Passenger Trains > CHIEF

Some of  you in the  area  understand  how  #  4  can arrive ABQ as  much as 50  early and  arrive 15 to  30 late at LAMY?  Not  just weekdays. Trackwork??   Potential washouts??  Slow orders?  Late leaving  ABQ. Thanks  from an Ohio frequent rider on  3  and  4.

It could be due to the Railrunner.  The Railrunner seems to come first, but it is single rail, no room for both trains. 

The word on the street is that there is about 20 minutes of slow orders in effect
between Lamy and CP Madrid which is only used by Amtrak, and the NM Rail Runner,
which owns the track, is not doing anything to fix the slow orders and AMTK is not going to
make any adjustment to the schedule.
 

The_Chief_Way Wrote:
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> The word on the street is that there is about 20
> minutes of slow orders in effect
> between Lamy and CP Madrid which is only used by
> Amtrak, and the NM Rail Runner,
> which owns the track, is not doing anything to fix
> the slow orders and AMTK is not going to
> make any adjustment to the schedule.
>  

The slow order part is true. The NMRX is not doing any work, and now there is around 16 miles of 30 mph trackage, of which a vast majority of used to be 79 mph as of a few decades ago.

That explains it. It is New Mexico  money needed to  cure  slow  orders  Lamy to Madrid.  Don't  hold  your  breath!! I am  sure RAILRUNNER needs all the money they get  for track thaey  actually use. Thanks.

As part of the agreement to save the Southwest Chief on it current route, the NM DOT committed to improving that section of the route which the state owns. Unfortunately, with the oil price crash (which funds 1/3 of NM state government), the entire state budget is subject to major contraction. Under the current administration in Santa Fe, there will be no tax increases to balance the budget. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see this work deferred until things improve (if they do).

Oh, the humanity.

does railrunner own any MOW equipment, perhaps they will have to contract with BN, or herzog to do this.  I would say next time they need  some mow on the line they use, perhaps they would take care of it then.  But, with a new plant this may not happen for a long time.

I think all RailRunner track and signal work is contracted to Herzog and always has been.

Nearly everything is Herzog, with the exception of dispatching.

And their dispatching sucks!

I thought BNSF runs at CP Madrid sometimes as far as Lamy when needed.

Posted from Android

Word on the street ( again ) is that BNSF has rights to Lamy but has not actually run east of Albuquerque in some time
because wait for it....there is no freight biz.

ProAmtrak Wrote:
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> And their dispatching sucks!

It's NMDOT's railroad, and they dispatch it accordingly.  So, if #3 is at Bernallilo, and a RailRunner is at Albuquerque, and there would be a 5 minute delay to the RailRunner or a 30 minute delay to Amtrak, it will be a delay to Amtrak.  If 3 and 4 are on time, there are no problems, but the type of situation I describe can be frustrating when Amtrak is late, and suffers more delay so RailRunner can operate on time.    BSB  

Someone crank up the Alternate Reality machine and see what running on the BNSF mainline through Amarillo would have been like. Or wait perhaps running as the only thing on the Raton route and spending a buttload of money to do it is the alternate reality?

Jim

BNSF runs East of Albuquerque to a place called Rosario, just short of Madrid.

Does NMRX have their own dispatching office in ABQ?

Does it make a difference? They dispatch their trains, everything else is secondary. 

The_Chief_Way Wrote:
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> Does NMRX have their own dispatching office in
> ABQ?

BigSkyBlue Wrote:
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> ProAmtrak Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > And their dispatching sucks!
>
> It's NMDOT's railroad, and they dispatch it
> accordingly.  So, if #3 is at Bernallilo, and a
> RailRunner is at Albuquerque, and there would be a
> 5 minute delay to the RailRunner or a 30 minute
> delay to Amtrak, it will be a delay to Amtrak.
>  If 3 and 4 are on time, there are no problems,
> but the type of situation I describe can be
> frustrating when Amtrak is late, and suffers more
> delay so RailRunner can operate on time.    BSB
>  

Like I said yesterday, their dispatching sucks, Metrolink runs a lot of commuter trains in So. Cal on their track, but they sure don't delay someone forever just to keep their trains running, they actually do their hardest to keep things moving, seen that a lot on the old SP Saugus Lione!

I'm not questioning NMRX's dispatching; I was just curious where the dispatchers are located.