Passenger Trains > New Orleans Evac Train

First reports are coming in about Amtrak equipment being moved to Louisiana to put together an evacuation train. No confirmable word yet on when or where the evacuations are going to begin.

Fox News' Sean Hannity was interviewing Secretary of Homeland Security Chertoff this evening. The Secretary himself said "we are working on getting trains to help get people out'.

I was waiting for this to happen. Must have taken a rocket scientist to figure it out! Or better yet, I bet it was Mineta's suggestion. Hah! If they do work out a plan whereby Amtrak transports those in New Orleans out of the city, I hope Mineta will keep quiet about "the trains ride empty."

Kudos to David Gunn and Amtrak personnel for stepping up to the plate. I was hoping they would. There's a Crescent trainset currently not being used (only three required for operating to/from Atlanta to New York City), an Sunset Limited trainset (somewhere under similiar circumstances as the Crescent) and with return of Acela Express equipment, this should free up some Amfleets. And perhaps some commuter railroads could lend some cars.

The hurricane was an utter tragedy to the New Orleans area, and glad Amtrak and the freight RR's are coming forward. Makes more economical and efficient sense than bussing! Would also afford some good PR - as a byproduct to what still is a tragedy first and foremost.

Such a train would prove Amtrak would be able to get passenger cars close to New Orleans and hopefully help get the Crescent and City of New Orleans turning around further south thatn at present (Atlanta and Memphis respectively at present).

That would be cool if they had a massive 50 car superliner train with like 6 P42's! How would this all work, wasn't a lot of track damaged in the NOL area?

Alex Ramos

I don't think you'll see a 50 car Superliner train - that's jeopardize running what's left of Amtrak's core system. More than likely, if this even comes to be, it will be along the lines of a single level train with a mix of Amtrak and Eastern RR commuter cars - that can be spared from service.

Forget eastern RR commuter cars, Grab chicago area galery cars this weekend! Load em up and have em back for Tuesday!

You can pack a LOAD of people in them.

I can add a little info to this. Our company was asked to move one of our fuel trucks from Livonia to Lafayette LA by the UP in order to fuel Amtrak Locomotive(s) making 2 round trips to Houston per day. Operation is tentatively scheduled to run for 2 weeks. IIRC the operation is a joint UP/Amtrak deal. They're to load passengers (flood victims) at the Lafayette Amtrak depot and run them to Amtrak Houston. According to Company officials FEMA has given Amtrak 5 million bucks to cover costs. Dan

Its easy enough to load a train, but where do take them?
Houston can only absorb so many. Overnight, the Houston Fire Marshal stopped the importation of refugees into the Astrodome and told the bus drivers to take them to other cities. Fortunately a temporary overnight (only) shelter next door was arranged, but being a bus driver in that situation has got to be extremely stressful.

I'm just wondering what took so long! They could have had some commuter equipment from Chicago down to New Orleans a couple of days ago.

News reports say there are 25,000 people around the Superdome waiting for transportation. A bus can take 40. Do the math.

A train of 15 Amfleets can carry 1,100 people. Twice daily, that's 2,200 people a day. Supposedly 50 buses had run to Houston as of this morning. That's 2,000 people -- over two days!

It's amazing that it took somebody so long to figure out that trains are actually a pretty good way to move large numbers of people.

Here's a comparison. The Dan Ryan Expressway has 12 lanes. Maximum observed capacity of a highway lane is 1,000 vehicles per hour. They carry, on average, 1.5 people each, so that's 1,500 per lane, per hour, or 9,000 per hour in each direction, max.

The CTA line in the middle of the highway can run trains on 2-minute headways. That's 30 trains per hour, 8 cars per train, 150 people per car, or 36,000 people per hour, each way -- exactly four times the capacity of 12 highway lanes.

But why build 2 CTA tracks when you can carve 12 lanes plus medians, shoulders, and ramps out of an established city? ;-)

"Eight lanes of shimmering cement running from here to Pasadena. Smooth, safe, fast. Traffic jams will be a thing of the past. [...] I see a place where people get on and off the freeway. On and off, off and on all day, all night. Soon, where Toon Town once stood will be a string of gas stations, inexpensive motels, restaurants that serve rapidly prepared food. Tire salons, automobile dealerships and wonderful, wonderful billboards reaching as far as the eye can see. My God, it'll be beautiful."

