Passenger Trains > One Crazy #3 and a question

My Great Granddaughter and I got on #3 in Newton, KS.  The train was early and at 2:30 we went right to bed.  We woke up for breakfast near Colorado.  We were mostly on time I think, as everything was going well.  We ten made it to Raton doing well.  Our oat Raton we were informed that due to every high winds, we would be going 50 MPH in to ABQ.  The dust was kicking up quite a bit.  A few miles out of Wagon Mound we looked outside the train and the dust began to look like fires and sure enough it was fire.  About the time I spied the fire, we were informed the train would stop until the fire was gone. The fire on the north side of the train was where it began and was not very large. It actually jumped the tracks and then took off.  Our of fear the Conductor ordered the train to back up to Wagon Mound.  As a firefighter for 24 years I knew fire does not start and burn against the wind, but we had to live with it.  We sat at Wagon Mound for several hours.  The fire was past us, but then there was some concern that the tracks may not be rail worthy, so we had to wait until some BNSF people could inspect the tracks.  Finally, after being down at least five hours (I don't know exactly how long), with no word from anyone, we started to move west again. We finally made it into ABQ about 7 hours down.  

i went to sleep then and woke up early as we encountered snow in and around Flagstaff.  That slowed us down more.  Now to counter more delay.  We stopped several ways out side of Flagstaff due to the Engineer dying on time.  I took about 1 1/2 hours to get a new guy. The rest of the trip was non eventful.  The food was excellent, the new look in Sleepers, Dining cars and the Coaches are tremendous.  I love the new leather looking seats.  I love the new tables in the dining car.  I was in a sleeper, but went to check out the coach.  I love the new rest room look. Could Amtrak be doing something right?  Our attendance, Mis's (I think that is the way she spelled her name) was wonderful and worth every bit of a top.

Now the question:  I understand the Engineer dying on time.  I am sure he knew he would die while we were in Flag.  Why did they move us to a remote location to wait on help and a replacement?  Knowing it would happen, and knowing we were already very late, didn't they have someone to keep us going? The fire and the snow and the wind we all understood, but none of understood the change of the guard when it should not have happened.  Can someone give a good explanation?

The replacement crew was almost certainly the LAX based crew that normally changes at Kingman to go thru to LAX. By moving the train closer to Kingman it reduced the distance they would have to come out to get to you. This was especially important when you consider that Interstate 40 was closed due to weather Thursday and all day Friday so the crew might not get to you at all if you had waited in Flagstaff for them.
Another issue is that the LAX Amtrak operating crews are not qualified east of Kingman so BNSF would need to provide a pilot crew as well so they would have to get thru the snow and out to the train from wherever they were, most likely Needles.
Another factor to consider is that because the Kingman crew went on duty well before the train got to Kingman, they almost certainly timed out as well forcing Amtrak to find yet another route qualified crew to relieve somewhere along the way.

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they may have wanted to get every ounce of productivity out of that crew, the new crew may have had a late start getting to you due to mandatory rest and bnsf may not have wanted to plug the main in flagstaff even if the crew died there?  which is unfortunate be neat to walk to a establishment if they knew it would be 90 minutes before you would be able to move. .  3 people died in the 24 hours previous at Flagstaff priorto your train   on the tracks killed by freight trains, and that may have caused congestion that resulted in your trains problem.   A a not so fluid situation.

INTLRAILTRAVELLER Wrote:
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> Another factor to consider is that because the
> Kingman crew went on duty well before the train
> got to Kingman, they almost certainly timed out as
> well forcing Amtrak to find yet another route
> qualified crew to relieve somewhere along the way.

IF the LAX crew did in fact get on the train at Seligman (the remote spot mentioned by the OP) then they were on-duty for 10 more hours as the train arrived in LA just shy of 10 hours after leaving Seligman.  Since it takes about 1 hour and 15 minutes to make the drive from Kingman to Seligman, the LAX crew didn't have a lot of spare time.  It is entirely possible they were relieved somewhere on the journey.

Thanks guys, I did not know, but now I do.