Empire Builder Annulled on Alternate Days?

[jis]

I wonder if the 80% availability also accounts for protect car set asides. I.e. is it 80% available after the protect cars have been set aside or is it the case that the protect cars come out of those available cars. I don't know the answer to that. The answer is critical to the validation of the proposal.

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

I agree my 80% available number comes from the Chicago Town Hall meeting. Mr Boardman and staff stated 80% equipment available. However this number is pulled from my grey space, none of the notes state the equipment useage, just that Superliners equipment gets 195,000 miles a year on average. So there is room to fight and twist arms.

 

[mwmnp]

Isn't one of the problems with Keystone viz-a-viz ND oil that Keystone as envisaged runs north to south, whereas the main axis of ND oil flow is west to east? That is why the Enbridge Sandpiper pipelin makes way more sense for ND than Keystone, or so I had been give the impression by articles that I read on the subject, and of course that understanding could be wrong.

Yes and no, as the oil companies naturally like to get the highest price possible for their crude oil. The last couple years, sending the oil east or west has been lucrative, but that's not to say in the future that the best pricing won't be found in sending the oil south. Hence the widespread praise about the greater flexibility that shipping crude oil by rail allows.

 

[Trogdor]

Flopping subject matters again.

Amtrak has on roster 108 Superliners Sleeping cars at 80% available, 86 of those cars are ready to roll. However only 82 are need for daily service. To add a six train set (Empire Builder) you need 4. 3 for pax, one for crew.

Dinner cars are 42 on roster at 80% available, 33 are ready to roll. If the report is correct about The Capital Limited running a CCC then only 30 cars are in service.

TransDorm are just not available. 41 roster, at 80% only 32 available, however 35 in daily service.

Superliner Lounge cars 44 on roster at 80% there 35 available with 35 needed daily. If you can't squeeze the shop for one then use a Snack Coach.

Coach cars are a headache, but you only need 3 Coach and one Bagged-Coach. With a set of Superliners getting use year round in Midwest service, I see more arm twisting but the coach cars are available.

In short the equipment is ready to be deployed for the sixth set of equipment. Sure it a short term fix, but since BNSF is going to be having issues for years. Lets get it done.

Source is Fan based. Donctor's list of equipment here at AU. Rolling stock roster at On-Track-On-Line.

I wonder if the 80% availability also accounts for protect car set asides. I.e. is it 80% available after the protect cars have been set aside or is it the case that the protect cars come out of those available cars. I don't know the answer to that. The answer is critical to the validation of the proposal.

Actual availability is a tricky thing to pin down. There may be a target of 80% availability (which means that 20% are out of service for various reasons, such as inspections, overhaul, bad-orders, etc.). That doesn't mean that 80% are going to actually be running every day. You also don't want to schedule to your availability limit, as that basically means you're screwed if anything goes wrong.

So, the protect cars would have to come out of the availability. Sometimes, the fleet can be over its targeted availability (meaning you have more cars to protect other service), sometimes under (which might mean a train runs short a car, or it might just mean they have to start swapping equipment around or delay a train while a car finishes up a repair).

The other thing is that since cars are regularly being rotated in and out for inspections, regular maintenance, etc., it can be hard to get a true sense of the fleet just by looking at the daily availability numbers. Even if equipment is available, it doesn't mean you can use it for your train. A spare coach in LAX isn't going to do you any good when your Empire Builder needs to depart CHI to head to SEA, even though the number of cars needed for service and the number available for service could be equal.

One statistic that's potentially useful in determining actual spares in the fleet is the number of cars that have been idle for 5+ days while still ready for service. That said, I don't have those stats anymore.