Passenger Trains > No. 4 of 4/27 Trip

I rode (Los Angeles) Metrolink, Amtrak No. 4 the SW Chief, and the Chicago RTA beginning on Friday, 4/27, to go to the Wheel-Rail Interface 24th annual conference near O'Hare airport in Chicago/Rosemont.
Room 8 of the 430 car was on the north (shady) side and the car next to the diner. Until Galesburg the passenger load was very light, they did not bother with dining car reservations. However when I asked the LSA about this she said that their crew already knew that their westward return (4/30?) was "sold out" so the passenger loads are fluctuating wildly. All the on board crew was excellent and the food was fine by me. (My boss decided to upgrade me to first class for my return flight after the conference and the Alaska Airlines first class food was late, cool, and worse than anything Amtrak put out with the possible exception of some of the long departed breakfast specials.)
We staggered into Fullerton almost an hour late due to "freight traffic" but I only saw three passenger trains to that point. For the rest of the trip we gradually got back on time, and arrived at Albuquerque about 15 minutes early and then were mostly on time except at Galesburg and Mendota due to a Mississippi swing bridge opening.
This was my first experience with the Los Angeles Metropolitan Lounge. It is a very pleasant place, with great classic era steam, diesel, and electric (Pacific Electric) paintings, a view of the platform tracks and the MTA light rail trains, plus some exhibit cabinets. One fun little thing was a set of Kato N scale superliners with a Pacific Parlor car. They herd passengers out of the lounge and onto electric shuttle carts about 45 minutes before departure; there is no option to walk over to the tracks. We waited on the platform for about 15 minutes for the equipment to be shoved into the departure track. I do think better customer service would be to let the passenger stay in the lounge until the equipment is actually at the platform. Although the weather was fair on 4/27 that is not always the case; why wait out in the open?
I always enjoy re-visiting the land of red cliffs, broad horizons, flat topped mesas, and widely varied strata of Northern Arizona and New Mexico that I first saw from the old Chief in 12/64. This trip was better than many because the rear coach door window was extra clean. I rode for hours looking at the track and scenery, counting trains, timing mileposts, and taking about 200 images. (Of course many were hasty attempts to shoot moving trains, rushing the auto focus and auto exposure with predictably poor results.)
Timing mileposts: most of them were 40 seconds (90 MPH) due to the old Santa Fe ATS. You would never guess that speed from up high in a Superliner and going over the BNSF Transcon main track. In fact the only true track exception was some rough joints west of Lamy, actually a lot of the jointed rail on the Raton line was in pretty good to excellent condition.
The BNSF traffic density was stunning. From Darling (east of Flagstaff) to Dalies (Junction for the Albuquerque line) in four hours I saw 24 westbound trains and may have not seen them all because there are places where they can hide in yards, the lines are separated, and I had to take a couple of breaks. Considering the speed of the opposing traffic, that would be 24 trains westbound in 8 or 9 hours, or 70-72 in 24 hours! For a passenger on No. 4 that works out to be a train every 10 minutes plus the eastbounds we passed. I suspect this was the "Friday afternoon rush" out of Dallas and Kansas City and a peak period. I have my doubts that the BNSF terminals could swallow 72 trains a day. The dispatcher wove us between the two main tracks, at Parea (?) we passed three eastbounds lined up on the north track then crossed over and three westbounds were soon seen marching on to the south main we had just vacated. I don't think they had stopped yet. It is true that Amtrak does use track capacity but I think the 90 MPH speed gets the pain over with as quickly as practicable. I hope that the PTC rules will allow that speed to continue.
The pictures:
1. A ghost of the Pacific Parlor car in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Lounge
2. No train, just a fun composition of why I love trips on the SW Chief
3 The rear DPU of Westbound manifest, to represent a taste of the 24 trains we met.

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Interesting report Mike. I always marvel at the work BNSF dispatchers perform to keep Amtrak 3&4 moving around slower freights. It's lost on most passengers I suppose, and whenever the train takes the slightest delay passengers start remarking that freight always has the right of way...

Rich Tower

Thanks for a very descriptive review of your trip. Sounds like it is somerthing all would enjoy!

I guess I'm due for another trip on the Southwest Chief. Good report, Mike.

After the long pause at Albuquerque (we arrived early and left on time) the lonely run over Raton Pass to Trinidad gave us some changing weather, including faint showers, and of course the only train seen was No. 3. Our meet was at Fox, where we took the siding and waited for maybe 10 minutes indicating that No. 3 was a bit late. Along this line with many signals apparently still illuminated by lamps, it was fun to see how red the red aspects are (as compared to the orange color of "red" LEDs as interpreted by digital cameras. No trains were seen until La Junta; the yards at Trinidad were almost completely empty.
The amazing parade of BNSF (with some NS) continued east of Kansas City at about the same rate as Saturday east of Darling. We waited about 15 minutes for a bridge opening at Ft. Madison for a downriver barge tow, the water appeared to be perhaps 5 feet below the track level west of the bridge over near the old depot.
Good crowds got on at Galesburg and Mendota. We arrived in Chicago only a few minutes late. As always, there was a tedious pedestrian/baggage cart/courtesy shuttle jam on the platform. While waiting (20+? minutes) for my checked bag I visited the construction scene in the Great Hall.
The last leg was a hike over to the Blue Line Jackson St. station and a ride out to Rosemont for the WRI conference.
The photos:
1. The meet at Fox
2. East switch Fox, on the east side of Glorietta Pass
3. Rear DPUs on a 3x2x2 stack train west of Ft. Madison.

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CA_Sou_MA_Agent Wrote:
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> I guess I'm due for another trip on the Southwest
> Chief. Good report, Mike.

Better take it soon in the event that reports of its future demise are true.

Thanks - my mouth and camera are "watering" to go.

BB

railstiesballast Wrote:

> 2. No train, just a fun composition of why I love
> trips on the SW Chief

As info, this is Marmon, NM (Mesita on the highway map).

Thanks for this excellent report which I very much enjoyed reading.

The shot "west of Ft. Madison" looks to be near New Boston. Best I
can do on that.

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

railstiesballast Wrote:
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> the yards at Trinidad were almost completely empty.

I think with the BNSF merger, almost all activity is concentrated at the yard located on the ex-C&S line on the north side of town. Downtown has lost more of its rail activity since trains running along the ex-C&S line no longer have to come into downtown since the by-pass was built in 1991. It's kinda sad because the C&S station was a lot nicer than the AT&SF station.

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