Passenger Trains > What a Difference! (Business Cars on the Zephyr)

In my many years of engine service for SP I found out that the only time we could be assured that our Amtrak train (the Coast Starlight) would stay on schedule with probably not even a flashing yellow signal is when we had occupied SP business cars on the rear end. SP officials standing by at attention, a road foreman with us in the engine (more in the way than anything else!)...you would have thought that the President of the United States was riding back there. Without those business cars, your guess is as good as mine when we would get there, although in retrospect when compared to today's Starlate we did pretty well...we were usually within the hour of the advertised at the end of our run at San Luis Obispo (southbound) or Oakland (northbound). This was in the 1970's and 1980's you understand...before Amtrak hired their own operating crews. This is not to imply that the change in operating crews had anything to do with the train's increasing tardiness, just to put things in a time frame.

My just completed trip as a passenger from Emeryville to Reno and back on #6 and #5 (California Zephyr) proved that not much has changed. We left Emeryville on #6 right on time on Thursday 1/10 but encountered a freight train in front of us immediately, resulting in our train being about 25 minutes late in and out off Martinez, our first scheduled stop. Two long unscheduled stops between Roseville and Colfax increased the delay to a full two hours by the time we departed Colfax. The crew said those delays were due to to some single tracking in the area but I didn't see any opposing traffic go by us. Credit to our conductor for keeping us informed and properly putting the blame on the UP.

Then we stopped and waited another 1 hour and 20 minutes at MP 152 for the flanger to come towards us and supposedly clear the track and get in the clear. That was a bit strange even to the crew since as predicted there was just a negligible amount of new snow in the Sierras that day. We saw no falling snow at all during our entire trip from our coach window. The autos were whizzing by at 70-80 mph with no chain restrictions on Interstate 80 below us. From reading the other posts here it seems that UP is a bit overly cautious and sends out that flanger when there are just a few snow flakes falling nowadays. Either that or those dudes in Omaha aren't watching the Weather Channel. Whatever...more big time delay for #6. We arrived in Reno just shy of 3 hours late. If you count the padding in the schedule, you can figure 4+ hours lost between Emeryville and Reno. Oh well, better than the 8 or 9 hours late that we were on my Zephyr trip last winter.

Ah but what a difference a day makes! On Friday 1/11 #5 arrived at Reno (after coming all the way from Chicago) right on time with five (count 'em...five!) Union Pacific business cars on the rear end, one of them reportedly carrying a UP vice president. You better believe that we stayed on schedule coming home! No flangers out in front of us, no single tracking delay at all. It was clear signals and clear track all the way over the hill with not one unscheduled stop. We arrived in Sacramento 55 minutes early (thanks to the padding between Roseville and Sacramento). The stop at Sacramento seemed a bit long (the timetable permits the westbound Zephyr to depart ahead of schedule time at stops between Sacramento and Emeryville as the train does not pick up passengers on this segment) and there was one stop for a red signal between Davis and Martinez but otherwise it was clear sailing all the way with a roughly 45 minutes early arrival at Emeryville (again thanks to end of schedule padding).

I guess the point of all of this is that Union Pacific CAN run passenger trains as well of the best of them (just as SP could) IF they want to. It sure helps when you have those big shots riding back in the rear end though. Overall it was a good trip...just a better one, at least a more punctual one coming back!

I was pretty suprised too that you guys were so early into Emeryville. Sounds like you had a decent trip. Here's a photo of the train approaching Emeryville last night. My shot of the back of the train didn't turn out because the ditch lights were on on the rear inspection car. Looked like there was only one or two people riding the car into Emeryville.

Take Care,
Alex Ramos

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Hurray for your comments about the difference in
timekeeping when UP business cars are around.
Obviously management does not like to be delayed
so the proper attitude prevails: get the train through.
WHile railroads do have certain operational problems
and they must be acknowledged I have always thought
that management attitude does make a difference.
If there is an attitude of, "So what, it's just an Amtrak
train, let it be late" then Amtrak will always have problems.
I believe that there is a rather nonchalant attiutude
on the part of some railroads that let Amtrak use its
tracks and have been criticized on this forum at times
for even hinting at it. But your example of the business
cars and how they got through on time certainly
reinforces my view. I hope you can provide us with
more information in the future.

