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Wednesdays train 1 out of NOL arrived in Beaumont... drum roll.....39 minutes early. Thats right, EARLY. no typo. It was so early they parked it for 30 minutes in downtown Beaumont. Then it moved the remaining 2 miles to the Beaumont stop 9 minutes early. The change of crew was still at the hotel. btw, Amtrak is using a new procedure for crew change stops. They park the train whereas the engines are parked at the platform. After the crew change, they move the train forward for a regular stop. Well Wednesday the train was so early the crew had not arrived. So the train sat with the engines blocking the platform for 20 minutes. The crew finally arrived, they cranked up the second engine, then they moved up to let passengers off or on.
Speaking of cranking up the second engine. I didn't think much of the fact that the east bound Sunset was using the lead engine for moving and HEP. The second engine was turned off. I thought maybe it had broken down. However when Sunset arrived Wednesday, again the second unit was not working. Then I watched the new crew shut off all the lights on the train and started the second unit for HEP. It seems Amtrak is running single engine east of Beaumont and double engine west of Beaumont.
Eric Member # 674
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I'm guessing that the track grades allow for the use of only a single unit in that area, but the second unit is a must have. The P42s like to turn themselves off fairly often!
George Harris Member # 2077
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Hey, if they made it in 39 minutes early on one engine, what is there to complain about? Sounds like there is a lot of slack in the schedule.
Looked at the amtrak leaflet and also a 1956 Official Guide. The Amtrak leaflet has an error. It shows the milages from New Orleans as: 219 Lake Charles - 5:06pm 330 Beaumont - 6:43pm 362 Houston - ar 9:13pm, lv9:50pm The milage at Beaumont is wrong. The Beaumont milage in 1956 was shown as 279, so with the move of station to near freight yard it would probably be 280 to 282 or thereabouts.
After looking at the 1956 OG, the 39 minumtes early is truly amazing. The current time from Lake Charles is 1h37m. In 1956 it was 1h28m with a stop at Orange. This still says that a reasonable minimum run time for the 61 miles (assuming 280 at B.) would be be about 1h20m and this train made the run in 58 minutes over 61 miles with a maximum speed limit of 70 mph and much slower speeds through Orange and across the Neches River drawbridge. Unless he snuck out of Lake Charles early, this is approaching physical impossibility.
George
gp35 Member # 3971
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Making the run between Lake Charles and Beaumont in 1 hour, I don't think it's approaching physical impossible, unless you were referring to freight traffic. Between Beaumont and Orange, 30 miles or half the distant, it's open throttle. The remaining 30 miles is much slower, maybe 50 mph.
George Harris Member # 2077
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From the UP employee timetable dated 3/30/03, the distance is 61.5 miles. Beaumont is at 280.1. In this section the maximum passenger train speed limit is 70 mph and there are 8 separate speed restrictions of various lengths. Three are of zero length, one of these being 10 mph over the Neches River drawspan and the others of 40 mph over two separate railroad crossings that are 1.6 miles apart near Lake Charles. The Neches River span is in the middle of a 2.4 mile lone 20 mph speed restriction through Beaumont that increases to 30 mph less than one mile before the station. The other five restrictions are one at 50 mph, 2 at 35 mph, and 2 at 25 mph. Even without considering acceleration and braking, but only adding 0.2 miles for train length, the sum of these restrictions gives you a minimum run time of 68 minutes. If you consider a reasonable allowance for acceleration and braking, the real MINIMUM run time would be about 10 minutes longer, a stop adds at least 5 minutes, so, no surprise, the 1956 Sunset Limited run time of 88 minutes is a pretty good representation of the minimum practical run time over this distance.
You are right. I don't believe the train could get into Beaumont 39 minutes early by any means other than leaving Lake Charles early. Not without serious speeding, and given the many restrictions, and big brother is watching you, this would not happen with any engineer that wanted to keep his job.
