Passenger Trains > Amtrak Endpoint On-Time Statistics, April 2004

Amtrak Endpoint On-Time Statistics, April 2004

SERVICE_____Operated___Late__%On Time___Goal

Acela Express____674____186___72.4%_____94.0%
Auto Train________60_____46___23.3%_____70.0%
Cal Zephyr________60_____35___41.6%_____70.0%
Capitol Ltd_______60_____37___38.3%_____70.0%
Capitols_________672_____47___93.1%_____85.0%
Cardinal__________26_____15___42.3%_____70.0%
Carolinian________60_____53___11.6%_____85.0%
Cascades_________328____149___54.5%_____85.0%
City of NO________60_____17___71.6%_____70.0%
Clocker/Keyst____626____196___68.6%_____90.0%
Cst Starlight_____60_____45___25.0%_____70.0%
Crescent__________60_____20___66.6%_____70.0%
Downeaster_______240_____13___94.5%_____85.0%
Empire Svc_______696____174___75.0%_____85.0%
Empire Builder___120_____22___81.6%_____70.0%
Heartland Flyer___59_____16___72.8%_____85.0%
Hiawatha_________422_____25___94.0%_____85.0%
Hoosier State_____33_____13___60.6%_____85.0%
Illinois/MO______300____133___55.6%_____85.0%
Lake Shore Ltd___120_____54___55.0%_____70.0%
Metroliner_______242_____90___62.8%_____94.0%
Michigan_________298____109___63.4%_____85.0%
Pac Surfliner____692_____80___88.4%_____85.0%
Pennsylvanian_____60_____31___48.3%_____85.0%
Piedmont__________60_____12___80.0%_____85.0%
Regional________1627____444___72.7%_____90.0%
San Joaquins_____360____111___69.2%_____85.0%
Silver Svc_______166____131___21.0%_____70.0%
SW Chief__________60_____19___70.0%_____70.0%
Sunset Ltd________25_____25____0.0%_____70.0%
Texas Eagle_______60_____28___53.3%_____70.0%
Three Rivers______60_____28___53.3%_____70.0%
ALL_____________8427___2390___71.6%_____85.0%

(Hopefully easier to read in this format, though Trainorders messes up the columnar alignment anyway)

In first place is the Downeaster, edging out the Hiawathas. The Capitol Corridor did very well due to recent line improvements, and perhaps helped along by some rather acid comments about the operating railroad by the media-savvy Capitol Corridor manager.

Acela Express continues to lag far below the goal set by the company but at least it approaches the performance of its lower-priority Corridor companions, the Regionals.

Last place again, is held by the Sunset Limited. Second worst is again the Carolinian, whose April performance slid slightly compared to that in March.

The City of New Orleans's performance dipped sharply, mostly due to delays associated with its derailment north of Jackson, MS and associated line closures and delays; but it's been coming back nicely in late April, into early March. The Texas Eagle continues to slide downward from its 90+% performance early in 2004, like the Sunset a victim of UP's continuing service meltdown in the Southwest.

What's the average amount of minutes/hours late for the Sunset, if you know?

The 21% on time for the Silver Service sounds too high, based on the last few weeks, but some of the measured period may pre-date the combination.

NE933 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What's the average amount of minutes/hours late
> for the Sunset, if you know?
****************************************
Back in November when I did the daily performance stats, the Sunset did much better, it was On Time twice!

Here is an excerpt:
Train...Rpt....Days...OnTime.....Avg...........Max.
No.....Days....Late ......Pct..........Late..........Late
1.........13...... 11....... 15%........3h 47m....13h 36m
2........ 12...... 12......... 0%........5h 52m....12h 55m

Well, Mr. Poon's report validates what I have been writing about for a month & the problems with the Silver Service.

Will this bring about any new actions to correct the problems with the Silver Service ? Absolutely not. Amtrak is not concerned in running Florida trains on time or nearly on time. CSX could care less about these. They are not the SCL -- even though that's a predecessor railroad, they are not passenger rail sensitive as the SCL, ACL or SAL were.

It's comes down to one phrase at Amtrak: "Nobody care, nobody bothers".

Next time Amtrak goes before Congress for subsidy these reports should be in the hands of Congress and demand results not excuses, pie in the sky talk from the railroad.

The Sunset Limited was on time 0% of the time. Gee, what a surprise...

>>Sunset Ltd________25_____25____0.0%_____70.0%

Sal Garcia
Pico Rivera, California

Of course, let's all pick on the Sunset Limited. How typical. Try considering that maybe if they had more than 25 total departures/month that a few might actually be on time. The Sunset is just a boiled down example of many other Amtrak LD routes.

Look at the ole' Starlate with 60 departures and you'll see that 45 of those were late, more than the total number of Sunset trains run.

Same is true with the Carolininian with 53/60 late trains. Yet because a mere 7 of those were on time it doesn't get picked on like the Sunset.

The California Zephyr had 35 late trains out of their 60 and the Capitol Ltd 37 out of 60. Even the Texas Eagle and Three Rivers ran 28 (nearly half) of their trains late.