Now that I've recently retired and no longer need suffer or frett over the 'rules and rails' of Damaclese dangling above my head, I feel compelled to speak out on aspects as proffered by this thread.

Fact is that when nabobs ride, there is a perceived need to place management on trains. What is it they do that does not get done the other 364 days of the year? Answer... take up space. It is a slap in the face to us proffesionals who work every day and make decisions based on sound experience and knowledge. To suggest (covertly as it were) that on that one day we are not to be trusted to do a good job or not know what to do is ludicrus.

Yeah I know, they would counter with... no crews, when management was present, have ever gotten into trouble. With that logic in mind, the next conclusion they should arrive at is... Hey, if we place a manager on every train every day, we will never again have any mishaps.

I leave you on this note to digress or tangentalize to your heart's content ...or not.
TTFN,
JCW-RTD

Mr.Duffy's in town. Wait to you see the officer's special that is going to leave tommorrow. They all will be standing at attention.

Whatever. In any business folks try to look good when the brass is around. It is a fact of life. You can suggest that UP always does its level best to move Amtrak over its rails. But the proof is in the pudding, and UP proves time and again that they are a miserable operation. When the brass is around, everyone looks good. When they are not, who cares?

If BNSF can get the Builder over the High Line on time (largely single track) and the Chief on time on the crowded transcon, one would think that UP could manage the Zephyr for part of its trip. But apparently not.

This has all been said many times on this site before. I have not said anything new. Which is sad. Until management at UP gets it, Amtrak will not be treated fairly.

You know, it is a sad statement that Guilford treats Amtrak better than UP, isn't it? Yea, yea, I remember the Montrealer, but I would suggest that you consider the Downeaster's performance.

wharfrat Wrote:
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> Mr.Duffy's in town. Wait to you see the officer's
> special that is going to leave tommorrow. They all
> will be standing at attention.


When I used to listen to the scanner a lot you could hear the note of near hysteria in the voice of the DS's as they made damn sure nothing stood in the way of the biz cars bearing the suits. No question that the dispatching was all green for them.
C.

Carol Voss
Bakersfield, CA

wharfrat Wrote:
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> Mr.Duffy's in town. Wait to you see the officer's
> special that is going to leave tommorrow. They all
> will be standing at attention.

Whoa! Clear the tracks for that sucker! My most outrageous delay experience regarding an officer's special was as a passenger on the southbound Coast Starlate right after 9/11. We were already 5 or 6 hours late and then got held at Chualar (about 10 miles south of Salinas) for a northbound UP officer's special that was still on the Cuesta grade (just north of San Luis Obispo...roughly 100 miles away!) when we initially stopped. About 2 1/2 hours of waiting as I recall. The conductor was almost as disgusted as the passengers when he found out that there were several clear sidings ahead that our train could have proceeded to without delaying the special but the dispatcher (probably on orders from high management) was too nervous to take the remote chance that additional delay would cause his Big Shot Special to see so much as (gasp!) a flashing yellow signal. The scuttlebutt was that the UP prez and Dick Cheney's wife were on the special but I never had that confirmed.

Remember this was right after 9/11 and the airlines were not fully up and running yet. Amtrak had lots of new passengers and the train was packed. You never heard so many "Never again!"'s in your life! I spent lots of time in the lounge car explaining the situation and putting the blame where it belongs but it didn't help much. So much for gaining a few new converts to the pleasures of passenger rail travel! There was more than one well deserved "middle fingered salute" from the passengers when that officer's special finally went by us at Chualar!

Look for an SOALB-13 (Oakland-Long Beach) tomorrow.

RailNet802, out

In the military we had surprise inspections. Not too often but they did happen from time to time.

When I was working (large telecommunications company), our state president made some un-announced to work centers around the state. She road with one of the guys I worked with one day. I'm sure word got back to the dispatchers but my friend said it was pretty much a normal day.

Of course, it's kind of hard to stick a business car on the tail end of a train without anyone knowing about it ahead of time. If the suits really wanted to know what happens they should just book a bedroom like any one else would and just tell the staff he's going to be on vacation for a few days.

