Crossing long distance trains

[jmbgeg]

My experience has been that the southbound Coast Starlight waits at or near San Suis Obispo for the northbound to pass. Why is it always the southbound that has to step aside? Today I was on 11 in SLO. After leaving Seattle nearly two hours late we arrived in SAC early and left SAC on time. We could have left SLO on time, but the conductor announced we had to wait for 14 to pass. We waited 40 minutes. That cost us our on time southbound slot to Santa Barbara and resulted in in several delays in route to LAX. We got to LAX 40-50 minutes late. 14 would have had three fourts of its route left to make up any delay, while it caused us to be late at the tail end of our trip. Not happy with the outcome.

 

[guest]

It all depends on which train is late. If they're both on time, the northbound train waits, just south of the station. If the southbound train is a little late, the northbound train usually waits on the siding halfway up the grade from SLO. If the northbound train is an hour or so late, the southbound train will wait on the siding south of Guadalupe. There are very few usable sidings between SLO and SBA, so sometimes delays have to be taken...

 

[the_traveler]

As said, there has to be a siding for the trains to pass. If the northbound train has already passed the last useable siding, then the southbound must wait for the northbound to pass. If the northbound has not yet reached the last useable siding, it will pull over and wait for the southbound to pass.

That is one reasons that the schedules for all trains are set up the way they are, So the two trains (if on or near time) can meet at a useable siding. If the schedule were set like 10 minutes earlier, it may result in one train sitting at the siding for 10 minutes - and then passengers would complain about having to sit and wait for 10 minutes "in the middle of nowhere". (But of course, passengers would never do that!

)

 

[Trogdor]

The reason 11 typically waits for 14 at San Luis Obispo is because there is a very short stretch of CTC around SLO. Once you get onto the single-track south of SLO, you're on Track Warrant Control/ABS territory. Having a meet in that territory requires the crews to get out and hand-throw switches, and also has other operating rules in place which can actually lead to more delay to one or both trains (and that assumes that the sidings in question are usable and not full of stored equipment). Further, on TWC territory, the dispatcher actually doesn't know exactly where the train is, and can't make on-the-fly routing decisions as easy as he could on CTC territory, since everything has to be done via track warrant (which then requires the train to come to a complete stop so the engineer can take down the information, and read it back to the dispatcher so they know there is no confusion, then verify with the conductors that they have the same information, etc.).

Compare that to CTC territory, where they just follow the signals.

 

[RampWidget]

The reason 11 typically waits for 14 at San Luis Obispo is because there is a very short stretch of CTC around SLO. Once you get onto the single-track south of SLO, you're on Track Warrant Control/ABS territory. Having a meet in that territory requires the crews to get out and hand-throw switches, and also has other operating rules in place which can actually lead to more delay to one or both trains (and that assumes that the sidings in question are usable and not full of stored equipment). Further, on TWC territory, the dispatcher actually doesn't know exactly where the train is, and can't make on-the-fly routing decisions as easy as he could on CTC territory, since everything has to be done via track warrant (which then requires the train to come to a complete stop so the engineer can take down the information, and read it back to the dispatcher so they know there is no confusion, then verify with the conductors that they have the same information, etc.).

Compare that to CTC territory, where they just follow the signals.

Well-said. How far south does TWC/ABS go before CTC territory begins again?

 

[Trogdor]

Well-said. How far south does TWC/ABS go before CTC territory begins again?

Goleta.

 

[AlanB]

I'm getting real tired of all the little snipes going on here at this forum. :angry2:

So much so that I didn't even bother to try to clean things up this time, all posts related to it have simply been deleted.

Let's try to simply just discuss trains in the future. Please!

 

[RampWidget]

Well-said. How far south does TWC/ABS go before CTC territory begins again?

Goleta.

Thx. Planning a ride on #14 soon.

 

[George Harris]

Well-said. How far south does TWC/ABS go before CTC territory begins again?

Using railroad mileposts and from a 2006 and a 2007 employee timetable:

Passneger station locations, if known are for reference.

.45.7 San Jose

113.1 End CTC

233.1 Begin CTC - 120.0 miles of ABS

248.7 San Luis Obispo

251.6 End CTC - 18.5 miles of CTC

355.8 Begin CTC - 104.2 miles of ABS

367.4 Santa Barbara

CTC the rest of the way to LA.