Passenger Trains > Letter from Amtrak to Union Pacific

August 4, 2006

Mr. Dennis Duffy
Executive Vice President, Operations
Union Pacific Railroad Company
1400 Douglas Street
Omaha, NE 68179

Dear Mr. Duffy:

I am writing to seek your immediate assistance in correcting the
chronic unacceptable performance of Amtrak trains operating on the
Union Pacific Railroad, particularly Amtrak's long-distance trains.

It's sobering to look at how bad long-distance Amtrak train
performance on UP has become. In July, 97% of the 211 long-distance
trains operated primarily on UP arrived late (see Attachment 1). Even
more amazing is the degree of lateness: 84% of long-distance trains
arrived more than 2 hours late, 74% more than 3 hours late, and 66%
more than 4 hours late.

To further put this into perspective, over 67,000 Amtrak passengers
traveled on UP long-distance trains that were over 4 hours late...in
the month of July alone! The resulting damage to Amtrak's brand,
reputation, and repeat business is immense.

The vast majority of delays are from causes attributable to
UP--nearly 90% of all delays incurred by Amtrak trains operating on
UP in July. As high as these UP-responsible delays are, they continue
to increase (see Attachment 2).

Amtrak has tried to work with UP to improve this situation. Our
cooperation has ranged from adding over three hours of scheduled
recovery time and changing the scheduled slot of the Sunset Limited,
to repeatedly rerouting the California Zephyr away from the
ridership-producing Rocky Mountain scenery for weeks at a time each
summer to assist with UP trackwork, to modifying the schedule of the
Coast Starlight last month on extremely short notice to support UP
trackwork in Oregon.

In return, overall long distance train performance has continued to
worsen. UP's encroachment on Amtrak's contractual and statutory
rights reached a point this Spring where Amtrak had to initiate a
contract arbitration over our right to operate, in which Amtrak
prevailed by a unanimous 3-0 vote of the arbitrators.

A primary root cause of this unacceptable performance is UP's chronic
violation of the slow order limits in our UP-Amtrak operating
agreement. Each of the four Amtrak long distance routes operating on
UP is in violation of these clear contractual obligations.

UP is making investments in some of these slow order areas, and
Amtrak appreciates that step in the right direction. However, these
investments cover only a portion of the route-miles where slow orders
exceed contractual limits, and have not been enough to bring slow
orders into compliance with the operating agreement.

Clearly, we cannot continue like this. Tom Schmidt has requested a
meeting with Joe Santamaria. I trust that Mr. Santamaria will be
prepared to discuss with Tom a program for immediate corrective
action, to be taken while simultaneously working to correct the
chronic slow order contractual violations on all Amtrak routes where
they exist.

The responsibility for operating Amtrak trains with minimal delay
over UP rail lines is clear in both federal law and in UP's operating
agreement with Amtrak. The magnitude of Amtrak's performance problems
on UP has begun to attract significant public attention. If our two
companies cannot improve Amtrak performance on UP, it is an
invitation for government to solve our performance problems for us,
an outcome neither of us wants to see happen.


Sincerely,

William L. Crosbie
Sr. Vice President, Operations
Amtrak



(NOTE: I do not have the Attachments referred to in the letter. -GP)

I hope you'll be able to post Duffy's response.

<snip>
> A primary root cause of this unacceptable
> performance is UP's chronic
> violation of the slow order limits in our
> UP-Amtrak operating
> agreement. Each of the four Amtrak long distance
> routes operating on
> UP is in violation of these clear contractual
> obligations.
<snip>

I find it interesting that this was a cause labeled as 'primary,' and that it was singled out in the letter. Poor dispatching decisions and network congestion weigh heavily, perhaps more so than speed restrictions when it comes to the Sunset. Heck, the UP itself stated the Sunset Route is good for about 50 trains daily, although they've been averaging about 60 daily.

Its a plain old business discussion until you start throwing the term "statutory access" around.

Crashela.
Ready for another temporary solution.

I like the last paragraph.

As a young program manager, I was given this advice by an experienced one:

"If you want to turn a problem into a disaster, get the divisional management involved. If you want to turn it into a catastrophe, get the corporate management involved."