John

The handling of business cars either on the back of Amtrak or special requires a special set of circumstances for survival of the officers in charge of the movement. Generally the Division Superintendent over whose Division they are traversing. A poor trip with the "Suits" (VPO and above) could result in one or more Division officers exercising their seniority.
The hoghead that proclaimed that the RFE was just in the way didn't realize that he was there to protect his job. The RFE was on the locomotive, to quote the Supt., "I want some one on the seat box I can fire".
Every facet of the trip was explored and calculated. The exact running time was calculated with out any delay and to the minute even on Amtrak schedules. The chief dispatcher was held totally accountable for any delay and the signal supervisor was assisting the dispatcher who put all trains away sufficiently ahead of the business car equipped train so the trick dispatcher could make sure clear signals came up ahead of the movement. This meant form "G" example 3 and high green all the way. You can readily see the inherent delay built into this procedure. To quote one of the many Superintendents I worked for, "When the Car Sunset is on the Division it is our job to Rape the railroad to get him across it. This was strictly for survival.
Train nuts and even retired hogheads posting on this site appear not to have a clear idea of what managements role is in operating the railroad. On a special train trip there are too many things that can go wrong if you left them all to chance.
The "Suits" (VPO and above) want to see a perfectly run railroad ( no stupid moves or flagrnt rule violations) and that is what you try to give them.

JLY Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The handling of business cars either on the back
> of Amtrak or special requires a special set of
> circumstances for survival of the officers in
> charge of the movement. Generally the Division
> Superintendent over whose Division they are
> traversing. A poor trip with the "Suits" (VPO and
> above) could result in one or more Division
> officers exercising their seniority.
> The hoghead that proclaimed that the RFE was just
> in the way didn't realize that he was there to
> protect his job. The RFE was on the locomotive, to
> quote the Supt., "I want some one on the seat box
> I can fire".

My comment about the RFE's being "more in the way than anything else" stands based on the extremely experienced, conscientious and professional hogheads I worked with on the Starlight (I was firing in those days). Admittedly it may not apply in all cases. I won't mention any names but I've seen more than one RFE who was lacking in good train handling skills, knowledge of the rules, and just plain common sense. In our case I strongly feel that we would have done just as well or better without them and I sincerely doubt that we would have been fired! For myself I never got fired in over 30 years of railroading and I doubt that running or firing an officer's special or passenger train with private cars without an RFE by my side (or in my seat!) would have done it.

> Every facet of the trip was explored and
> calculated. The exact running time was calculated
> with out any delay and to the minute even on
> Amtrak schedules. The chief dispatcher was held
> totally accountable for any delay and the signal
> supervisor was assisting the dispatcher who put
> all trains away sufficiently ahead of the business
> car equipped train so the trick dispatcher could
> make sure clear signals came up ahead of the
> movement. This meant form "G" example 3 and high
> green all the way. You can readily see the
> inherent delay built into this procedure. To quote
> one of the many Superintendents I worked for,
> "When the Car Sunset is on the Division it is our
> job to Rape the railroad to get him across it.
> This was strictly for survival.

"Rape the railroad" (including Amtrak and it's passengers?) "to get him across it" Yup that pretty much says it all That's what happened to us at Chualar all right! Survival of what? A little delay to an officer's special and the world is going to come to an end? You live in that much fear for your jobs? I'm sure glad that I didn't take one of those jobs!

> Train nuts and even retired hogheads posting on
> this site appear not to have a clear idea of what
> managements role is in operating the railroad. On
> a special train trip there are too many things
> that can go wrong if you left them all to chance.
> The "Suits" (VPO and above) want to see a
> perfectly run railroad ( no stupid moves or
> flagrnt rule violations) and that is what you try
> to give them.

Oh I think most of the lowly train nuts and retired hogheads pretty much understand what management's role is in any business. Career railroaders in particular are well aware of management's role on the railroad. It would be nice if the "Suits" would want to see a perfectly run railroad (at least a better run railroad) when the Amtrak trains aren't carrying their own private precious cargo on the rear end.

I fully recognize that when you own your railroad you have the right to manage it and dispatch it as you see fit. I even understand why you can't treat all Amtrak trains like your officer's specials or Amtrak trains carrying your private cars. The special consideration you choose to give those trains costs you big bucks in delaying your freight trains as well as considerable extra labor and fuel costs. You just can't do that with every passenger train out there although in my most humble opinion you could do better than you do much of the time. My initial post was not intended to be mean spirited or overly judgmental but just to point out that when you do have those occupied business cars in tow on Amtrak you are going to get over the road lickety-split, much better than you would without them.

