Minneapolis to Toronto: Rolling Fiasco

[guest]

Train due to arrive at 7:05 at MSP, arrived at 11:30. Passengers loaded. Then train sat there till 12:30pm with no explanation of the holdup. Train was overbooked, final two passengers got "seats" in the lounge. At 12:30pm, the EB started up. Somewhere between MSP and Hastings, a conductor came around and explained that Amtrak can't operate the train on the Wisconsin side between Hastings and LaCrosse. They had to get experienced engineers. And despite the LONG holdup in North Dakota, the qualified engineers weren't there at 11:30am.

Hey! I was on that train, but detrained in MSP, so I missed out on frivolity you had.

I wanted to point out that we were late due to equipment failures: we picked up a dead sleeper in White Salmon, and a spring broke on one of the coaches in Minot, and had to be set out. That's what caused the 4 hour late arrival in MSP. The train wasn't oversold, but Amtrak hadn't planned on loosing a coach en route, so I'm sure things were tight.

And then the river rose, some passengers had to take busses from MSP, and as others pointed out, the train detoured, but required a crew trained on the new territory.

I didn't realize that they ran short on food. I'm guessing they only carry provisions to get them to Chicago on time, without extra meals, and given the lateness, dinner time would have arrived before Chicago.

 

[RRUserious]

Train due to arrive at 7:05 at MSP, arrived at 11:30. Passengers loaded. Then train sat there till 12:30pm with no explanation of the holdup. Train was overbooked, final two passengers got "seats" in the lounge. At 12:30pm, the EB started up. Somewhere between MSP and Hastings, a conductor came around and explained that Amtrak can't operate the train on the Wisconsin side between Hastings and LaCrosse. They had to get experienced engineers. And despite the LONG holdup in North Dakota, the qualified engineers weren't there at 11:30am.

Hey! I was on that train, but detrained in MSP, so I missed out on frivolity you had.

I wanted to point out that we were late due to equipment failures: we picked up a dead sleeper in White Salmon, and a spring broke on one of the coaches in Minot, and had to be set out. That's what caused the 4 hour late arrival in MSP. The train wasn't oversold, but Amtrak hadn't planned on loosing a coach en route, so I'm sure things were tight.

And then the river rose, some passengers had to take busses from MSP, and as others pointed out, the train detoured, but required a crew trained on the new territory.

I didn't realize that they ran short on food. I'm guessing they only carry provisions to get them to Chicago on time, without extra meals, and given the lateness, dinner time would have arrived before Chicago.

They added a car for the passengers loading at MSP for CHI. So it wasn't a car shortage. Somehow, they had lost count of seats available and kept selling more tickets. Yeh, I heard all about the trouble they had upstream. One of several reasons I think June may be a poor month to book a relaxing trip. Of course, I know some people are going to read the whole sorry narrative and decide THIS is when they want to travel and THIS is the mode of travel they want to use. If anyone has all the facts, not excuses, and still wants to go, it is their money, their time, their nerves, and I can't really gainsay their choice. But I'd never have booked if anyone had recited this kind of trip beforehand to me. It is NOT consistent with my past experience. I'm just in favor of transparency and full disclosure. And frankly, I don't have much confidence that Amtrak or any transportation company will take the initiative.

 

[Ryan]

Basing your decision making on a single trip sounds a bit foolish to me, but what do I know. I've traveled during the month of June without incident, so by your logic I should expect every trip I take in June to go smoothly, no?

And I wonder what proof you have that they "lost count of seats available and kept selling more tickets", as that's hardly the only reason that people will end up not having seats.

 

[RRUserious]

Basing your decision making on a single trip sounds a bit foolish to me, but what do I know. I've traveled during the month of June without incident, so by your logic I should expect every trip I take in June to go smoothly, no?

And I wonder what proof you have that they "lost count of seats available and kept selling more tickets", as that's hardly the only reason that people will end up not having seats.

You've "traveled during the month of June". So contrary experience is worthless, if it doesn't match yours? May's ontime record was 53 percent, as I recall. So the 53 percent who were on those trains insure what? Its like a coin flip.; Heads you make your connections, tails you don't. That may be "enough" for you, but don't die of shock if others want a bit more assurance than what you settle for. Are your expectations set low for some reason? Do you apply this sort of logic to every business decision?

"Foolish" is very much in the eye of the beholder. You might like to jump into the stock market based on your concepts of what is foolish.

 

[jis]

Frankly I am a bit bemused by the endless ranting and raving on this thread about experience based on one single trip.

