Passenger Trains > Amtrak July On Time Performance Snapshot

Here are a few Amtrak trains and their July OTP as reported on Amtrak's website. Some interesting numbers and overall a good performance for a month normally hit hard by heat restrictions and Summer track work. Had a day off today and had nothing better to do...

Acela 86.4%
Cascades 70.1%
Cal Zephyr 54.8%
Capitol Limited 75.8%
Cardinal 42.9% (much worse had 850/851 not been included in the figure, making it look better than it really is. Cardinal took the prize for worst OTP of any LD train in July)
Coast Starlight 90.3%
City of New Orleans 80.6%
Empire Builder 81.3%
Illinois Service 70.5%
Lake Shore 65.3%
Michigan Service 32.3% (worst in the system)
Missouri 90.3%
Pennsylvanian 95.2%
Silver Service/Palmetto 71%
Southwest Chief 75.8%
Sunset Limited 92.6% (amazing what a half days worth of schedule padding can do)
Texas Eagle 87.7%

Overall not bad. Cardinal (my hometown train) has been getting hit hard in the normal places, the Buckingham Branch from Orange to Clifton Forge, and CSX from Indianapolis to Dyer. UP/CN/MERTA/NS have been doing much better at getting it from Dyer to Chicago lately.

Man, back in 2002-2004, nobody would've ever believed that the Starlight would do nearly 10% better than the Empire Builder!

F40PHR231 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Man, back in 2002-2004, nobody would've ever
> believed that the Starlight would do nearly 10%
> better than the Empire Builder!

I secretly wish it wouldn't. That means the economy would be much better, but hats off to UP on the coast route anyways.

F40PHR231 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Man, back in 2002-2004, nobody would've ever
> believed that the Starlight would do nearly 10%
> better than the Empire Builder!
Or the SW Chief!

F40PHR231 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Man, back in 2002-2004, nobody would've ever
> believed that the Starlight would do nearly 10%
> better than the Empire Builder!

This is hardly worth giving UP credit for--the Coast line is virtually empty, since UP barely uses it. Not too hard to stay on time.

What are Amtrak's parameters for being on time? Do they track performance at end-points only, (ie: SEA and LAX for the Starlight), or are some intermediate places counted? What constitutes being late... 15 or more minutes past the advertised?

The Pennsylvanians actually posted 100% records in February and May. They're going to be hard pressed to equal that this month as NS is doing major M/W work on the Pittsburgh line between Harrisburg and Rockville and they usually only have one track available so no. 43 will often leave the station and wait for traffic to clear before it can even get on to the NS tracks.
The records are end point records. For instance the Texas Eagle can be as much as two hours late at intermediate stations and still make it to the end point on time! It quite regularily gets to San Antonio over an hour early.

CP is doing some track rehabilitation west of La Crosse, WI causing some of the delays on the Empire Builder. I also noticed (per my gps) we were running 55-60mph on the jointed rail of the Devils Lake Sub in North Dakota vs the prescribed 79mph. This was observed both westbound on #7 July 28-29 and again eastbound August 7-8 on #8 on a trip from Chicago,IL to Minot, ND and return. I barely made my connection to Train 305 (Lincoln Service) from #8 on August 8th, Basically get off #8, dash though the CUS madness, and right through the line to board 305.
305 was another adventure. We got stopped at 3 different interlockers in a row waiting for freights to clear the diamonds, then followed a CN frieght up to Joliet. We were supposed to run around that CN freight, but the DS changed his mind. We had a track warrant on the UP south of Joliet, but since CN delayed us following their freight, the UP took back our track warrant. We did our station work at Joliet, then headed to a spot just south of town. We were put in "the pocket" which was right next to the BNSF transcon and waited 45 minutes for Train 304 to come north and meet us. He finally passed us and we proceeded south to just north of Bloomington-Normal, where we were put in the siding behind a freight train to meet Train 306. After he passed and we backed out of the siding, we blasted south. We were moving too, as I heard detectors read off both 83mph south of Springfiled, IL and 84mph just south of Carlinville, IL. We arrived my stop at Alton at around 1110pm, about 1 hr 25 mins late. #307 was running on time and arrived Alton about 30 minutes after my train had departed. We had 5 cars on our train, a Amfleet Cafe Car/Buisness Class, and 4 Horizon Fleet coaches. We had sister locos bracketing our train, as the 128 was leading( obviously facing south), and the 127 was on the opposite end facing north.
I wonder if this corridor between St Louis and Chicago will ever get the proposed 110mph track/signal improvements that were talked about and I think tested a few years ago? Considering most of the route is straight as an arrow, this corridor could sure use it, along with other corridors across the system.

Drew Mitchem
Centralia, WA