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Passenger Trains > Amtrak November Endpoint On Time StatisticsDate: 12/03/08 08:54 Amtrak November Endpoint On Time Statistics Author: GenePoon With the reduction of rail freight traffic, and the help of freight railroads which really are trying harder to move Amtrak, endpoint on-time performance of Amtrak long-distance trains has improved lately.
A LOT. For example, in the month of November: Auto Train 96.3% City of New Orleans 90.0% Coast Starlight 88.3% Crescent 88.3% Southwest Chief 86.7% Empire Builder 85.8% These top six long distance trains did better than ANY of the Northeast Corridor product lines: Northeast Corridor: Acela Express 85.1% Keystone 84.7% Northeast Regional 74.4% Short Distance: Vermonter 98.3% (overall best) Pennsylvanian 93.3% Capitol Corridor 93.2% San Joaquins 90.8% Hiawatha 90.5% Cascades 83.7% Bringing up the rear: Long Distance, less than 50%: Cardinal 26.9% Capitol Ltd. 40.0% These were the ONLY two long distance trains that arrived at endpoints on time on less than half their trips during November. Short Distance, less than 50%: Hoosier State 20.6% (the overall loser) Michigan Corridor 32.8% (MI trains are currently limited to 79mph) Missouri Corridor 36.7% Downeaster 48.0% The oft-maligned Sunset Limited, which for so long turned in ZERO on-time performance, did a respectable 73.1%. Date: 12/03/08 09:04 Re: Amtrak November Endpoint On Time Statistics Author: reindeerflame What this suggests is that there is insufficient capacity on many railroad segments to ensure a high level of on time performance for passenger trains when the economy is doing well. (Maybe SP was right when they claimed there was insufficient capacity to accommodate passenger trains).
So, corridors especially need extra capacity to remove bottlenecks, or, we need to hope for a prolonged recession if passenger operations are to be reliable. If railroads were only smart enough to seek out and accept the funding we would be better off (that means you, UP, as in the case of Donner Summit). Some credit may also be given to a more than lackadaisical effort by Amtrak and railroad management to monitoring and improving performance, but it's fairly clear that this becomes more difficult as traffic is heavier. In some cases, one gets the impression that the railroad didn't care, and more importantly, that Amtrak didn't care, or had just given up. Date: 12/03/08 09:29 Re: Amtrak November Endpoint On Time Statistics Author: wabash2800 How bad did the Lake Shore do?
Date: 12/03/08 09:44 Re: Amtrak November Endpoint On Time Statistics Author: sfericsf GenePoon Wrote:
------------------------------------------------------- > Bringing up the rear: > > > Long Distance, less than 50%: > > Cardinal 26.9% > Capitol Ltd. 40.0% > > These were the ONLY two long distance trains that > arrived at endpoints on less than half their trips during > November. > What does that mean? Are you saying they never arrived at all and were annulled along the way? Also, what about the Texas Eagle? Date: 12/03/08 09:51 Re: Amtrak November Endpoint On Time Statistics Author: Crosstie-Walker And what about The California Zephyr?
Date: 12/03/08 09:55 Re: Amtrak November Endpoint On Time Statistics Author: krapplem To refresh my memory, what is considered "on-time"?
Date: 12/03/08 10:04 Re: Amtrak November Endpoint On Time Statistics Author: AmHog On-Time in Amtrak lingo is that the train arrived or departed no more than 3 minutes of the scheduled time......
Date: 12/03/08 10:28 Re: Amtrak November Endpoint On Time Statistics Author: GenePoon krapplem Wrote:
------------------------------------------------------- > To refresh my memory, what is considered > "on-time"? ============================================== Amtrak Endpoint On Time Performance standards The tolerance before an Amtrak train (except Acela Express) is considered to be "late" at its endpoint is based on the total origin-destination distance: Distance(mi.) Tolerance 51 to 250 10 min. 250 to 349 15 min. 351 to 450 20 min. 451 to 550 25 min. 551 and up 30 min. Regardless of the length of its journey, Acela Express is considered to be late beyond 10 minutes. -source: AMTRAK Date: 12/03/08 10:30 Re: Amtrak November Endpoint On Time Statistics Author: GenePoon wabash2800 Wrote:
------------------------------------------------------- > How bad did the Lake Shore do? 82.5% sfericsf Wrote: -------------------------------------------------- > What does that mean? Are you saying they never > arrived at all and were annulled along the way? See edit to original message > Also, what about the Texas Eagle? 51.7% Crosstie-Walker Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > And what about The California Zephyr? 68.3% Date: 12/03/08 10:34 Re: Amtrak November Endpoint On Time Statistics Author: FrankHatfield > Michigan Corridor 32.8% (MI trains are currently limited to 79mph)
Why only 79mph? I thought they had that high-speed line up there, with the special signaling and train control system. Date: 12/03/08 11:03 Re: Amtrak November Endpoint On Time Statistics Author: sevenmilesiding In Michigan, even when the 50 mile or so section was at 95MPH, the trains were still in the 30-35% OTP range. But looking at the chart, the Silver Service trains were in the low 80% OTP, and the Palmetto was 75% in November. The Lake Shore was 82.5%. Cardinal/Hoosier State and the Capitol Limited are now the low points. There was a 5 month period earlier this year when train 50 did not arrive into New York on time ONCE.
