Passenger Trains > Minot marooned, except for Amtrak

8/28 just arrived at Minot, North Dakota a few minutes behind schedule. All roads out of Minot are closed by snowstorm and all commercial flights since 5 am this last morning have been cancelled due to weather. Aah, the Empire Builder is again in it's glory!

Is this joke Snow in October?

Actually, Weatherbug is reporting a major fall snowstorm in the northwest. Upwards of 18 inches of snow in areas of North Dakota, blizzard conditions, major roads closed. Ah, but the trains get through.

No joke, unfortunately. Montana always has a nasty Halloween storm and this is it for eastern Montana and the Dakotas. Miles City got something like three feet of snow last night. [NOTE - that number came from a MC resident via phone. Local news sources are saying up to a foot.] Trees and power lines are down all over the south half of eastern Montana. Travel and communications are both messed up. And tomorrow it's supposed to be 70°. Hmm... I wonder if the Yellowstone will flood.
Dano
Helena, Montana

railcity Wrote:
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> Is this joke Snow in October?

Weather Channel is your friend. :)))

Seriously, there's a nasty cold front that passed through there. Within a span of 150-200 miles, you could go from tropical 92 to winter-like 37.......all on relatively flat land.....

Looks like the blizzard (as certified by NOAA) has slowed the eastbound "Builder a bit- they were 5 hours late getting into Fargo but still moving. Looks like there was at least a couple hours delay getting out of Minot- perhaps the taxi got stuck bringing the crew back from the motel? NoDak DOT now reports escape from Minot by road now (barely) possible, but only to the North...

The train got so late, the crew's hours ran out short of their crew change point at Minot. There was no way in the blizzard to safely get a recrew to the train, so BNSF ordered an Hours of Service violation. Crew worked about 20 min. past the 12 hours.

GenePoon Wrote:
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> The train got so late, the crew's hours ran out
> short of their crew change point at Minot. There
> was no way in the blizzard to safely get a recrew
> to the train, so BNSF ordered an Hours of Service
> violation. Crew worked about 20 min. past the 12
> hours.
>

Question, would this fall under some sort of adverse conditions rule whereby an actuall violation and resulting fine would not be recorded by the FRA? I would hope so!

jst3751 Wrote:
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> GenePoon Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > The train got so late, the crew's hours ran
> out
> > short of their crew change point at Minot.
> There
> > was no way in the blizzard to safely get a
> recrew
> > to the train, so BNSF ordered an Hours of
> Service
> > violation. Crew worked about 20 min. past the
> 12
> > hours.
> >
>
> Question, would this fall under some sort of
> adverse conditions rule whereby an actuall
> violation and resulting fine would not be recorded
> by the FRA? I would hope so!


That sounds resonable, depending on the condition and location. Plus, if the crew REALLY NEEDED to get to that terminal and it was only 20 minutes away - and IF this was approved by EVERYONE involved in such matters with the Hours Of Service Law, then perhaps it's better that it was done this way. It may also have been a safety issue: "get-the-train-to-the-next-terminal-for-passenger-and-crew-SAFETY" type of thing and/or issue(s). There may be other reasons this was done; I would imagine the FRA may have been consulted, and perhaps - PERHAPS - they approved this one, particular ['violation']. Perhaps other RR industry employees can offer comments on the issue being discussed here: regarding railroad operations like this during extreme weather conditions...?

Visiting in Bismarck from So.Cal. Seen this weather first hand. Just reopend I 94. Was closed from Mandan to Mont. state line. US83 still closed from north of Bismarck to Minot.

GenePoon wrote:
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> BNSF ordered an Hours of Service violation.

I would have like to have heard how the dispatcher radios that
out to the crew.

I'm more familiar with HOS rules for commercial vehicle drivers than rail crews... commercial driver s are allowed to exceed HOS limits to reach a point where their vehicle can be safely parked.

GearHeadGrrrl Wrote:
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> I'm more familiar with HOS rules for commercial
> vehicle drivers than rail crews... commercial
> driver s are allowed to exceed HOS limits to reach
> a point where their vehicle can be safely parked.

Only if a unexpected delay occured.

Agreed, I like how UP handled 11 and 14 last winter when they had a dead feight tied down and with 11 and 14s crews going on short time, UP just put their crews on to keep those trains moving. There's something about a passenger train in a nasty snowstorm that has everyone on the railroad pulling every trick in the book to keep it moving!

I wish I could agree with my CA Zephyr westbound trip this past year - around New Year's. We were 15 hours late arriving into Emeryville. We were on schedule until leaving Salt Lake City. Then we hit one disaster after the next - crews running dead etc. If Amtrak had adequately re-crewed the train timely between Salt Lake city and Reno, we would have avoided the overnight blizzard in the Sierra Nevada mountains - which caused most of the delay. Eventually we had an extra night on the train and then had a UP snow plow leading us over the Sierra Nevada mountains from Truckee west to some point. I woke up when we reached Sacramento the next morning around 6:30 a.m. It was raining and snowing on the other side of the mountain range.

Like the Empire Builder experinece, I think some sort of special order got us through the night b/c the crew that came on in Reno must have went dead some where as we were in the Sierras, but all roads were closed, so there was no re-crewing the train. Course I was asleep when all this transpired - and sleeping car attendant disappeared for the evening so I made the bed up myself!

Decided to fly home after that disaster, rather than taking the train and frankly, have I have limited my long distance train trips on Amtrak this year as a result of this CA Zephyr trip and some other nightmarish long distance train trips earlier this year (i.e. Coast Starlight, Southwest Chief). I did get some faith restored recently in Amtrak with two Cresecent trips and a trip to Chicago on the Capitol Limited.

As for Acela Express - you won't see me in First Class with the downgrades of service. I always have considered Amtrak one step above VIA Rail, but even VIA offers better service on its "First Class" corridor service - VIA 1 Class. Lately I've been going "North" for my vacations if I want to have a train trip involved.

I would like to try out the re-launched Empire Builder. But with my luck, that will be the day a sleeper or other car gets bad ordered!