I dreaded the days when I would have a mandatory detraining in Klamath Falls to catch the day long bus to Pasco to connect with the eastbound EB train 28. On some trips I would book a stopover in PDX, pay for a hotel at my expense, and then catch 28. The on time performance of train 14 has improved to the point they discontinued the mandatory bus bridge some time ago.
With a SPK-LAX RT trip coming up in about 8 days I have been watching how the EB and CS having been performing again. Today the CS arrived in Portland a few minutes after the scheduled departure of EB 28 again. I went to the Amtrak Delays website and see that train 14 has arrived in PDX after the scheduled train 28 departure 4 of the last 14 days (almost 30% of the time). Some are less than 15 minutes; others much longer. Hopefully when they foresee short delays they are not force bussing the connecting passengers and are holding 28 briefly.
-Is a pick-up in freight traffic slowing the CS down again, and if so, why is it more often nortbound than southbound?
-Here is a new angle. On those days they remove the connecting passengers at Klamath Falls and bus them, why does that not show up on Amtrak's train status as a service disruption like most other bustitutions do? I ask that question because it would help us know the frequency with which the bussing is taking place. As it stands, we do not know.
Why I worry about those statistics I don't know. It would not probably alter my destination and routing choices once a reservation is made, though if I had a choice of a vacation in Chicago with no transfers and no busses I would take that every time over an EB/CS trip to SFS or LAX if there was a growing rate of bus detours.
P.S. Just did a little more research on today's train 14. The CS left LAX 1 hour and 22 minutes late yesterday, and only made up part of that delay in route to PDX. The thing is that 14 got in to PDX at 4:48 today and 28 left PDX eastbound on time at 4:45, 3 minutes before the CS arrived. Those are the kind of situations where I would have hoped they would hold the 28 briefly. The connecting passengers must have been bussed Klamath Falls to Pasco, or since it is a guaranteed connection, Amtrak will be either overnighting them in PDX or bussing them from PDX to SPK.
With a SPK-LAX RT trip coming up in about 8 days I have been watching how the EB and CS having been performing again. Today the CS arrived in Portland a few minutes after the scheduled departure of EB 28 again. I went to the Amtrak Delays website and see that train 14 has arrived in PDX after the scheduled train 28 departure 4 of the last 14 days (almost 30% of the time). Some are less than 15 minutes; others much longer. Hopefully when they foresee short delays they are not force bussing the connecting passengers and are holding 28 briefly.
-Is a pick-up in freight traffic slowing the CS down again, and if so, why is it more often nortbound than southbound?
-Here is a new angle. On those days they remove the connecting passengers at Klamath Falls and bus them, why does that not show up on Amtrak's train status as a service disruption like most other bustitutions do? I ask that question because it would help us know the frequency with which the bussing is taking place. As it stands, we do not know.
Why I worry about those statistics I don't know. It would not probably alter my destination and routing choices once a reservation is made, though if I had a choice of a vacation in Chicago with no transfers and no busses I would take that every time over an EB/CS trip to SFS or LAX if there was a growing rate of bus detours.
P.S. Just did a little more research on today's train 14. The CS left LAX 1 hour and 22 minutes late yesterday, and only made up part of that delay in route to PDX. The thing is that 14 got in to PDX at 4:48 today and 28 left PDX eastbound on time at 4:45, 3 minutes before the CS arrived. Those are the kind of situations where I would have hoped they would hold the 28 briefly. The connecting passengers must have been bussed Klamath Falls to Pasco, or since it is a guaranteed connection, Amtrak will be either overnighting them in PDX or bussing them from PDX to SPK.
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