CZ upside down

[PaulM]

I'm planning to meet some one arriving on the CZ #6 at MTP (Mt. Pleasant, IA). Consulting

http://amtrakdelays.onlineschedulingsoftware.com

I found that for the last 18 days with data, the average delay was 2:08; and the data was not skewed by a few very large delays. My first thought was that the UP was up to its old tricks. To determine if this was true, I looked at the the last 5 days for which departure from DEN and arrival at MTP were available at Amtrak.com, and I found:

Oct 15: dep 22 min late, arr 2:16 late

Oct 16: dep ontime, arr 1:07 late

Oct 17 dep 2:47 late, arr 4:10 late

Oct 18 dep on time arr 2:10 late

Oct 19 dep 42 min late arr; 2:31 late

So on average it lost 1:40 between DEN and MTP.

Since Amtrak.com only goes back 5 days, I also consulted http://amtrakdelays.onlineschedulingsoftware.com, which gives only arrival times. For the days in October for which data was available for both DEN and MTP, the delays at DEN and MTP, respectively are:

Oct 14 on time 57 minutes

Oct 13 16, 143

Oct 12 on time, 74

Oct 11 on time 70

Oct 7 35, time 165

Oct 6 186, 272

Oct 5 on time 55

Oct 4 4, 85

Oct 3 4, 131

So if you make the assumption that if it is on time into DEN, it will depart on time, it lost an average of 1:41, which matches the last 5 days.

So obviously, you can't blame UP. What's up with BNSF? Please don't tell me it's flooding. We've been having draught conditions since late June in the Midwest; and the Mississippi above STL is as low as I've seen it in many years?

 

[Ben_G]

The battery in the GPS on the train ran down and they keep getting lost maybe ? hboy:

 

[RPE]

I don't know about this particular train, but when we ran earlier this month UP treated us pretty well. We had the current slow order delays that was effecting both freights and passenger. In addition we had a little extra time to remove someone from the train. We were as late as 2 Hrs 22 minutes late entering Colorado heading West. We ended up making all of it back up except for 6 minutes. They even ran us by some freights going in the same direction.

 

[Trogdor]

So obviously, you can't blame UP. What's up with BNSF? Please don't tell me it's flooding. We've been having draught conditions since late June in the Midwest; and the Mississippi above STL is as low as I've seen it in many years?

1) Just because it isn't raining doesn't mean that flooding isn't still a problem (drought conditions since late June in the Midwest? Not sure about that, but nonetheless, both the Zephyr and Builder were impacted by flooding until last month).

2) Even if the flood waters have receded doesn't mean that all the slow orders magically disappear.