Empire Builder Annulled on Alternate Days?

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zephyr17 said:
Talk on Trainorders that the Builder is being annulled on alternate days for the next 6 days

http://kfgo.com/news/articles/2013/dec/11/heavy-rail-traffic-grinds-amtrak-to-temporary-halt/

and another thread over there

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,3259154

This is not making me happy, as I am ticketed on it 1 week from today out of Everett, WA
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Does this mean that Refunds are 100% since OffTrak :giggle: is Cancelling the Trains? And if you Rebook/Change your Ticket Due to the Cancellation Will you still get the Fare and Upgrade Bucket you Paid since this is Amtraks Decision?? Is it first Comer First Served are is Amtrak giving Priority to Already booke Pax that are Scheduled on Cancelled Train Days? Has Amtak Communicated with You re This Matter??

I'm not sure if Id risk the Builder Right Now, can you ride the Starlight down to California and Catch the Zephyr to CHI??? Ive had AGR and Amtrak Re-Route Me Several Times in a Similar Manner When Stuff Happened to Cause Canceled/Overcrowd Trains!
 
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jimhudson said:
I'm not sure if Id risk the Builder Right Now, can you ride the Starlight down to California and Catch the Zephyr to CHI???
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Depends on where he's ultimately headed. The Zephyr won't get him to Fargo (for example).
 
Its effect on me at this point is purely hypothetical. I called Amtrak, and almost surprisingly, the phone agent was aware of the sitution. She said I should be all right at least as far as they know now. The last annulled 8 is the one scheduled to depart 12/15. As things stand now, my train is not annulled and if things go back to "normal" on schedule, I will at least have a train to ride. However, if the situation has gotten this bad, it would not surprise me those dates got extended.

The situation is clearly real. It is being reported in mainstream media, not just foamer forums like this, and the Amtrak agents have the actual dates.

I already have my tickets, I bought them back in April to get the best fare possible during this heavy travel time. My plans allow me to be extremely late into Chicago...I was anticipating that. Being cancelled entirely is another matter.
 
I thought the summer was supposed to be the busy time on the EB. If they're canceling trains now, how bad will it be this summer?

And in general, if oil production is still ramping up, is there any chance that it might stay this way - even or get worse?
 
BNSF appears to be suffering a service meltdown due to a combination of high seasonal grain shipments, increasing oil shipments, and a surge in pre-Christmas consumer goods trains. Too many trains to fit into yards. Not enough crews to run them. I think there is hope that a slight decrease in traffic volumes back to the current "normal" will allow delays to get back into the 2-4 hour range.
 
According to BNSF here in MT, freight loads are forecasted to increase by double digits--based on FIRM commitments from shippers--in the first quarter of 2014. I don't see how anything is going to get better until the infrastructure catches up to the demand-which will be measured in many, many months, NOT weeks!

:-(
 
BNSF underinvested in track last year.

Which is seriously pathetic. Most of the railroads underinvest in track because they were worried about access to capital markets and stock prices. BNSF now has no worries about stock price, and has a boss who they can go to and ask for a big capital investment, who keeps billions in cash at any given time. And yet they made the stupid decision not to invest, followed by the stupid decision of agreeing to accept shipments which they can't move, and they are getting a UP-scale meltdown.

Oy.
 
anir dendroica said:
BNSF appears to be suffering a service meltdown due to a combination of high seasonal grain shipments, increasing oil shipments, and a surge in pre-Christmas consumer goods trains. Too many trains to fit into yards. Not enough crews to run them. I think there is hope that a slight decrease in traffic volumes back to the current "normal" will allow delays to get back into the 2-4 hour range.
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While the specifics are different, this is essentially the position the UP was in on the Sunset route in the early 2000s, which had the infamous Sunset Limited delays that often resulted in trains running 6-12 hours late (and sometimes a day or more).

UP had the reputation of being Amtrak's #1 enemy, well into the period where they were handling Amtrak trains a lot better (including periods where the Sunset Limited and/or Coast Starlight were Amtrak's best on-time performers), while many Amtrak fans bowed down to worship BNSF as a god above all others for Amtrak handling.

It will be interesting to see how the reputations of these carriers changes (or if it does) in the eyes of those same Amtrak fans/supporters. The only thing I know for sure is the laws of physics apply the same on BNSF as they do on UP.
 
As my local guy said: You can't fit 10 pounds of "stuff" into a 5 pound sack! He also said the colder weather was just "icing on the cake". The real issue, as he/I have said all along is the increase in traffic, which will not go away. Having read the travelogue on the just completed #8/28 trek-where they were 12 hours behind, it clearly laid out the issues and challenges. We are indeed in for a very interesting winter and beyond.