Ray

Hmm, are we heading to another show down in court when Amtrak sued the SP over the delays on the Sunset Limited? That would be entertaining in this day and age, because surely every excuse possible will surely be thrown into the pot to defend their cause, both the UP and Amtrak.

I saw a copy of a copy of Attachment 1 to that letter. The City of New Orleans has the best OT performance of all AMTRAK long distance trains? 80% OT with NO passenger over 4 hours late? (I don't even know what railroad the City of NO runs on) The Empire Builder was next with the Southwest Chief third.

Coast Starlight 1.7% OT with 30,000+ (couldn't read copy but over that) passengers more than 4 hours late.

Attachment 2 shows minutes of delay (UP Responsible) in FY05 as double FY01.

(If, if, if, it were possible to see such data I would bet that the UP has had the same decline over the past five years in OT delivery to their freight customers.)

jb

jdb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I saw a copy of a copy of Attachment 1 to that
> letter. The City of New Orleans has the best OT
> performance of all AMTRAK long distance trains?
> 80% OT with NO passenger over 4 hours late? (I
> don't even know what railroad the City of NO runs
> on) The Empire Builder was next with the
> Southwest Chief third.

City of NO runs on the CN (former Illinois Central). The other two top performers, as you probably know, run on BNSF.

I'd love to see that Attachment 1, which I presume shows the OT performance of all long-distance routes.

toledopatch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> I'd love to see that Attachment 1, which I presume
> shows the OT performance of all long-distance
> routes.

It only had the best:

CofNO, Empire Builder, SW Chief

And the worst:

CZ, Coast Starlight, Sunset Limited, and Eagle

jb

> And the worst:
>
> CZ, Coast Starlight, Sunset Limited, and Eagle
>
Just had a thought that the UP hosts the three times a week trains, and does not get the other four days to "up" the average, On the other hand the train only runs three times a week it should have a better average then the daily trains.

We all know what UP must do to get their Amtrak performance levels out of the toilet. But what can Amtrak, itself, do to help the cause (besides getting the trains out on time)?

It's probably time to put this letter in all the major newspapers...


AM

They might as well be writing to Santa Claus. I don't think this will make anything change.

If you have to get somewhere, you'd better drive these days. Trains are late and flying is for the birds.

—
Sam Reeves Photography
Pacific Grove, California
Website http://www.samreevesphoto.com

Ray_Murphy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I like the last paragraph.
>
> As a young program manager, I was given this
> advice by an experienced one:
>
> "If you want to turn a problem into a disaster,
> get the divisional management involved. If you
> want to turn it into a catastrophe, get the
> corporate management involved."
>
> Ray

"I'm from headquarters and I'm here to help you."
C.

Carol Voss
Bakersfield, CA

Actually, Guilford is way up there with the Downeaster. Of course, Guilford doesn't run many trains, either!

bradleymckay Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> We all know what UP must do to get their Amtrak
> performance levels out of the toilet. But what
> can Amtrak, itself, do to help the cause (besides
> getting the trains out on time)?
>
> It's probably time to put this letter in all the
> major newspapers...
>
>
> AM


Out on time? 2 left on time Friday out of La and lost over 2 hours enroute for crying out loud! UP used to say they need to leave on time, no problem when things go well, their lousy dispatching needs an overhaul, mainly in managment, I bet they leave the DS alone, things would run that much smoother, and Scar needs to go! She knows how to screw up a railroad!

The "teeth" in Crosbie's letter is federal legislation which he is not going to get. UP's lobby position with the Republican "ruling party" in this country is just too strong. Therefore, the letter is an embarrassing waste of time.

Further, UP could only be accused of intentionally witholding performance from Amtrak if they were actually providing it for their own hi-priority trains. As it is, UP is moving Amtrak as well or even better than their own Z-class freights.

Bob

I've never known a memo to move a mountain. Particularly one crafted by a corporate scribe, massaged by lawyers and approved by committee. I wonder if Crosbie read the memo and I also wonder if Crosbie has a telephone on his desk and knows Duffy's phone number at the UP.

I took a little trip on Amtrak last month.

