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fredandgingermad

Train Attendant
Joined
Mar 24, 2011
Messages
55
Location
Cambridge, England
If the train your getting is running behind is there a way of finding this out before you leave for the station? I'm taking the California Zephyr from Omaha, NE to Galesburg, IL in July and from looking at the Amtrak website its not known for its reliability (afterall it comes a long way) the train's at 0514, i dont fancy leaving hotel at 4am only to find that the train's running behind, especially as i'm travelling with a small child!
 
fredandgingermad said:
If the train your getting is running behind is there a way of finding this out before you leave for the station? I'm taking the California Zephyr from Omaha, NE to Galesburg, IL in July and from looking at the Amtrak website its not known for its reliability (afterall it comes a long way) the train's at 0514, i dont fancy leaving hotel at 4am only to find that the train's running behind, especially as i'm travelling with a small child!
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Call Amtrak and use Julie, or use the Amtrak status maps.
 
If you can text with a cell phone, text the words amtrakstatus stncode train# to 41411. (example: amtrakstatus oma 5) You will get an answer in a few seconds with the ETA.....
 
Being that you're from overseas, and may not be carrying a computer and to avoid high international text charges, I would recommend just calling 1-800-USA-RAIL from your room to check the train status that morning. Besides, that will have more current information.
 
There is a simple feature "train status" on the amtrak website that you can use. it gives the same information as Julie (or calling amtrak). it works quite well on their mobile site as well, if you are accessing amtrak.com from a smartphone.
 
another thing, if the train happens to be running so much behind that you happen to miss a connection (touch wood this does not happen to me) is there such thing on Amtrak as a guaranteed connection?
 
fredandgingermad said:
another thing, if the train happens to be running so much behind that you happen to miss a connection (touch wood this does not happen to me) is there such thing on Amtrak as a guaranteed connection?
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It hasn't happened to me yet, but if you find out that the train is running behind and you may miss your connection, check with your car attendant. He/she is supposed to notify the powers that be to see that you get on another train. It may not be until the next day, depending on the frequency of the runs, but in that case they pay for a hotel room.
 
They may also hold the connecting train (if the delay is short - maybe like 30 minutes), or if enough passengers are connection to that train, Amtrak may arrange for a bus to connect between the trains. Say your connecting from the Southwest Chief (SWC) to the Coast Starlight. Amtrak may arrange for a bus to carry you between the 2 trains (say from Barstow to Santa Barbara) to bypass the stop at Los Angeles. However, the SWC is one of the best on time trains, and often arrives into LA early!
 
Your 6 hour cushion should be sufficent.

For my upcoming trip, I opted for an overnight stay in CHI, vice trying to catch the #30 with only a 2.5hour gap between the arrival of #8. #8 is notorious for being late (yesterday she was 6 hours late). Even though AMTK would put me up for the night in CHI, I would risk loosing my Roomette on #30 and #97.....so, the risk ain't worth it. All my other layovers are at least 4 hours.
 
We're spending a day in Kansas City because clearly half an hour wasn't going to be long enough!

If it wasn't for having a railpass and a limited number of segments i would have gone the other route from Omaha to Los Angeles (where we go after Kansas City) because we're going to Independence for the centenary of Ginger Rogers and then have to go back again because the homeward bound flight is from LAX
 
the_traveler said:
They may also hold the connecting train (if the delay is short - maybe like 30 minutes), or if enough passengers are connection to that train, Amtrak may arrange for a bus to connect between the trains. Say your connecting from the Southwest Chief (SWC) to the Coast Starlight. Amtrak may arrange for a bus to carry you between the 2 trains (say from Barstow to Santa Barbara) to bypass the stop at Los Angeles. However, the SWC is one of the best on time trains, and often arrives into LA early!
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They must make that up between FLG and LAX then, as each time I've taken it, both the #3 and #4 are late getting into FLG lol (although the #4 tends to be a little later, on the two trips I took. Luckily I remembered to check the status the second time to be able to spend a good half hour more with my significant other before I had to leave)
 
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Tumbleweed said:
If you can text with a cell phone, text the words amtrakstatus stncode train# to 41411. (example: amtrakstatus oma 5) You will get an answer in a few seconds with the ETA.....
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Does this still work? I've tried texting several times and never get anything sent to my cellphone. One time back in April it worked, but nothing this past month.
 
Hows the situation going with the CZ at the moment, I see Omaha is still being bypassed but Amtrak.com has no information on this and when i checked for Tuesday (when we're supposed to be going to Omaha) it had nothing, is it still buses from Creston? I also noticed that #6 is suffering service disruptions, we're supposed to be going from Omaha-GBB on the 7th to get the SWC to Kansas City, i guess a phone call to Amtrak is in order :unsure: If phoning a toll free number from a call box do you still have to pay?
 
The situation for Omaha is indeed still buses from Creston. It's been so long since I've used a pay phone that I couldn't tell you if you have to pay to call a toll-free number or not. :blush: Also, I'm assuming the service disruption for #6 is because the #5 was so late into Emeryville this morning (17+ hrs) that there was no way to turn it around to make today's #6.
 
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Grannie_Roz said:
Tumbleweed said:
If you can text with a cell phone, text the words amtrakstatus stncode train# to 41411. (example: amtrakstatus oma 5) You will get an answer in a few seconds with the ETA.....
Click to expand...
Does this still work? I've tried texting several times and never get anything sent to my cellphone. One time back in April it worked, but nothing this past month.
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Worked OK for me today.....
 
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