Here are the allowed speeds for your info:
from mp 205.5 to mp 220.6: 70 mph from mp 220.6 to mp 220.7: 25 mph from mp 220.7 to mp 221.2: 70 mph at mp 221.2, KCS RR Xing: 40 mph from mp 221.2 to mp 222.8: 70 mph at mp 222.8, KCS RR Xing: 40 mph from mp 222.8 to mp 226.7: 70 mph from mp 226.7 to mp 229.0: 35 mph from mp 229.0 to mp 248.5: 70 mph from mp 248.5 to mp 250.3: 25 mph from mp 250.3 to mp 252.8: 70 mph from mp 252.8 to mp 253.1: 50 mph from mp 253.1 to mp 255.0: 70 mph from mp 255.0 to mp 257.3: 35 mph from mp 257.3 to mp 276.9: 70 mph from mp 276.9 to mp 278.0: 20 mph at mp 278.0, drawspan: 10 mph from mp 278.0 to mp 279.3: 20 mph from mp 279.3 to mp 280.1: 30 mph from mp 280.1 to mp 282.4: 40 mph from mp 282.4 to mp 311.2: 70 mph
218.6 Lake Charles 257.9 Orange Siding 280.1 Beaumont
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I've heard of trains not stopping at stations to make up time, if there's nobody on the manifest to board/disembark there. But passing through or leaving early when already early? By George's calculations, that can be the only explanation I can think of.
One engine between NOL and Houston should be plenty for such a short train - you're only trailing 500 tons or so, which even our baby size engines in the UK can handle. The only energetic part is the river crossing out of NOL AFAIK - but that's got a low speed limit anyway.
Geoff M.
RRCHINA Member # 1514
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To leave or pass a timetable location ahead of the designated time is a violation of operating rules. I presume this could be done if the dispatcher gave specific orders for such a move; which would mean that the DS had everything clear and had a special need to make this move.
gp35 Member # 3971
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George, I don't know what happens pass the neches river bridge, but what I can tell you is very few trains cross the Neches River bridge under 30 mph. I'd estimate most are doing 40 mph. When I ride the Sunset, between Beaumont and Orange the Sunset is flying. Maybe 70-80 mph.
They did replace all the ties on the Sunset route a few months ago.
gp35 Member # 3971
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Geoff my aunt said they stopped in Lake Charles for about 15 seconds.
George Harris Member # 2077
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Could be that some of the speed limits have been raised since the 2003 timetable. I would suspect that the 70 mph maximum has probably not been raised. The general requirement at the beginning of Amtrak was that passenger train speed limits could not be lower than freight train speed limits, but that does not prevent them from being the same. It was also supposed to be a requirement that previously existing passenger train speed limits could not be lowered. That has not always been followed, for example, when IC removed the second track and the ATS, the speed limit that had been 90, down from 100 mph up until the early 60's, for a goodly distance in Illinois became 79.
The 70 mph limit on this line goes back to before Amtrak.
My criosity sent me to topozone to see if I could see the why's behind the speed restrictions:
They are: 220.6 to 220.7, 25 mph over the Calcasieu swing span. Not likely to have changed. 221.2 and 222.8, KCS diamonds as noted in the ETT. Also unlikely to have changed.
226.7 to 229.0, 35 mph through the city of Sulphur. This is likely to have changed. UP has been going through towns with low speed limits and imporving the tracks and raising the speed, alignment permitting. Local orinance speed restrictions on railroads have been declared an impediment ot interstate commerce and are unenforcable. That did not mean an instant speed up, because trains are not allowed to faster than the speed that gives the minimum required time on the grade crossing circuits.
248.5 to 250.3 25 mph, this is through a swampy area and over a couple of bridges, one of which is shown as a drawbridge on the topo map, but not the ETT. There is a curve, but not near sharp enough to require a speed restriction, and certainly not to 25 mph. Looks like bridge work, and maybe some fill stabilization could have eliminated this one. Raising these 2 miles to 70 mph would reduce the run time by about 4.5 to 5 minutes.
252.8 to 253.1 to 50 mph: This is the 90 degree turn north of Orange. Nothing can be done about this but relocating the railroad.
255.0 to 257.3 to 35 mph: The first mile of this is on straight track into Orange, and the rest of it relates to the 90 degree turn in downtown Orange. Don't see more than about another 5 mph being squeezed out of the curve, so this is unlikely to have changed.
