Passenger Trains > Empire Builder held at Minot?

Since the Temporary Schedule went into effect, on several nights #8 has sat in Minot for 2 hours or more and departed late when it could have been on time and taken advantage of the slack put in the schedule for just that purpose. On each of those nights, #7 arrived just over 8 hours before #8 left. Does this mean the train is being held for crew rest? If so, Amtrak and BNSF are squandering half of the padding they just put into the Eastbound schedule because they were too cheap or disorganized to put a relief crew in Minot for 6 weeks.

This is just observation and speculation. Does anyone out there know the facts? What a wasted effort the "temporary" padding is if this is true.

If it is a crew issue, it's an Amtrak problem, not BNSF.

The Empire Builder is not crewed by BNSF personnel. For its part, BNSF would prefer to have
the Amtrak train on time and in its operating slot, not screwing with an operating plan by
randomly operating off schedule.

Your second paragraph states exactly why a late Train is also a BNSF problem if not responsibility. It's hard to believe that they would have negotiated a temporary change without making sure both parties were prepared to operate it.

Again, this is all speculation. Does anybody know factually if crew rest is the issue in the excessive dwell time at Minot?

if you check 7's performance I think you can answer the question yourself, as it's crew turns at Minot

The_Chief_Way Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> if you check 7's performance I think you can
> answer the question yourself, as it's crew turns
> at Minot

Then THAT goes back to a central issue I raised when the EB was on its original schedule - that is, were crew bases adequately staffed for rested crews, as both #7 and #8 were being held at Minot, for what was suspected to be needed crew rest. If that's the case then this 3 hour padding to the schedule was NOT the real answer.