Passenger Trains > Amtrak November Endpoint On Time Statistics

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%.

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.

How bad did the Lake Shore do?

GenePoon Wrote:
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> 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?

And what about The California Zephyr?

To refresh my memory, what is considered "on-time"?

On-Time in Amtrak lingo is that the train arrived or departed no more than 3 minutes of the scheduled time......

krapplem Wrote:
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> 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

wabash2800 Wrote:
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> 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:
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> And what about The California Zephyr?

68.3%

> 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.

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.

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

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

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!

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

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.

amtrak1007 Wrote:
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> 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?

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.

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.

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