276.9 to 279.3, 20 mph with 10 mph over the drawspan. Raising the speed over the lift span to 20 or 25 mph or so is do-able. The part through the center of Beaumond is unlikely to be able to be raised much because of the curves and junctions where the KCS turns south to Lake Charles. Also, since these tracks are signaled, if there are turnouts from these main tracks that are not either power operated or have electric locks, the speed must be limited to 20 mph.
About 30 years ago a study was made to relocate the railroad out of the center of Orange. Like a lot of these things it died with nothing really happening but a set of reports. I did not work on this thing, but I did get my hands on a set of the reports. Some of the reroutes proposed were downright silly. However, to simply go almost due west from the start of the curve north of Orange to the KCS at a point about 3.5 miles northeast of Vidor would have shortened the distance by about 3.5 miles. It would have required about 13 miles of new track plus, very likely, a second main along the 8 miles of KCS track that it would use east of Tower 31.
George
RRRICH Member # 1418
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George - you seem to know a lot about AMTRAK mileposts. Even though this is off topic, maybe you can help me:
I've been putting together and revising topographic map "railroad logs" of all the AMTRAK routes for several years now, using DeLorme's "3-D Topo Quads" series of USGS topographic maps on CD-ROM, with very very accurate measuring tools (they measure down to the 0.1 ft) and raster images of official USGS topographic maps. Yet for years I have had one devil of a time trying to get my mileages to match those in the AMTRAK timetables. I add detailed mile-by-mile "mileposts" to all my maps, and am pretty sure I know which routes all the trains follow, yet still, when I come to an AMTRAK station, the "mileage" on my maps is usually NOWHERE NEAR what the current timetable says it should be -- I am often 2-3 miles off, sometimes more. Are the mileages in AMTRAK timetables really that incorrect?
I have also noticed that, even within the same AMTRAK timetable, mileages between the same points are different in different individual schedules, even though I know the trains take the same route. Example: In the current AMTRAK timetable, the Vermonter schedule (p. 65) shows New Haven at MP 314, and New York at MP 385 -- 71 miles between the 2 stations. Yet in the NEC schedules in the same timetable (pp. 32-49), New York is at MP 231, and New Haven is at MP 156 - 75 miles between the stations. I don't think the route of the Vermonter is any different than the route of the other NEC trains, but why the 4-mile difference? And there are MANY MANY situations like this throughout every single timetable I have ever used.
Also, I have noticed that mileages listed in the timetable for various cities change each time a new timetable is printed, even though no apparent route changes have taken place.
Any ideas? Sorry for the long, off-topic post, but hopefully you can help me.
RRCHINA Member # 1514
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I shall not attempt to analyze the AMTRAK tt's but will discuss the MP's on the ground which are established by the owners of the track.
When the track (s) were built a MP was placed somewhere on the property to identify every mile. These were used by employees to report various things including derailments, bridge locations or items needing repair. Through the years RR's made changes to the property to improve operating conditions, ie, curviture reductions or complete changes of the line. This resulted in that specific segement of track being either longer or shorter and it was not prudent to go back to MP 0 and reestablish everything that was unaffected by the improvement. So MP's on either side of the improvement were left in place and equations were used to make the adjustment. As an example, a line change may have shortened the overall length by five + miles and the MP near the end would be 12 and the next MP on the ground would be 17.
The Employee TT would show the overall distance to be shorter by five + miles as would public TT's.
Many other operating changes could result in the distance between two points increasing or decreasing while the MP's located on the ground would remain the same thus not necessitating a complete change in all of the data used to manage the property.
gp35 Member # 3971
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quote: The part through the center of Beaumond is unlikely to be able to be raised much because of the curves and junctions where the KCS turns south to Lake Charles.
