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Is there a southern BNSF route Amtrak could use to reroute the Sunset permanently? Assuming everyone would agree, of course.
Posts: 70 | Registered: Feb 2004
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The reason #2 was so late was that #1 arrived approximately 12 hours late. I live on the Sunset route and it is sickening how late it runs. The answer is not to kill it. If this were any other business, there would be a lawsuit or a federal investigation into why the UP and CSX are stonewalling it. If it is truly due to freight congestion, the railroads are still operating in the dark ages as modern technology should be able to expedite train movement better than those two companies do. You'd think by now, both lines would be expanding capacity if business were really that good. #1 and #2 now regularly lose 2 to 4 hours between Tallahassee and Pensacola, a stretch that can be driven in 3 to 3 1/2 hours.
Posts: 561 | Registered: Jul 2003
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Talahassee to Pensacola to Flomaton, AL, where it joint the original Louisville and Nashville main line from Montgomery and points north to Mobile and New Orleans is unsignalled, so it maximum speed is limited to 59 mph for passenger trains and 49 mph for freights by law. Traffic volume is also quite heavy.
East of Tallahassee it has CTC. The former L&N main also has CTC.
This was the route of the joint L&N-SAL "Gulf Wind" which lasted up to Amtrak.
Posts: 2808 | From: Olive Branch MS | Registered: Nov 2002
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I don't like the sounds of the Sunset. I'm booked on #1 in October to connect to the Coast Starlight. "Guaranteed connection". The Sunset has been running 8-10 hours late. That means I miss my connection by about 7 hours. What does Amtrak do in that situation? Posts: 19 | From: jax, fl, usa | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Edith: I don't like the sounds of the Sunset. I'm booked on #1 in October to connect to the Coast Starlight. "Guaranteed connection". The Sunset has been running 8-10 hours late. That means I miss my connection by about 7 hours. What does Amtrak do in that situation?
Edith: Amtrak will either put you on a bus that would catch up to #11/14, or put you up for the night in a hotel when you arrived in LA. While this may sound unappealing, remember that there are several airlines and other forms of transport who would leave you to your own in this situation, and making the connection on a bus would be preferable to making no connection at all.
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George Harris, I just checked the Amtrak's website. it seems it will depart houston at about 4:11 p.m. and it will arrive into New Orleans LA at 12:23 a.m. about 3 hours and 53 minutes late.
Posts: 44 | From: Biloxi,Mississippi,USA | Registered: Nov 2003
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oOovernight in LA would be preferably as one of the reasons I booked the times I did was to get the Coast Starlight in the daytime. Last time I made the trip from SAC to LAX I was bused the last miles and missed all the beautiful scenery. Afterall that's one of the reasons I take the train.
Posts: 19 | From: jax, fl, usa | Registered: Mar 2004
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The CSX line from Tallahassee to Pensacola and Flomaton IS dark territory and thus has a 59 mph limit but it is NOT terribly busy with freight. We see about 8 trains a day through here at most, including locals (this inludes eastbound and westbound trains). If CSX can't handle that, something is terribly wrong.
Posts: 561 | Registered: Jul 2003
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quote:Originally posted by panamaclipper: Is there a southern BNSF route Amtrak could use to reroute the Sunset permanently? Assuming everyone would agree, of course.
There are a few different options that I see. One is to leave LA on the Chief's Route to Albuquerque, then go south to El Paso and join the UP again. Another Option could be to take BNSF all the way to Houston, but I don't know if either of these could be done, I'm just looking at the map.
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Shown arriving Houston 5:33pm, was due at 10:45am, so 6h48m late. Therefore, most of the late on this train belongs to Amtrak.
To SilverStar092: The traffic level on the old Panhandle line must be down from what it was about 10 years ago, then. I had the impression that it was about twice that volume or more.
