Passenger Trains > Empire Builder Delays

As my trip to Portland gets closer I continue to see a lot of delays begin between Devils Lake and Fargo, ND. The last time I asked about this, the only response was it is cold up there. There has to be a better reason than that. Is it construction, slow orders, lack of places to meet...???

Today's Chicago arriving 8 has been dropping time all the way from the West Coast. What is going on with it?

In the last four weeks there have been only four days with significant delays to #8 into Chicago; otherwise it has been within an hour of time or early. In the last three weeks #27 has been no more than 95 minutes late into PDX, and usually much less than that or early. Anything can happen, but the train seems pretty reliable.

I can see PDX Union Station from work. The inbound Empire builder has been arriving close to on time pretty consistently lately. The schedule padding at the end of each LD train also is a factor. Alot of times, a LD train 2+ hours late enroute ends up being barely an hour late to its final terminal due to the padding.

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Western_Star is correct - over the last 40 days, the EB has been more than one hour late into Portland only six times. Three of those were between one and two hours late, and three were between two and three hours late, nothing more than that, which is very unusual for mid winter.

As for the line between Devils Lake and Fargo, my understanding is that trains are operating under slow orders over significant portions of the route during the cold weather. There is a lot of older rail, including jointed rail, on significant portions of this territory. As all track maintenance people know old rail is more prone to breakage, and that problem is exacerbated by cold weather that creates tension in the rail. Since BNSF has decided to retain the Devils Lake line for the long run by raising the roadbed around Devils Lake, I suspect this rail will be replaced in the not too distant future. Amtrak delays for these slow order are probably in the magnitude of 30 to 45 minutes.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/11/13 20:57 by czephyr17.

glcaddis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As my trip to Portland gets closer I continue to
> see a lot of delays begin between Devils Lake and
> Fargo, ND. The last time I asked about this, the
> only response was it is cold up there. There has
> to be a better reason than that. Is it
> construction, slow orders, lack of places to
> meet...???

Yes.

just a note,i was on no.8 getting intoshelby MT yesterday feb 12th,and there was an ARMY of cops there waiting for the train.they took some guy off who had a gob of drugs on him.i know a couple of weeks ago another guy was taken off the same train with a lod of pot.any body have any details on this??

went through there on.no8 yesterday,the 12th,and we went through there at max track speed.

I was through there on 7 a few days ago. Somewhere around eastern Mt. We encountered a slow order due to high winds. I didn't make a note of where it started or ended.

John