Passenger Trains > Trouble getting out of Chicago on Friday (8/29)

So, it is not winter (the seasonal explanation)

but with too much time on my hands and seeing too much red on the Dixieland maps, I looked up things:

leaving Chicago on Friday were these LD delays:

59 1:22
5 1:08
7 0:57
48 1:28
30 1:39

I understand that a single train may be delayed at its starting point by reason of a mechanical failure, but this is a cluster not a single train.

I am not trying to start a "dump on Chicago" rant, but rather want to understand what might have caused such a day of late departures. Were there power outages? Storms? Switch failures?

I think they are holding trains for connections from 29 and 49

It's almost always one of these four things:

1. Late arrival of incoming equipment that needs to be serviced
2. Hold for connections
3. Wait for rested crew
4. Mechanical problem found during servicing/train makeup

There have been a lot of departure delays lately - perhaps we need an "LD Train Departures from Chicago today" post to complement John's "Arrivals" one.