:-(
 
Not an option on the Hi-Line. BNSF is the 900 gorilla there and for the most part the only game in town. The agricultural products, coal and oil go by rail-period.
 
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The other option is to just start listing longer and longer delivery times. "Sure, we'll ship your oil. A year from now, soon as we have a slot."
 
Isn't Amtrak paying a third of at least some of the reinvestment of rail on the Hi Line? As a staunch capitalist, I'm generally prone to saying that this is BNSF's railroad and they can do what they want to with it. However, they have gladly accepted a contract to run the EB as well as other Amtrak trains and by law are to operate Amtrak with priority. Rule of law is another very important concept here, and I'm not keen on BNSF shrugging off a contract just 'cause they are in the way. Especially as they graciously receive Amtrak funds to rebuild significant portions of their infrastructure.

I'm thinking that one of the major problems with the delays is that with so much traffic and not enough passing sidings, they can't leapfrog the 79 MPH Amtrak around the 59 MPH freight. That essentially takes 25% of the timetable away from Amtrak.
 
VentureForth said:
Isn't Amtrak paying a third of at least some of the reinvestment of rail on the Hi Line? As a staunch capitalist, I'm generally prone to saying that this is BNSF's railroad and they can do what they want to with it. However, they have gladly accepted a contract to run the EB as well as other Amtrak trains and by law are to operate Amtrak with priority. Rule of law is another very important concept here, and I'm not keen on BNSF shrugging off a contract just 'cause they are in the way. Especially as they graciously receive Amtrak funds to rebuild significant portions of their infrastructure.

I'm thinking that one of the major problems with the delays is that with so much traffic and not enough passing sidings, they can't leapfrog the 79 MPH Amtrak around the 59 MPH freight. That essentially takes 25% of the timetable away from Amtrak.
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You're right that Amtrak is pay $30 million for rebuilding and raising track between Minot and Grand Forks, track that a few years ago BNSF said was unneeded, and which they now have tons of traffic on. Surely, though the legal question is what the contract between Amtrak and BNSF actually says. If the whole line is melted down (which seems to be the case), and the Empire Builder is not getting put in the hole more than other trains, how is BNSF liable? This is especially true given Amtrak's own equipment deficiencies. After all, what really stuck it to Oregon pioneer's train was the Amtrak locomotive breaking down in Fargo.

As far as building new sidings go, BNSF is doing that. Last summer they were working literally around the clock doing that. It just takes a while, given the shortages of workers, equipment, and weather good enough for building.

I wonder how much disconnect there is between BNSF's marketing group and their operations people. Are the marketing people earning bonuses for signing up shippers that operations can't handle?
 
Amtrak's "contribution" is peanuts. BNSF is spending $1.46 BILLION on the Hi-Line over the next several years (and now my local people are telling me likely even more).

I too have challenged my local contact about how there could have been such a disconnect between the sales forecasts (the freight loadings had to have been a well known factor for many months) and the operational side of the equation.
 
Ispolkom said:
As far as building new sidings go, BNSF is doing that. Last summer they were working literally around the clock doing that. It just takes a while, given the shortages of workers, equipment, and weather good enough for building.
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Two out of those three issues are solvable. BNSF should be knee deep in planning, procuring materials, and lining up labor, so that as soon as the weather breaks this spring, they can get out there and get working.
 
RyanS said:
Ispolkom said:
As far as building new sidings go, BNSF is doing that. Last summer they were working literally around the clock doing that. It just takes a while, given the shortages of workers, equipment, and weather good enough for building.
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Two out of those three issues are solvable. BNSF should be knee deep in planning, procuring materials, and lining up labor, so that as soon as the weather breaks this spring, they can get out there and get working.
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Sure, given enough money, you can get enough equipment and labor into the area to do a lot more, probably, than BNSF is doing. Fort Peck Dam, for instance, is in the region and was built mostly by hand labor (up to 10k workers were on the project at one point). But that was a government work project, it was the Great Depression, and the Army Corps of Engineers wasn't worried about ROI.

The question is: does BNSF think it's worth recruiting the construction personnel and building the temporary housing for them in order to speed up construction? Given the low population, limited housing and construction infrastructure in eastern Montana and western North Dakota, and the great demand for the same inputs by the oil industry, "enough money" might be more than BNSF is willing to invest, given expected return on investment.

So I'd love to see a big speed-up in construction, but doubt it will happen, because if it made financial sense, it already would have happened. But maybe this meltdown will change minds. I live in hope.
 
Interesting post from a Hi-Line engineer over on trainorders seems to suggest that dispatching deficiencies are partly responsible. Something about new management and new people working the desks, trying to run priority trains faster with the result that the whole system moves slower.
 
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