In the last two weeks I have taken four transcontinental flights, two were ahead of schedule respectively by 15 and 25 mins, and two were total disasters being 3 and 4 hours behind schedule (one arriving at 3am instead of 11pm) caused by a conjunction of every conceivable happenstance including but not limited to weather delay, mechanical delay, late arriving equipment, and to top it all the FAA's data center that support flow control catching fire and burning down. Now if I happened to be flying only on those two delayed flights and not the other too, and chose to form my entire opinion based on those two, then at best I'd get exactly what I deserve. But I would not have any expectation of anyone else taking my opinion too seriously either.

 

[Ryan]

Basing your decision making on a single trip sounds a bit foolish to me, but what do I know. I've traveled during the month of June without incident, so by your logic I should expect every trip I take in June to go smoothly, no?

And I wonder what proof you have that they "lost count of seats available and kept selling more tickets", as that's hardly the only reason that people will end up not having seats.

You've "traveled during the month of June". So contrary experience is worthless, if it doesn't match yours?

No, your singular experience isn't enough to make the sweeping generalizations that you're making.

It's the same point that I've tried to convey over and over in this thread, and you keep missing the point every time.

Every late train doesn't miss its connection, so your odds are a heck of a lot better than a coin flip.

Nothing in life is guaranteed - like AmtrakBlue pointed out (and you completely ignored), a late train is just one of many reasons to not prepay a nonrefundable room unless you're willing to accept the fact that you may end up having to eat the cost of the room.

Bottom line is that you can't reason someone out of a position that they didn't reason themselves into, so I suspect that we'll just keep talking in circles until one of us gives up.

 

[AlanB]

Hey! I was on that train, but detrained in MSP, so I missed out on frivolity you had.

I wanted to point out that we were late due to equipment failures: we picked up a dead sleeper in White Salmon, and a spring broke on one of the coaches in Minot, and had to be set out. That's what caused the 4 hour late arrival in MSP. The train wasn't oversold, but Amtrak hadn't planned on loosing a coach en route, so I'm sure things were tight.

And then the river rose, some passengers had to take busses from MSP, and as others pointed out, the train detoured, but required a crew trained on the new territory.

I didn't realize that they ran short on food. I'm guessing they only carry provisions to get them to Chicago on time, without extra meals, and given the lateness, dinner time would have arrived before Chicago.

They added a car for the passengers loading at MSP for CHI. So it wasn't a car shortage. Somehow, they had lost count of seats available and kept selling more tickets. Yeh, I heard all about the trouble they had upstream. One of several reasons I think June may be a poor month to book a relaxing trip. Of course, I know some people are going to read the whole sorry narrative and decide THIS is when they want to travel and THIS is the mode of travel they want to use. If anyone has all the facts, not excuses, and still wants to go, it is their money, their time, their nerves, and I can't really gainsay their choice. But I'd never have booked if anyone had recited this kind of trip beforehand to me. It is NOT consistent with my past experience. I'm just in favor of transparency and full disclosure. And frankly, I don't have much confidence that Amtrak or any transportation company will take the initiative.

They always add a car in MSP during peak periods. This is normal operating procedure. That car wasn't added because they lost a car along the way. And they had already sold seats for that car being added in MSP, long before they knew that a car would fail mid-run.

So no matter what, they would still be short seats thanks to a car failing in Minot.

 

[Ispolkom]

So no matter what, they would still be short seats thanks to a car failing in Minot.

And what are you going to do then? Dump the excess passengers in Minot? My poor mother can't cook for that many people.

It's all relative. The Empire Builder has wretched OTP this month, because of flooding, because of congestion, because of the derailment near Snowden, Montana. (Is it just me, or do all the derailments on the Hi-Line seem to occur between Culbertson, Montana and Trenton, North Dakota?)

On the other hand, it is running, which it wasn't last June. Heck, last year it was almost six months before my mother had a station to return her unused train ticket to.

 

[johnny.menhennet]

So no matter what, they would still be short seats thanks to a car failing in Minot.

And what are you going to do then? Dump the excess passengers in Minot? My poor mother can't cook for that many people.

It's all relative. The Empire Builder has wretched OTP this month, because of flooding, because of congestion, because of the derailment near Snowden, Montana. (Is it just me, or do all the derailments on the Hi-Line seem to occur between Culbertson, Montana and Trenton, North Dakota?)

On the other hand, it is running, which it wasn't last June. Heck, last year it was almost six months before my mother had a station to return her unused train ticket to.

I know! It seems as if all derailments DO happen in that area!