Passenger Trains > Hiawatha Service Disruptions 2/16

As Gene has already touched on, there were some Hiawatha woes this morning. 337/342 yesterday had a P42 tacked onto the north charger that went dead. On the way back on 342, the lead engine had issues near Milwaukee Airport causing an hour delay. 331 this morning came out with double P42s. 331 then got jammed up at A2 by a ton of Metra trains. The crews could not see dwarf signals and everything got backed up. Finally showed up wrong main in Glenview going around (the 30 minute late) outbound Metra. 332 meanwhile had both of it's chargers die at the Milwaukee Airport Station. 331 was instructed to tie onto the dead 332 set and push it north back to the Intermodal Station. 338 will run as a combined double Hiawatha set to Chicago. 337/342 are cancelled due to not having the equipment in Chicago ready to roll north at 15:15. I suppose they could not find any amfleets or maybe they were all frozen in the storage yard? 332s crew becomes 337s. 331s becomes 338s. 339 becomes 342s. Even if they made up a set out of 14th street, they would have to use a Chicago crew that would not have a way back home since 342 is cancelled due to 337s cancellation... Since both chargers broke down and there weren't even enough for the other set, on Wednesday we may see two sets running P42s or P32s. If it wasn't for covid, the train flips would be backed up the entire day. They would've never caught back up to the timetable. 

On another note, since this is a reduced schedule now, is returning to a regular Midwest corridor schedule even possible given how many chargers are OOS?

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At least it's clean!

Looks like the 2 DOA Chargers on 332 are 4602 and 4614. 81 and 171 stayed together on the other set through the day.
364/365 ended up cancelled due to a late arrival of inbound 365 then the power was no good (4606 and 4613).
393/390 went way late before being cancelled ,they had 4629 on that which suffered an unrecoverable computer fault that locked the brakes up tight,then had problems with some of the cars,inbound 390 was also something like 2 hours late but that trainset had 4625 on it.

300/307 has 4607
303/306 had 4604
314/313 has 4617
352/351 has 4615 and 4630
370/371 has 4631 solo
383/380 has 4605

There's 13 of them covered.Must be a long line of them at the shops!

 

Dispatcher68 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Looks like the 2 DOA Chargers on 332 are 4602 and
> 4614. 81 and 171 stayed together on the other set
> through the day.
> 364/365 ended up cancelled due to a late arrival
> of inbound 365 then the power was no good (4606
> and 4613).
> 393/390 went way late before being cancelled ,they
> had 4629 on that which suffered an unrecoverable
> computer fault that locked the brakes up
> tight,then had problems with some of the
> cars,inbound 390 was also something like 2 hours
> late but that trainset had 4625 on it.
>
> 300/307 has 4607
> 303/306 had 4604
> 314/313 has 4617
> 352/351 has 4615 and 4630
> 370/371 has 4631 solo
> 383/380 has 4605
>
> There's 13 of them covered.Must be a long line of
> them at the shops!
>
>  
there always should be a manual override for computer software.....

I've never understood why Amtrak stopped using the F40 control cabs.  I realize it means you don't have backup propulsion power, but they seem to have gone away before the Siemens reliability problem emerged.

Gordon



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/21 16:08 by gbmott.

gbmott Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've never understood why Amtrak stopped using the
> F40 control cabs.  I realize it means you don't
> have backup propulsion power, but they seem to
> have gone away before the Siemens reliability
> problem emerged.
>
> Gordon

One of the other threads, forgot where, someone said no one in Chicago knows how to maintain Cabbage's 26L brake valves. Maybe if Amtrak didn't regard Harrisburg as the International Date line, and had a CMO who gave a damn, they'd get someone from the Metra's Zephyr pit across the way to show them. 

This is the thread

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,5195533,5195621#msg-5195621

They all broke around March of last year.  Seems like someone could have learned 26L air in the last year, but that is seemingly not happening.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/21 07:45 by jello.

Does the Oklahoma train have one ?

The Okie had 90413 twice in the last few weeks,but it's the same old crap. Chicago sends one to Ft Worth on 21,sets it out,the Okie uses it on one round trip and it fails (usually PTC or brake problems) and it comes right back to Chicago.
This was the second trip down for 90413,and it has been sitting down there since Feb 10th and not used.

Cali has 90218 and 90278 active on San Joaquins,so not everyone is inept at maintaining them. Oh,a few have popped up on Cascades sets too,like 90230,90250,90251 since the first of the year.

Only in Chicago.....