Passenger Trains > UP Unit Led #5 into Emeryville Yesterday

Anyone know why a UP unit had to be added onto yesterday's Amtrak #5 into Emeryville? I didn't get to see it but it was reported on Headsupnorcal. The train was estimated into Martinez about 1845 hours, 3 hours 40 min late. Was it a unit failure or did the train manage to hit something disabling a unit?

Unit was on the train out of Reno, unknown where it was added.

Gary

Posted from iPhone

The Engine #1 "crapped" out west of Mc Cook, Nebraska.  Luckily UP was able to get a unit quickly at North Yard (Denver) and add it to the train.  The train was able to make it to Denver with only one unit.

TopCat

I dunno the details on loco leasing, but we picked up UP6608 on Sunday at Roseville and cut it out on Monday night at Denver. Do the Class I railroads sometimes insist that the unit be returned to the location it was lent out from? Or these events may have nothing to do with one another. Here is our UP leader along the Colorado River on Monday afternoon:
Edited to Add: Per TopCat, events unrelated. 
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/28/15 13:03 by ColdRainAndSnow.

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Most often the cost of returning the unit must be covered if it is not actually returned.  Depending on circumstances, returning it to a station served by the same power district may suffice.  

Another correction: those freight units are not "lent". There is a lease fee involved.  The price of the freight unit must be considered when one tallies up the cost of an Amtrak engine failure.  Amtrak does not get to use the engine for free.

Thanks for the insight. Having mentioned leasing in the opening, I implied it thereafter. These rescues must be expensive for Amtrak. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/28/15 13:38 by ColdRainAndSnow.

i would sure be interested to hear what the total cost for leasing freight locomotives has been for amtrak in the last 5 years.......

66

#5 add the unit directly at north yard, they have been doing that, i havn't seen it personally

Evidently nobody tabulates the per diem and mileage charges, fuel,  or cares one way or the other about the freight locomotive cost.  It just goes back into the "overhead" that is charged back to the line, and eventually to the states.
Rescue locomotives and host railroad crews cost money.  Not to speak of the duplicated costs of Xtra crews from the Amtrak crew base, if there are any.  Then there are shuttles to get the crews to and from where they are needed. Hotel rooms. Fuel and fuel delivery costs, particularly at non-scheduled emergency fueling stops.
If there are staffed stations involved, it disrupts the agent's schedules, often requiring relief workers to come in on their off days.  There is no end to the additional costs.

If the customers matter, well, they have to be cared for during the delays and disruptions, often involving additional food and beverage, busses for long delays, sometimes hotel rooms when connections are missed, and of course unsold seats and rooms on connecting trains when their passengers are detained somewhere else.  How many "never agains" when the power goes out, toilets overflow, important meetings and family events are missed, sometimes negating the whole purpose of the trip. Refunds and reparations?

If the host railroad matters, dispatchers have to tear what is little of their hair out, with main lines blocked, trains stacking up, and freight crews going dead.  Host railroads have an expectation that passenger trains will show up on the territory when they are supposed to, and it costs them time and money when Amtrak languishes hours late.

Not to say that such problems are all Amtrak's fault, as certainly the weather, freight train congestion, accidents, and other snafus are not all controllable.  But known bad locomotives should not be sent out on the road hundreds or thousands of miles from the nearest shop.  And it certainly costs the maintenance budget to stop all schedule repairs and programs in order to handle an emergency situation with a sick locomotive or car.  The hidden costs of all this...priceless!

Good luck trying to get any information from the corporate headquarters.  They have a total embargo on facts, and the public will never know.  Congress is too busy dealing with its own problems.  Once and a while you will get info about a hearing or an investigation regarding flowers in the dining car, or the cost of a hamburger in the dining car, but even then it is mostly griping, with nothing done to fix anything.  The funds paid to the host railtoads out west are secret, a matter of national security.  And likewise, what Amtrak pays itself to cover its own northeast corridor and corporate overhead expenses, are never disclosed or itemized.

But, as with millions of hours of lost productivity from people stuck in traffic, or stranded at the airport, chaos in the transportation system in the United States is an accepted way of life.  And don't even think about a cruise ship unless you are prepared to deal with missed connections when there is an engine fire, a grounding in some foreign port, or, horrors, an outbrreak of virus on board.  Maybe we should just deal with things as they are, and get a horse.

 



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/28/15 14:43 by NewRiverGeorge.

ColdRainAndSnow Wrote:
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> I dunno the details on loco leasing, but we picked
> up UP6608 on Sunday at Roseville and cut it out on
> Monday night at Denver. Do the Class I railroads
> sometimes insist that the unit be returned to the
> location it was lent out from? Or these events may
> have nothing to do with one another. Here is our
> UP leader along the Colorado River on Monday
> afternoon:
> Edited to Add: Per TopCat, events unrelated. 
>  

On Nov 20th, #5 was also led by a UP unit into Emeryville. Different unit than the 6608, but I wonder if this was a related power move to get a unit back to Denver.

Gary

Posted from iPhone

SN711 Wrote:
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> On Nov 20th, #5 was also led by a UP unit into
> Emeryville. Different unit than the 6608, but I
> wonder if this was a related power move to get a
> unit back to Denver.

Yikes, that's a lot of UP help lately. We picked up 6608 after trailing AMTK 816 wasn't loading due to a 4XX-D fault that the crew tried to resolve. CNOC instructions didn't work either, so they arranged an RSV pickup while we were parked in Sacramento. It was handled very well by the T&E crew, and in the time it took to eat lunch, we were back underway with 816 just providing HEP for the rest of the trip. 

^^ Adding a locomotive to a consist is not very hard....and I would hope an Amtrak crew would be able to do this simple task with a decent level of efficiency.

Lol

Posted from Android

DG .
Unknown, US

trkspd Wrote:
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> ^^ Adding a locomotive to a consist is not very
> hard....and I would hope an Amtrak crew would be
> able to do this simple task with a decent level of
> efficiency.

Hmm, I wasn't referring to to the mere act of adding the locomotive. Rather the whole incident in which troubleshooting, CNOC back-and-forth, securing the locomotive, picking it up, and getting back on the move took no more than an hour. Conversations around the Dining Car were mostly focused on appreciation for the swift response. 

Trackspeed -- Don't be lame. 

ColdRainAndSnow I won't if you won't.

Posted from Android

DG .
Unknown, US

trkspd Wrote:
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> I won't if you won't.

There's nothing lame from my end, TurkeySpeed. Just appreciation for some nice teamwork the other day up in NorCal. Don't you have anywhere else to import your misery today? 

If my new username is TurkeySpeed...then you can go stuff yourself bud.

Posted from Android

DG .
Unknown, US