heard many different things. You'd think they could make a schudule, and make it work better with Amtrak. I know many things can occur to a frieght enroute to delay it, but I'm sorry, 18 hours simply due to freight conjestion seem a little too ridiculous.

Chris
 
Well the 18 hours this time was actually due to a small UP derailment north of Sacramento. But yes, freights do have a schedule. Unfortunately, when Amtrak is late in the first place, it messes up that schedule and its downhill from there. Thus the saying "A late train only gets later."
 
Well guys Im off to the Airport. I have a few days in SanFran (my old home!) till I head south on #11. Here is how the trip looks:

July 30th, 2005.

Depart EMY Southbound on #11 to Los Angeles, CA.

Standard Sleeper. Car #3 in Consist.

August 6th, 2005.

Depart San Diego, CA on Surfliner #763 Northbound to Los Angeles, CA.

Coach

Depart Los Angeles, CA on #14 to Sacramento, CA.

Standard Sleeper. Car #3 in Consist.

Hope everyone has a good couple of weeks. See you soon!
 
AMTRAK-P42 said:
Well the 18 hours this time was actually due to a small UP derailment north of Sacramento. But yes, freights do have a schedule. Unfortunately, when Amtrak is late in the first place, it messes up that schedule and its downhill from there. Thus the saying "A late train only gets later."
Click to expand...
Oh, you can't blame this on Amtrak.

Freights? On a schedule? On the UP? Ha! Unless, of course, UP "scheduled" its freight crews to die on hours of service, and have their dogcatch crews die before ever turning a wheel, all the while sitting on the mainline.

It wouldn't matter if Amtrak was able to get its trains (Sunset, Starlight, Zephyr, etc.) out of their initial terminals on time every day, they'd still wind up hours late by the end of the route.

The Starlight has suffered particularly badly this summer, to the point where Amtrak's crews aren't rested in time to take the next trip back.

If this was an "Amtrak" problem, then you'd see the same problems all over. But you don't. Long-distance trains that run over BNSF, NS, CP, and CN tracks tend to run on time. Those that operate over UP and CSX tend not to run on time (even those that run out of the same terminals). It's not a coincidence.
 
Well I am here in San Francisco using one of those really over-priced hotel internet stations. I have been watching my #11 (which I will board tomorrow in EMY). It started out leaving Seattle about 1 1/2 hours late, and is now up to about 2 1/2. We will see how everything goes. I should be able to acess the internet atleast one more time on the trip.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend, see you soon.
 
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