Passenger Trains > 301 Leading 7 (1)

301 leading 7 (1) the Empire Builder bringing Day One joy to the northern transcon and the northwest.  Seen here at Canal St. emerging from CUS.

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Glenview. The diner was recently refreshed. Standout cleanliness as compared to the rest of the train. I'd bet you can barely see out. This whole train was pretty bad, even compared to some of the other builder sets,  

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Nice capture! Well, the video was deceiving as it looked like a clean train - but definitely not when look at the photos (except for the Diner for reasons explained. UGH! Why is this so damn hard for Amtrak - to clean windows. Isn't the Chicago washer supposed to be working again? 

Empire Builder is one of Amtrak's strongest LD western long hauls - and when given the right passenger cars for capacity it easily becomes #1 in passenger patronage (even greater than Auto Train). But as quick as it gets its passenger car count restored to near pre-COVID levels, it's taken away over and over gain in some planned cyclical event! It's crazy! This was a VERY busy train this summer to Whitefish and the Glacier Park stations!!!

The Empire Builder has always had healthy sleeper patronage from Chicago to Seattle/Portland. Amtrak tries to believe coach traffic is greatest between Twin Cities and Chicago only - and yes it hits a peak there - but Fargo, Grand Forks, Havre, Shelby, Whitefish, Glacier Park stops, and Spokane are still heavy with coach boardings and departures. Shelby has a lot of people from Canada that come down to use the Empire Builder to get east-west.  

EDIT - the dirt is absolutely "caked on" as you can see from the lower level of the train set and as compared to the newly refreshed and released Amtrak Diner. Just absolutely disrespectful to passengers, crew, etc. 

EDIT - the eastbound could be squeegied/washed in Whitefish, MT, and the westbound could be squeegied/washed in Minot. That would at least provide some sort of relief if Chicago can't do the job. And at one time Whitefish and Minot were points where the Empire Builders had their windows washed. Completely ridiculous that this can't be done again. There's plenty of time in the schedule that could make this happen - Minot is an hour layover and Whitefish is a crew change point for at least the engineer(s). It's still too bad that PVs can't be interchanged at Whitefish, as used to be VERY popular!



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/24 14:49 by jp1822.

Great video!

In CUS a few minutes before departure.

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" It's still too bad that PVs can't be interchanged at Whitefish, as used to be VERY popular! "When I was marketing manager for American Rail Excursions, the Glacier National Park destination was one of our most popular. As I currently understand it, Amtrak will only allow PV's to be put on or taken off a train at end points of the route. That eliminates a lot of the popular destinations. Just another example of Amtrak leaving money on the table. Amtrak's cost to handle PV's is very low and the revenue goes nearly 100% to Amtrak's bottom line.

POW Wrote:
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> " It's still too bad that PVs can't be
> interchanged at Whitefish, as used to be VERY
> popular! "When I was marketing manager for
> American Rail Excursions, the Glacier National
> Park destination was one of our most popular. As I
> currently understand it, Amtrak will only allow
> PV's to be put on or taken off a train at end
> points of the route. That eliminates a lot of the
> popular destinations. Just another example of
> Amtrak leaving money on the table. Amtrak's cost
> to handle PV's is very low and the revenue goes
> nearly 100% to Amtrak's bottom line.

I get that there's two sides to every story - and then the truth - but numbers don't lie. Amtrak should have really tried to "preserve" some of its mid-point destinations for private rail car interchange. The biggest delay I ever experienced at Whitefish was not the interchange of a private rail car, as BNSF helps and typically expedited the transfer as they wanted to clear the right-of-way and get their money, but with Amtrak's own equipment - the 40th Anniversary Train that took over an hour to hook up to the eastbound Empire Builder. I just think there could have been some better middle ground reached. There are some mid-point interchanges for PV's still, but they are MUCH MUCH less than what used to exist for sure. And Amtrak is not operating any faster as a result. All we've seen is schedules lengthened further and delays continuing! Amtrak shot itself right in the foot on this maneuver. 

There are few road conductors that can actually switch cars.  The days of the prior right conductor are long gone.  I hired out in 1976 and retired from Amtrak in 2017.  Believe me when I say, you wouldn't want to be on a train today,  if switching has to occur.