You mean south to Port Arthur. East of that curve is the spot they are looking at for the new Amtrak stop.
quote: About 30 years ago a study was made to relocate the railroad out of the center of Orange. Like a lot of these things it died with nothing really happening but a set of reports. I did not work on this thing, but I did get my hands on a set of the reports. Some of the reroutes proposed were downright silly. However, to simply go almost due west from the start of the curve north of Orange to the KCS at a point about 3.5 miles northeast of Vidor would have shortened the distance by about 3.5 miles. It would have required about 13 miles of new track plus, very likely, a second main along the 8 miles of KCS track that it would use east of Tower 31.
George
Exactly, I don't know why that simply plan has not been done. I bet KCS stood in the way. KCS is a very difficult railroad to deal with. BTW, the Port of Beaumont is moving it's yard to the Port Property. That yard near the bridge will be closed leaving 1 track. (BNSF) A 20 mph turn out will be built near the bridge going south into the Port.
George Harris Member # 2077
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"you mean south to Port Arthur" Yep. I knew that. Just the fingers didn't.
Have no idea why the relocation plan died. It was not just here. There were relocation plans that I knew about for Brownsville TX, Augusta GA, Springfield IL, Little Rock and I know there were others. So far as I know none ever happened except something like 20 years later a piece of the one at Springfield IL was built. I think it was mainly that the federal money went away. Not sure how much KCS had to do with it, as SP already had the short section of track rights on KCS that included the Neches River Bridge.
RRRICH: The mileposts here have nothing whatsoever to do with Amtrak. These are the SP mileposts, and I got the information from the UPRR employee timetable pages that I have a copy of. I then looked at topozone for what was in the slow speed areas. Playing around with maps like this is something I have done in one form or another for a long time. Also, about 25 years ago I worked on a pipeline job down in that territory for a few months, and spent my spare time wandering around the railroad facilities.
What RRCHINA says is correct, but not really relevant to what you asked. As noted there are plain and simple errors in the Amtrak timetable sheets. Actually, sometimes railroads do re-milepost lines, but not that often, and usually leaving confusion forever in the engineering department when they do.
George
RRRICH Member # 1418
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I'm not sure if you guys are understanding my question properly -- my AMTRAK route maps have NOTHING to do with "railroad mileposts" -- they are all built 100% based on what I read in the AMTRAK timetable. The "beginning station" for each of my maps is at MP 0 -- I then measure mile-by-mile the entire route and place a labeled "MP" point along the track at 1 mile, 2 miles, 3 miles, etc. FROM THE BEGINNING STATION, until the end.
Look at the Empire Builder schedule in the current AMTRAK timetable -- the route I am currently mapping is MSP-CHI. The MSP station is at "mile 417" in the timetable, and the next station south is Red Wing, MN, at "mile 371." Therefore it is 46 miles between the MSP and RDW stations, right? My map has the MSP station at MP 0; therefore the closest MP to the RDW station would logically be 46, right? -- well, it's not 46. Using the very detailed measuring tools on DeLorme 3-D Topo Quads software, the RDW station came out closer to "my" MP 48 -- why? It should have ended up somewhere near "my" MP 46, shouldn't it have? Therefore, the AMTRAK timetable is 2 miles off??????
Does this make more sense? Thanks--
P.S. For the sake of discussion, plese assume that the routes I am mapping are the correct routes -- in most cases, I believe they are, but I have had these problems with EVERY route map I have done so far.
Geoff M Member # 153
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I assume the Amtrak timetables take the "real" mileposts (the ones beside the track and what the RR uses) and translates them to a single reference point (ie the origin station of the schedule you're looking at). But rounding errors, long miles, and short miles are bound to make a small difference.
However, why should those numbers change between timetable editions - and even within the same timetable? I've certainly noticed the former, even though no realignment or re-routing had taken place over that route. They also probably don't take into account lengthy back-up moves that take place around Denver, San Antonio, Fort Worth, etc.
I suggest you take the Amtrak mileages with a pinch of salt! The digital mapping tools are probably your most accurate source of information - but beware of the known deficiences in those programs and the data they rely on. Fact of the day: if you position yourself according to your GPS at 0 degrees longitude in Greenwich, London, UK, would you be on the prime meridian? No - you'll be about 103m off due to the coordinate system! A more detailed explanation: http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php/Cat/0/Number/30500/page//vc/1
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