Passenger Trains > 52/53 (9) neither has arrived destination terminal

52(9) just S of Petersburg 8:31 late
​53(9) just S of Savannah 10:39 late

The idea here for some of us is once seeing a very late train is to look for comments as to why that has occured.  Whoever the poster might be, would be looking for that information which will be of interest to many TO'ers.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/10/17 12:22 by PennPlat.

Probably has to do with trees down and signals out on account of the blizzard that hit the tidewater region.
Nick

53 Auto TrainSFAEstimated Arrival11 hours late7:58 pmTue, Jan 10 2017Scheduled Arrival 8:58 am   

More like it snow and got cold and all the switches froze-up, so a bunch of trains went on the law.  Happens every time it snows here. So for the past three days, signal mantainers have been going back and forth trying to thaw out switches so they can run trains around the ones sitting.

NB Amtrak 80 had to back up to the appomattox to use the other main because the crossovers wouldnt throw.
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/10/17 14:19 by nssd70m2.

Heaven forbid an Amtrak conductor actually get on the ground and manually throw a switch. 

It is not up to the conductor. The host RR dispatcher would be the one to tell the conductor to get down, take the switch off power, throw it, restore it to power or leave it in manual and proceed.

I know CSX and NS are very reluctant to do this, while other roads like CN it'll happen everytime there is a storm.


DevalDragon Wrote:
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> Heaven forbid an Amtrak conductor actually get on
> the ground and manually throw a switch. 

Posted from Android

If the switch froze up, will the conductor sit on it until it warms up?

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53 arrived at 8.41pm, almost 12 hours late into Sanford

52 arrived about 8.5 hours late


No forecast when either of these trains will be ready to go.

I'll say 53 will shove off around 10pm from Lorton, and  52 will eave Sanford around 1am.  Amtrak cleaners and mantainers are very good at turning trains quickly in a pinch.

The outbound auto carriers were loaded and out of the way. The provisions for the diners are likely on the platforms, the cleaning crews are waiting. The against traffic unloading is probably pretty light, which is a plus.  Not many people are going north so unloading at Lorton is fast, and loading at Sanford is fast.

Neighbors here in Boynton Beach drove to Sanford but didn't load vehicle.  After learning length of delay decided to drive.  Don't know if loading was held up for other vehicles.

PennPlat Wrote:
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> Neighbors here in Boynton Beach drove to Sanford
> but didn't load vehicle.  After learning length
> of delay decided to drive.  Don't know if loading
> was held up for other vehicles.

Amtrak prefers to capture cars. They load spare auto racks and move them out of the way for incoming unloads. You have to know the code. Once they have your car, they have you.

I had that happen on one trip.  Drove up, saw the train wasn't there.  Very bad sign. Went in to the ticket area, without checking in. They told me it might be 7pm before the train arrived.  They were fine with cancelling my reservation.

Got back in the car, drove to Dillon SC.  Got home to Florida hours faster than if I waited.

It is all due to RR infrastructure not working because of the weather, frozen switches being the main culprit.

Posted from Android

And they say Chicago's bad

CB

KV1guy Wrote:
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> It is all due to RR infrastructure not working
> because of the weather, frozen switches being the
> main culprit.
>
> Posted from Android