To Hurleyjp: Up until the 60's there was through service from Houston to LA and San Fran on the AT&SF. It went up through Temple then west to Amorillo and on to Albuquerque, where, if I recall right it combined with some train out of Chicago. There was also a Dallas section that combined with this at Brownwood. Don't remember how fast / slow it was. In the 50's this carried a through sleeper out of New Orleans via MoPac. Of course, now your choice east of Houston is UP or UP. If we consider only end points, you could go New Orleans to Los Angeles via KCS to Dallas, then UP to Sweetwater, TS, then onto BNSF the rest of the way.
Posts: 2808 | From: Olive Branch MS | Registered: Nov 2002
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I can't find my 1950's Santa Fe Timetable right now, but Burlington ran a Texas Zephyr from Houston to Amarillo (then Denver) in 11 hours in 1958. The BNSF high speed mainline then runs from Amarillo through Flagstaff to LA.
Posts: 1572 | From: St. Paul, MN | Registered: Dec 2002
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I wrote what I did about the former ATSF route without looking at a map, since I was at work. From west to east, the route was main line to Dailes, where instead of following the passenger line to Albuquerque and north, it continued east on the freight line to Clovis / Texico, which is now mostly double track. At that point it left the main freight line and did not go through Amarillo. Instead it went through Lubbock, then Sweetwater, Brownwood, Temple, and Rosenberg on to Houston. East of Houston you are still on UP, either the former SP line or the former MP line. All this former Santa Fe line appears to be still main line track with signals and an apparent good state of maintenance. This is not to suggest it as an alternate route on my part, just to comment of the former ATSF service.
Posts: 2808 | From: Olive Branch MS | Registered: Nov 2002
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A more northern route sounds o.k, except that(if I'm visualizing this correctly) you cut off about 1/3 of your market on the west end of the route: Palm Springs, Tucson, El Paso, and San Antonio. No? Am I right?
------------------ Patrick
Posts: 387 | From: Bakersfield, CA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Sunset Limited had 0% on-time performance in March! Every train arrived at the final destination late (even with schedule padding).
Posts: 29 | Registered: Dec 2002
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could you explain to me schedule padding? i believe it has to do with amtrak making their schedule a certain way to allow trains to catch up when running behind
Posts: 416 | From: St. Albans, Vermont | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Unless the OTP improves there won't be a market to cut off.
panamaclipper is right, I am seriously considering canceling part of a trip I've booked on the Sunset Limited connecting at LAX with the Coast Starlight.
Train # 1 arrived at LAX over 7 hours late today, it lost more then the 3-1/2 hour connection time with #14 between Tucson and LAX.
Southwest Airlines has a pretty good one-way fare sale that ends tomorrow, and I think I'm gonna take advantage of it, and start my rail journey at LA's Union Station.
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Schedule Padding: This is time added to the reasonable minimum run time to allow the train to regain time when it is delayed. It has two components: One is a small addition between every stop. This is usually in the range a set 2 to 5 minutes or 2% to 8% of scheduled time. Usually for lower priority trains the time would be at the high end, and for higher priority trains at the low end, or even zero. That is to say, if the reasonable minimum run time between two points is 45 minutes and the normal station dwell time is 2 minutes, then schedule would probably show 50 minutes leaving time to leaving time. Usually in a long train run the padding would be larger in the later part of the run. The other component is a large chunk of time added to a schedule in advance of the last stop, so it can show an on time arrival even if late. Pre-amtrak, this would seldom be more than 15 to 20 minutes. Some of the long distance Amtrak runs carry this to an extreme. For example, in the October 2003 schedule folders, the Pomona to Los Angeles time for the Sunset is 41 minutes eastbound and 1 hour 37 minutes westbound. Since there is no wyeing in at Los Angeles, this suggests about 55 minutes of padding between the last two stops. That is to say, the train can be running almost an hour late and still show on-time arrival at its final terminal.
Minimum run times can be calculated by train performance calculation programs, but are usually confirmed by trial runs with the normal set of equipment.
Posts: 2808 | From: Olive Branch MS | Registered: Nov 2002
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