All of these routes I mentioned ran more late trains than the entire 25 run by the Sunset. Break it down and you'll see none of these stats are very impressive. It's time to give the Sunset a break unless you can pull a trick out of your hat to fix it.

jccollins Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Try considering that maybe if they
> had more than 25 total departures/month that a few
> might actually be on time. The Sunset is just a
> boiled down example of many other Amtrak LD
> routes.
>*******************************
Let's see 0% of the Sunsets arrived within 30 minutes of schedule.
So applying that trend to a daily train (taxing UP and CSX track capacity even more)
would give us 0 times 60.
Or as my West Virginia relatives say "Twice Nothing is Still Nothing"

jccollins Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Of course, let's all pick on the Sunset Limited.
> How typical.

> ---It's time to give the Sunset
> a break unless you can pull a trick out of your
> hat to fix it.

======================================

Oh, you mean to NOT NOTICE the fact that it didn't reach its terminus on time once, all that month?

Or the month before, either, as I remember?

Frank H

jccollins Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It's time to give the Sunset
> a break unless you can pull a trick out of your
> hat to fix it.
===================================

Someone thought they might have had such a trick.

At least between El Paso and Los Angeles, run the Sunset right behind UP's hottest train, the UPS Transcon.

Of course, to do that now would require three or four Greyhound buses on the highway, since Omaha gave up trying to run that train and put the UPS payloads on trucks.

-GP

FrankHatfield Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Oh, you mean to NOT NOTICE the fact that it didn't
> reach its terminus on time once, all that month?
>
> Or the month before, either, as I remember?
>
> Frank H
****************************************
0 in April and March
1 in February
6 in January.
But those numbers do not differentiate between westbound oe eastbound.

What might be interesting is times at New Orleans.

Well the Sunset capacity thing still ain't gonna let up anytime soon, but I'm sorry, this claim that too much traffic on that route can't justify their claim on running 1 and 2 on time. UP just doesn't care, ever wonder why Gene put that one comment in on the Capitol Maneager talking bad about UP dispatching on those trains up there? Go figure! And for the perfomance on the Silver Trains? DAve V, CSX sure is doing something to correct that ASAP compared to UP. I'm sorry, those claims that the Florida trains are getting too old! Besides, with the traffic they got an all those passenger trains, something's got to give, I've seen it 10 years ago when I was based at Mayport railfanning in JAX, so quit complaining and have faith for once. I'm still surprised 49 and 48 are improving!

Thanks, Gene. This report never fails to stir discussion. I appreciate your posting it.


Pete

Thanks for the kind words. It gets a little dicey each month trying to pry these numbers loose, but if I can get 'em, I'll share 'em.

...and then there was the comment on another discussion group that gets these stats. Disappointed because they don't show HOW late the trains are, a member said,

> You are getting very close to the adage of "figures can be misleading" here.

Despite the tone of that comment, that WOULD be useful information. In fact, wasn't one of the conditions of the 2002 loan to Amtrak, that late-train statistics would be calculated and submitted to the DOT? My opinion is that this should be made publicly available, just as Amtrak has finally made available its financial performance, via its Web site.

Gene,

Is it possible to break down the stats on the Cascades Service? That number seems way to low...I could understand that for the Eugene/Portland Service.. Sea-Por and Sea-Vbc have been doing very well.. besides the girl that got hit not to long ago...

I can't remember, but: Just what is considered an on time arrival at the entpoint for a long distance train? It seems there used to be a formula based upon the total distance that the train had to travel, end to end. I know that it used to be that if a commuter train was up to five minutes late, it was considered to have arrived on time.

So the CZ is showing some improvement!

I live in the middle of the old D&RGW part of the CZ's route, and can hear the UP dispatcher (DS80) usually from Dotesero to Debeque, unless s/he switches radios. Most of them do their best to move the trains, even with sidings frequently plugged with parked coal trains, especially if they are anywhere near on time, and a couple get downright peeved if somebody delays one unnecessarily. Of course most of these folks are old SP Denver people, and a couple I think date from the Rio Grande.....

lowwater

Amtrak's criteria:

Trains with a end-point trip length of less than 300 miles are held to a 10 minute tolerance. Trip lengths 300 miles or longer (which includes most Acela trips) are held to a 30 minute tolerance. Up to the tolerance is "on time".

Macster Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Is it possible to break down the stats on the
> Cascades Service? That number seems way to low...I
> could understand that for the Eugene/Portland
> Service.. Sea-Por and Sea-Vbc have been doing very
> well.. besides the girl that got hit not to long
> ago...

=====================

The source I get to see, lumps all the trains in a given "product line" together. So I can't separate the north and south segments of the Cascades. Used to get separate reports for Sunset West and Sunset East, but no more.

The many UP congestion problems at Eugene certainly affect the overall Cascades performance, adversely.

Darn well that sucks

Yeah, 95% of the time I do see the Talgo from PDX ontime, though there are some times it has been late, I was quite surprised nevertheless to see that low of a number. =/