Date: 12/03/08 12:13 Re: Amtrak November Endpoint On Time Statistics Author: joemvcnj Given the following:
1) The Pennsylvanian does great 2) The Lake Shore does pretty good 3) The Capitol Ltd is a disgrace 4) The Lake Shore and Capitol Ltd share the route west of Cleveland Therefore: 1) The NS and/or CSX bteween Cleveland and DC suck 2) An ideal east coast - Chicago train in terms of OTP would be routed NYP-PGH-CHI Date: 12/03/08 12:44 Re: Amtrak November Endpoint On Time Statistics Author: DavidP Looks like we're getting a lesson in market-based incentives. When the railroads are at capacity with freight traffic they seem very willing to forgo Amtrak's incentive payments in favor of keeping the whole railroad as fluid as possible. However, when there's excess capacity and declining revenue, earning the additional Amtrak money makes good sense.
By the way, has anyone seen any data on how the freight railroads are impacted by the recession? I would have to think business is off by a fair amount, but how much? What's been the impact on employment. Dave Date: 12/03/08 13:33 Re: Amtrak November Endpoint On Time Statistics Author: ProAmtrak That's a good question, the way I see it, let's see what happens when traffic does make a comeback because the only railroad that actually does good no matter how heavy traffic gets is BNSF!
Date: 12/03/08 14:39 Re: Amtrak November Endpoint On Time Statistics Author: CBQBNOPR I would like to see statistics showing actual causes for lateness such as highway crossing accidents, signal problems, poor dispatching, equipment problems (both host railroad and Amtrak)as well as weather and "other".
Robert Oloffson Wyanet, IL Date: 12/03/08 14:40 Re: Amtrak November Endpoint On Time Statistics Author: amtrak1007 The ITCS in Michigan is out of service for upgrades. Not sure when it will be back on line. We have been seeing some P32's and other units that are non ITCS running the trains between Kalamazoo and Chicago.
Date: 12/03/08 15:54 Re: Amtrak November Endpoint On Time Statistics Author: reindeerflame amtrak1007 Wrote:
------------------------------------------------------- > The ITCS in Michigan is out of service for > upgrades. Not sure when it will be back on line. > We have been seeing some P32's and other units > that are non ITCS running the trains between > Kalamazoo and Chicago. Isn't the entire state of Michigan essentially out of service? Date: 12/03/08 16:05 Dedicated Passenger Rail Lines Author: jp1822 These statistics, with a down economy leading to less freight on the road, also elude to the fact that this country needs dedicated passenger rail lines if these statistics are to be maintained. This is a dramatic improvement in the long distance train network particuarly.
Date: 12/03/08 16:55 Re: Amtrak November Endpoint On Time Statistics Author: krapplem joemvcnj Wrote:
------------------------------------------------------- > Given the following: > > 1) The Pennsylvanian does great > 2) The Lake Shore does pretty good > 3) The Capitol Ltd is a disgrace > 4) The Lake Shore and Capitol Ltd share the route > west of Cleveland > > Therefore: > > 1) The NS and/or CSX bteween Cleveland and DC > suck > 2) An ideal east coast - Chicago train in terms of > OTP would be routed NYP-PGH-CHI Given the tolerances provided by Mr. GenePoon, both the LSL and CL only have a 30 minute window to be declared "on-time". I would consider a 31 minute delay arriving into CUS or WUS after travelling 17-20 hours to be pretty darn good. The statistics provided are skewed as a train that is 10 hours late 50% of the time would look as good as a train that is 31 minutes late 50% of the time. Date: 12/04/08 08:50 Re: Amtrak November Endpoint On Time Statistics Author: 9900 Illinois OTP
November 300: 63% - up from 45% in Oct 301: 70% - up from 52% in Oct 302: 40% - up from 13% in Oct 303: 63% - up from 55% in Oct 304: 87% - up from 45% in Oct 305: 77% - up from 70% in Oct 306: 80% - up from 55% in Oct 307: 93% - up from 55% in Oct 380: 90% - steady from 90% in Oct 381: 93% - up from 90% in Oct 382: 87% - up from 81% in Oct 383: 93% - up from 90% in Oct 390: 70% - up from 37% in Oct 391: 67% - up from 23% in Oct 392: 70% - up from 57% in Oct 393: 87% - up from 74% in Oct OVERALL: CHI - STL: 72% - up from 49% in Oct CHI - QCY: 91% - up from 88% in Oct CHI - CDL: 74% - up from 48% in Oct TOTAL: 79% - up from 61% in Oct |