Passenger Trains > The small lie... leads to...?

If you say it enough, the unwashed will believe it! Freight train interference, weather alerts, etc... Same excuse that was used yesterday on A 351(27).. Problem is it's sunny and relatively warm in Michigan. AI can't explain the delay, so just make one up and hope nobody notices any different... HA!

* Train 351 of 10/28/2025.

* V V V V V V V V
* PNT * * 1 543A * 543A Departed: On time.
* TRM 1 555A 1 556A 558A 601A Arrived: 3 minutes late. | Departed: 5 minutes late.
* ROY 1 602A 1 603A 608A 610A Arrived: 6 minutes late. | Departed: 7 minutes late.
* DET 1 623A 1 626A 631A 635A Arrived: 8 minutes late. | Departed: 9 minutes late.
* DER 1 642A 1 644A 649A 653A Arrived: 7 minutes late. | Departed: 9 minutes late.
* ARB 1 711A 1 714A 721A 738A Arrived: 10 minutes late. | Departed: 24 minutes late.
* JXN 1 749A 1 751A 813A 813A Arrived: 24 minutes late. | Departed: 22 minutes late.
* ALI 1 814A 1 815A 829A 829A Arrived: 15 minutes late. | Departed: 14 minutes late.
* BTL 1 842A 1 848A 909A 918A Arrived: 27 minutes late. | Departed: 30 minutes late.
* KAL 1 914A 1 916A 939A 943A Arrived: 25 minutes late. | Departed: 27 minutes late.
* CHI 1 1032A * * 1055A * Arrived: 23 minutes late.
_
_
_ **** D E L A Y S ****
_
_ 10/28/25 8:57am EDT
_ Delay Notification: As of 8:51 AM ET Train 351 is currently
_ operating approximately 25 minutes late due to weather-related
_ delays.
_
_ 10/28/25 11:34am EDT
_ Delay Notification: As of 7:51 AM CT Train 351 is currently
_ operating approximately 25 minutes late due to weather-related
_ delays.

There is a hurricane hitting Jamaica. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/28/25 09:56 by joemvcnj.

Amtrak’s reports may sometimes be unclear and inaccurate, but you shouldn’t accuse someone of lying without definitive proof. It’s one thing to say “good weather in Michigan makes this report suspect.” It’s another thing to accuse someone of deliberate falsehood.

What delay code did the train report? Can you provide that to me? Can you give me a mapping of what delay codes Amtrak simplifies to “weather related”?

For example, maybe a tree randomly fell on the tracks. That could be reported as weather-related.

Posted from iPhone

"There is a hurricane hitting Jamaica"

Won't that cancel trains in the Pacific Northwest?  If the State of Washington has anything to do with it, probably...

I was booked ont he Cardinal from Chicago to Huntington years ago.  I arrived at Union Station 9in the 90s) to learn that the bird was canceled "due to the hurricane."  I laughed and thought they were joking.  The hurricane was grazing Florida and was not that intense, nor was it coming north.  She was not kidding.  CSX told Amtrak "no" due to the fact that their dispatching was in JAX.  But what really put me into orbit was the fact that the Capitol Limited still operated!  As did everything else in the east, other than the Florida trains.  

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

I grabbed SW Airlines to Columbus.  Happily, I had had a ride to HUN, so no car to retrieve.  I told SW the story, and the agent gave me FOUR free drink tickets.  I used two.

Actually, we've had a lot of rain here in the Northwest over the last four days or so.  I'm surprised we haven't had any train cancellations due to landslides, meaning BNSF's 48-hour passenger train "mudslide moratorium," which in my opinion should be struck down by the FRA or some other regulator, or forceably applied to all Hazmat trains.

I hope Miami is able to manage shoveling their snow.

PumpkinHogger Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I hope Miami is able to manage shoveling their
> snow.
>
> Georgia is in the '30's with freezing rain,
> the sand is blowing everwhere.

I don't see why you are entitled to any detailed delay notification. It's literally not Amtrak's job to pander to gadflies on the internet. For all you know they are running the official delay notes through a machine learning classifier because it is literally not worth an employee's time to code them by hand.

Tracks are inspected in warm weather all of the time.

It's like flying and taking off (or trying to) from the coast when there's severe wx in Chicago or Atlanta. We were watching college golf near ATL and the kids were freezing. I would imagine the airport is a miserable place to be right now. Something similar probably happened with Amtrak.

Rebecca Morgan
Jacobsburg, OH

NPRocky Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Actually, we've had a lot of rain here in the
> Northwest over the last four days or so.  I'm
> surprised we haven't had any train cancellations
> due to landslides, meaning BNSF's 48-hour
> passenger train "mudslide moratorium," which in my
> opinion should be struck down by the FRA or some
> other regulator, or forceably applied to all
> Hazmat trains.

That usually happens in the winter!

Posted from Android

Actually, trees on tracks and landslides are our problems with nature out here in Cascades land, but there's been a lot of work on that and we just made it through a weekend of heavy rain with no problems.  As far as I know, the Washington Department of Transportation doesn't have a bad reputation when it comes to train cancellations.  The big problem now is that Amtrak Seattle Maintenance is still having trouble finding enough people to keep up with its workload after losing a bunch of people to Sound Transit's light rail program, so we've been occasionally running short of working trains and locomotives.

But for a while it was happening far too often in certain places along the Cascades route, and happily a lot of successful work, mostly drainage work and retaining walls, has been done to get the problem now pretty much under control.

mbrotzman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I don't see why you are entitled to any detailed
> delay notification. It's literally not Amtrak's
> job to pander to gadflies on the internet. For all
> you know they are running the official delay notes
> through a machine learning classifier because it
> is literally not worth an employee's time to code
> them by hand.

Want some sour grapes with your cheesy whine??

Keith_Kevet

Posted from Android