CIN to CHI on the Cardinal - train 51, mostly on CSX and then just about everything else once we get near Chi. About 15 minutes late leaving CIN and only about 10 minutes late into CHI. Had about 30 min delay when a contractor failed to post a flagman while they were working overhead on a bridge. Engineer got off the train, walked ahead to find the the foreman. Engineer reported this to dispatcher. Arrived at CHI earlier than they usually do. Conductor called this "ON TIME!"

CHI to NOL on City of New Orleans - train 59. On CN except for terminals at each end. Had mechanical problem at CHI. Left station over an hour late. By the time we got turned (backed out of station) we were about 90 minutes late. Arrived in NOL 20 minutes early. This train runs early just about every day.

CHI to LAX on Sunset Limited - train 1. BNSF through most of Louisiana and then UP. Train ran pretty close to schedule most of the time... maybe 20 minutes late here but made it up along the way. We lost a lot of time between Houston and San Antonio but the 2hr 40min scheduled stop at SAS was reduced to about 30 or 40 minutes. We departed the station on time, went a couple hundred yards and waited for 10 to 15 minutes to proceed further. Continued fairly close to schedule... gradually loosing a few minutes here and there. Got stopped for 2 hours east of Colton (I think that's the name) due to a derailment at the east end of the yard. Finally moved to the yard and sat there another 2 hours. Engineer could not get the dispatcher to answer on the radio. Conductor tried calling dispatchers phone, no answer. Arrived 4 hrs late at L.A. In the previous 6 weeks it had been on time 1 time, or if you consider 1 hour late to be on time, it was only on time 3 times.

LAX to EMY on the Coast Starlight - train 14. Departed about 10 minutes late. Ran pretty good schedule, loosing a few minutes here and there. Arrived at EMY about an hour late.

EMY to SEA the next day on Coast Starlate. Train left Jack London about 90 minutes late but was held before reaching EMY due to HAZMAT spill between stations. Train arrived at EMY about 2.5hrs late (BTW, train 5 was just arriving at same time, about 7 - 8 hours late). Stayed about 3 to 4 hours late the rest of the trip, arriving at SEA about 4.5hrs late. It would have (maybe I should say "could have") been a pretty close to on time if the train had been on time arriving at EMY. Much better than some previous runs.

SEA to CHI on the Empire Builder - train 8. Due to mechanical troubles, departed SEA 9 hours late. Every time we made up some time, we lost it somewhere else. Arrived at CHI 10 hours late. Not really bad considering how far this train was from it's normal time slot. When we departed SEA, the Coast Starlate had not arrived and that was nearly 6 hours after the scheduled time.

CHI to CIN, took the gray dog. Don't want to do that again.

Overall, just about all of my rides were early or earlier than normal (except for train 8.) You can see where the delays were. I rode BNSF, CSX, CN, and UP. I was expecting a real nightmare on 1 and 14 but they weren't TOO bad. It's a shame they can run at least this good (I know, it's not all that good) all the time.


John

(Edit: Corrected train number. Original post had Zephyr as train 7. Should have said train 5. But you guys are smart enough to know what I meant.

lurchdel Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've never known a memo to move a mountain.
> Particularly one crafted by a corporate scribe,
> massaged by lawyers and approved by committee. I
> wonder if Crosbie read the memo and I also wonder
> if Crosbie has a telephone on his desk and knows
> Duffy's phone number at the UP.

No joke. More corporate propaganda, "we're doing something about this problem, we're writing memos."

Probably to make the railfans and some employees feel better that Amtrak is trying. Most Amtrak employees are well adjusted to these farce memos and statements about how "its going to get better."

It will get better here in a couple months, when the peak shipping season for Christmas is over. Amtrak management can play like they did something about the problem. That is, until about March when the cycle starts again.

Crashela
Still looking for the newest temporary fix.

Letter was good up until the last paragraph. Given who is in power in Washington that government involvment the letter speaks of might just as well be further dismantlement of Amtrak. UP won't shed any tears over that sort of involvement.

wa4umr Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>Arrived at CHI 10 hours late. Not really bad considering how far this train was from it's normal >time slot.

I'll never forget the "What slot?" quote from Big Dick Davidson.........

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