Passenger Trains > #1 in July. Yikes!!!

I began tracking #1's arrivals into Los Angeles in May. That month it was just under 6 hours late but at least none were cancelled or terminated.

In June, #1’s arrivals worsened to 6 hours and 48 minutes late into Los Angeles with two terminations – both at Tucson (JUN17 and JUN22).

Could it get worse in July? But of course! #1 averaged a whopping 9 hours and 29 minutes late into LaLa land. Two were completely cancelled (JUN29 and JUL13) and two were terminated – at Tucson (JUL6) and the mother of all terminations was the #1 of JUL11, which was put out of its misery at El Paso after being 38hours late at that point. The equipment was almost 50 hours to L.A.

What's in store for August arrivals? Things have already started poorly with #1 of JUL29 scheduled to arrive on 8/1 terminated at Tucson.

Sal Garcia
Pico Rivera, California

Sal Wrote:

> What's in store for August arrivals? Things have
> already started poorly with #1 of JUL29 scheduled
> to arrive on 8/1 terminated at Tucson.

And on the other end, account lateness which was over 17 hours at Alpine and over 20 hours at Beaumont, Train 2 (30JUL) will terminate at New Orleans. The train started off over six hours late from LAX to begin with.

Train 1(03AUG) will originate at New Orleans.

Incidentally, reports say that police officers at LAUPT had to be called to handle unruly passengers waiting for a very-delayed departure of the Sunset Limited, at least once in the past week.

-GP





------------------------ Yahoo! Group

GenePoon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Incidentally, reports say that police officers at
> LAUPT had to be called to handle unruly passengers
> waiting for a very-delayed departure of the Sunset
> Limited, at least once in the past week.

Can you blame them??? The train should have been canceled, not sent out over 6 hours late!!! I would like to know what's going through the heads of the Amtrak management to make them think it is okay to send out a train from its initial station over 6 hours late. If they didn't want to cancel the train it should have been turned at Tucson (again) especially since an earlier post says that not many passengers were onboard #1 by that point. If you think it was bad at LAUPT, try imagining what the agents at all the smaller staffed stations are dealing with when Amtrak management makes these kinds of poor choices. What about the agent at Maricopa, Tucson, El Paso, or even San Antonio where the train left over 17 HOURS LATE. Completely ridiculous and unacceptable.

I have to agree. I will always be a strong supporter of Amtrak, but come on, if you get the train in late and can't get it turned in a good timely maner, cancel the thing and have a spare set sit there for the following run! Also UP needs to get their heads out of their butts. This traffic surge is killing them, but that in my book is still an excuse. There are times when they got things running smoothly that their dispatching still stinks when it comes to Amtrak!

#1 will be lucky if its performance in the coming month equals that of last month. I just got back from dealing with the passengers of the terminated No. 1 of August 1 (also worked the No. 1 of July 29). Evidently the dining car ran short of supplies on the last trip and there were problems handling the checked baggage between Tucson and LA. End results were that the passengers on the through buses to LA ended up waiting over an hour for their checked luggage, resulting in a lot of very unhappy people. Everyone in the know here knows that if you want to travel between here and LA or El Paso and points beyond, go Southwest or Greyhound. You'll have a much more enjoyable trip and actually have a good chance of arriving at your intended destination on time. The only person I'd wish No. 1 or 2 on would be my worst enemy.