And as MDO and JLY have attested to in earlier threads, IF something goes wrong, real or otherwise, there is HELL to pay for the entire trip including those who will get on later on the next division. The suits in railroading invented the "four part question".

I once knew someone who was in the CNW's operating department in some management capacity and he said they used to do a dry run their Officer Specials to make sure everything worked out with the schedule.

Mike McGinley's great fiction piece "Double Jacks" has a great recreation of riding with suits across a division. For all of us who never had the "pleasure" of experiencing a trip like that(with suits like MDO and JLY have), should read his book if they can find a copy. Good reading.

Johnw
My post was to inform as to how it was circa 1964 through 1988 on the SP.
Sorry if you read into my post that I was defending RFE's. Far from it as RFE's were not the most gifted officers on the RR. A number of them the came from the Hoghead local chairman ranks.
The older hogheads generally would not take the jobs because with their Seniority, arbitraries and sharp pencils they could double the RFE salaries.
I would like to have some of the "Professional, Talented, Dedicated Railroaders on this site explain just what their concept of railroad management entails. All I have observed on this site is how crooked and inept all managers are.
As with all business when concentration is one operation it can be done with efficiency and dispatch. Example: American River Bridge spring of 2007. Same as concentrating on trains with business cars on the rear.
Take a trick dispatcher in Nebraska throw about 75 trains at him and have just a couple of irregular movements (crews crying to eat) and watch the whole operation degenerate into total chaos.
My purpose of this post was to relate that,"Everything is not as it seems".

JLY Wrote:
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> Johnw
> My post was to inform as to how it was circa 1964
> through 1988 on the SP.
> Sorry if you read into my post that I was
> defending RFE's.

JLY,
Well I wasn't trying to denigrate all RFEs or any other officials in my post. I had great respect for most that I met over the years, including a couple of the regular posters to this forum. I can't say that I was ever treated unfairly. There were a few officials that I could have done without but we had those type of people in all crafts and all positions on the railroad as I'm sure you will agree. The best way to handle those people was just to do your job right and give them a wide berth. From my own personal experience I just felt at times (not always) the RFE in the engine could be more of a hindrance than a help on those "special" trains that they had to ride. I'm thinking of one RFE that was not a good train handler (and a great schedule time loser!) but always wanted to take the throttle away from a senior engineer generally considered the best hoghead on our division. I sure hope those officials on the rear end knew who was running that train! I'm sure with lesser qualified operating personnel the RFE's probably prevented and still prevent a few jackpots by being on the head end.

>All I have observed on this
> site is how crooked and inept all managers are.

Agreed. It's far too easy to flame and make generalizations on the web. A few individuals seem to have quite a chip on their shoulder too.

> My purpose of this post was to relate
> that,"Everything is not as it seems".

Point taken. My position is that there is nothing wrong with expressing your opinion, even disagreeing as long as it's done with civility. My humble opinion that UP (as well as a few other railroads) should pay more attention to Amtrak trains when there are NOT business cars on the rear end remains. It all seemed to work so much better when the dispatchers were in Roseville instead of Omaha but I realize that's only one of the factors.

My point to all of you railroaders, no matter the company or your jobs within, is that regardless of the business/industry, when the suits are coming to inspect your facility, be it a train operation or a hospital, certain things will take place to make sure that what the suits see are "acceptable"-------and whatever systems you have in place to make things work well will be used to the max. The fault, dear Brutus, lies in the fact that the suits never ask the basic question---how do things go and why don't they and how can we make them go better?? asked, of course, by the people who are supposed to " make things go" with what they are given to do so---------------sheesh
C.

Carol Voss
Bakersfield, CA

The WB Zephyr arrived EMY early four out of the next five days. UP Business cars on all those trains?

1/11: 30 min. early
1/12: 30 min. late
1/13: 75 min. early
1/14: 86 min. early
1/15: 20 min. early
1/16: 55 min. early
1/17: not reported (disrupted by derailment?)

The performance of the Zephyr has improved significantly with or without business cars. Of course, having a scheduled EMY arrival of 7:25pm instead of the custumary 4:59pm has helped turn 2 hour late trains into 25 minute early trains.