Getting equipment repositioned between New York and Chicago isn't that easy anymore with 40 & 41 gone.

Metro-North has a lot of idle Bombardier/Comet-II cars that used to be used on west-of-Hudson service. They are laying around yards on the lower Hudson line. They can be distnguished by having a black window stripe.

rresor Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm just wondering what took so long! They could
> have had some commuter equipment from Chicago down
> to New Orleans a couple of days ago.

Another glib answer.

First of all, its only been about 72 hours since the enormity of the New Orleans flooding was realized
Then it tskes someone in authority to order such a move, then you need crews, fuel, oh, and the hurricane went way beyond NOL, tracks are out, electrical power is out (no signals) oh! and just maybe RR personnel might have been affected by Katrina. And, then there are freight trains backed up all over the place.

Its all to easy to criticize, that requires no action or raional thought.

Equip ID Event Location Date/Time

AMTK22  Departed  Wjunction, TX  09/02/05 10:26 
AMTK194 Departed  Wjunction, TX  09/02/05 10:26 
Est Interch Iowjct, LA  09/02/05 11:08 

Ghost of train #2(31) headed EB through Houston now.

RailNet802, over

kk5ol Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Equip ID Event Location Date/Time
>
> AMTK22  Departed  Wjunction, TX  09/02/05 10:26 
> AMTK194 Departed  Wjunction, TX  09/02/05 10:26 
> Est Interch Iowjct, LA  09/02/05 11:08 
>
> Ghost of train #2(31) headed EB through Houston
> now.
>
> RailNet802, over


Were is this train headed ?

SP7615

The units above and these cars are moving:

AMTK 39026
AMTK 38068
AMTK 38004
AMTK 34035
AMTK 31545
AMTK 34024
AMTK 32020

kk5ol Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Equip ID Event Location Date/Time
>
> AMTK22  Departed  Wjunction, TX  09/02/05 10:26 
> AMTK194 Departed  Wjunction, TX  09/02/05 10:26 
> Est Interch Iowjct, LA  09/02/05 11:08 
>
> Ghost of train #2(31) headed EB through Houston
> now.
>

During disruption it is common for UP Trace to continue show the original scheduled destination for estimated interchange. When the Starlight was cut back to Bay Area - Seattle due to the storm damage in California a few months back, the southbound usually continued to show an estimated arrival in Los Angeles despite it not running south of the Bay Area. Yes it is a ghost in the UP database.

Geoff

The following Horizon cars departed Los Angeles Friday Sept 2, for the Evac train.

54503-54500-53501-54568-54533-54515


The follow cars arrive tonight from Seattle,that filled in Seattle/Vancouver BC for a couple of days.

54565-54507-54532-58104.

Being Labor Day weekend, expect some standees on Surfliners.

The train will run from Avondale LA to Lafayette LA on the BNSF Railway could be as many as 3 trips a day untill the people are out of the city.This service starts today.

PennEngineer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> But why build 2 CTA tracks when you can carve 12
> lanes plus medians, shoulders, and ramps out of an
> established city? ;-)
>
> "Eight lanes of shimmering cement running from
> here to Pasadena. Smooth, safe, fast. Traffic jams
> will be a thing of the past. [...] I see a place
> where people get on and off the freeway. On and
> off, off and on all day, all night. Soon, where
> Toon Town once stood will be a string of gas
> stations, inexpensive motels, restaurants that
> serve rapidly prepared food. Tire salons,
> automobile dealerships and wonderful, wonderful
> billboards reaching as far as the eye can see. My
> God, it'll be beautiful."

The way Christpher Lloyd said it on "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" was so true back then when the inerstate system was in the making, and it sucks the part "Traffic Jams would be a thing of the past" sure didn't last long!

You can hear all the action on the BNSF Lafayette Sub Radio feed i have on Rairoad Radio here is the link.

http://www.railroadradio.net/index.php