What freight schedule?

[Midland Valley]

Some were talking about the freight train schedules on the coast starlight tracking thread. While I was on the T Eagle the other day and stopped for UP freight congestion, I visited with the Conductor (a super guy) who said Amtrak was asked by UP to change its schedule a while back to accomodate the directional movement of block trains. I know they do that here at Pratt on the old Golden State Route, blocks of trains moving in the same direction. Anyway, he said that Amtrak did change to accomodate the Up and that it hasn't made things any better on thier dealing with delays. So what schedules if any are they talking about?

 

[Guest]

who knows. All I know is that I just came of the Starlight and we got in about 217 am this morning . I hope things getting better .

 

[jccollins]

who knows. All I know is that I just came of the Starlight and we got in about 217 am this morning . I hope things getting better .

That's actually not that bad for the StarLATE. That pig has been arriving 12+ hours late quite often recentlyand has had SERIOUS timekeeping issues for quite a few years now.

 

[Guest_Amtrak_flyer]

I wouldnt say years...not like this. I take it every 3 months. Started to get back about 6 months ago. Whats going on now is just insane. Going to take it next week san diego to San Jose RT, we'll see what happens.

 

[jccollins]

I wouldnt say years...not like this. I take it every 3 months. Started to get back about 6 months ago. Whats going on now is just insane. Going to take it next week san diego to San Jose RT, we'll see what happens.

Agreed, but in general the YouPee seems to stab it's performance worst during the summer when ridership is at its peak. Every summer the train's performance drops to 6-7 hours late and then "cleans up" to a more tolerable 2-3 hours around September-October, before anyone gets too irate over consistently poor dispatching. Around September-October the winter weather kicks in and takes its own toll on delaying the trains through natural events such as coastal mudslides and track washouts.

This is an unhealthy cycle that the YouPee uses to keep ridership "controlled" on the route. If the train ran on time every day and you could set your watch to it Amtrak and the state of Calif. would be itching to increase capacity and add trains to the line. Surprisingly the Starlate continues to enjoy strong, stable ridership even with the trains' inconsistent performance and annulments (remember January-February of this year when the StarLate didn't run south of Emeryville due to the Claifornia storms?).

In any event it IS quite frustrating; all the while the YouPee continues to get more and more bold with their unnecessary delays. Something needs to change, and it needs to change sooner than later. Maybe the State of Calif. will eventually get involved when they begin a San Francisco-Los Angeles "Coast Daylight" train (still a few years off) and bribe the YouPee RR with *special* $$$ payments for running the trains on time like the Capitol Corridor route's operating agency initiated with the YouPee for running their trains on time. Until then I believe we can expect little more than more of the same.