Amtrak's On-Time Record in MI

[AARR]

There's a few threads around here with Amtrak's MI trains on-time record.

According to Trains Magazine's March 2011 issue, in an article by Bob Johnston (that name rings a bell Amtrak's MI trains on time arrivals was 4th worst in the entire Amtrak system with a 61.2% arrival on time. However, it is up significantly from 2008 when they posted 26%.

System wide Amtrak finsihed 79.7% for 2010, up from 71.2% from 2008.

Their best finisher is the Capital Corridor which finished 2010 at 93.2%.

I haven't read the whole article yet but after I do I'll post some more stuff here.

[PerRock]

well the average over the last 4wks for the wolverine (arrival time @ DET):
350: 34mins
352: 56mins
354: 36mins
CHI:
351: 35mins
353: 28mins
355: 11mins
Av: 33.3mins

Blue Water @ CHI: 24mins
Blue Water @ PTH: -4mins (aka early!)
Av: 10mins

PM @ CHI: 20mins
PM @ GRR: 1min
Av: 10.5mins

Total Average for Michigan Services: 24.1mins

i don't know, 61% seems a bit low compared to other Amtrak services. I would think that the Coast Starlate, Late Shore Limited, California Zephyr & the Sunset Lt. would have lower OTP then our services. That being said I don't know the time frame TM used (along with a bunch of other factors; cancellations count or not? etc), nor did I look up the OTP for the other services I mentioned, they are just ones that are "known" to be late. I was under the impression that the best trains for OTP were the Cascades & the Downeaster.

peter

[willardgarrett]

Notice how on-time performance has drastically increased since 2008? This is largely due to the fact that the railroads have significantly less traffic due to the economic downturn, which has reduced the number of trains and alleviated congestion. This is really not a result of certain stimulus packages, as some politicians want you to think. As the economy picks up again, freight traffic volumes will rise, and Amtrak's performance will fall again. The only way to have good passenger rail is through deep restructuring in the way that the USA funds transportation projects, which is not bound to happen with the current amount of automotive dollars flowing into Washington to encourage prolonged highway funding.

[Todd Cline]

I always like taking the train, but I do get frustrated with the delays. On a recent holiday trip I was talking with the conductor and he shared my disgust. He said that about the only days they could count on being on time were Christmas, Thanksgiving, and July 4th. Reason being that on those days hardly any freights were running and they "Could Roll"... My worst experience was back in Feb. 1994. I was going from Kalamazoo to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. We stopped at Englewood (south Chicago), for almost an hour for "debris on the track", we finally got into CUS just in time to see the "City of New Orleans" pulling out. Not sure why Amtrak didn't hold it for more that 50 connecting passengers, but hey, they put us up in a decent hotel for the night. Next day, finally aboard the "City", I settled in for a nice trip, or so I thought. The train was overcrowded, crew was flustered, cafe service attendants were not very friendly. Then at Memphis things really started to go down hill. There was a bad ice storm in Mississippi the night before and the IC main through Grenada was blocked by trees, etc. So we were re-routed on the old Yazoo district. ( Ironically, the current CNO route ). At that time it was still a freight only route so we were ambling along at no more than 40 mph. Then they ran out of food. We had to stop at some backwater town in Mississippi for over an hour while they arranged for a truckload of KFC box lunches to show up. By this time the "unfriendly" cafe crew was downright hostile and promptly closed the car after the cold KFC boxes were distributed. Arrival in New Orleans was for me, a day and a half late. Upon getting to my reserved hotel, I was informed that since I hadn't checked in on time my room (non-refundable) had been sold to someone else. Have you ever tried to find a room in New Orleans during Mardi Gras? Luckily I had arranged this vacation with a few friends that had decided to FLY down there instead of Amtrak. After all my talking to them about how great the train would be, about getting there is half the fun, I was happy to have their offer of a "roll-away-bed" in their room. No thanks to Amtrak!

That was over 15 years ago, I can only hope things have improved .....

[willardgarrett]

From the stories I hear, they really haven't. It's still all about freight congestion and the domino effects of it. The equipment has probably improved, but wholesale changes have not occurred west of the Eastern Seaboard.

[Jochs]

My last Amtrak trip was a bus into Michigan because the California Zephyr arrived into Chicago about 8 hours late and I missed my connecting train.

All Amtrak trains in Michigan must go on the NS in Indiana and Illinois, and are often delayed by NS. The Capital Ltd and Lakeshore are also screwed by NS in Northern IN quite often.

[ns8401]

My last Amtrak trip was a bus into Michigan because the California Zephyr arrived into Chicago about 8 hours late and I missed my connecting train.

All Amtrak trains in Michigan must go on the NS in Indiana and Illinois, and are often delayed by NS. The Capital Ltd and Lakeshore are also screwed by NS in Northern IN quite often.

NS Doesn't give priority to Amtrak west of CP 482 (Porter), The dispatchers try but traffic is so heavy right now that they have some trouble keeping freights out of the way... 482-497 is a mess on the Chicago line...

[SD80MAC]

I used to have really good luck with Amtrak, but my last 2 trips have been pretty rough.

In July I took the Pere Marquette to Chicago then the Zephyr to Denver. The PM was about an hour late getting into CUS due to signal problems on the NS, but since the Zephyr didn't leave until around 2:30, I didn't really care. The Zephyr left on time and we made it to Denver about 45 minutes early the next morning. The trip on the way back was everything the trip out wasn't. Torrential rains in Iowa had us running at restricted speed through most of Iowa and Illinois. We arrived in Chicago about 3 hours late, and I missed the PM back to GR. I was told I was lucky, though, as the previous day's Zephyr had been about 10 hours late. Thankfully they put myself and the other people who had missed 370 due to late connecting trains on a van and we actually beat the train into GR despite it having over an hour head start.

In December I again took 370 to CUS then got on 21, the Texas Eagle, for Bloomington, IL. 370 was again over an hour late due to "signal problems" on the NS. Got on the Texas Eagle and arrived in Bloomington on time. A few days later, I waited around for over 2 hours for 22 to get to Bloomington, never was told what the hold up was. We got to Chicago roughly 2 hours late. Though late, I still had 2 hours before 370 left for Grand Rapids. Checking the monitors, I noticed they didn't show 370 at any gate, or any track. Finally it appeared, but there was still no track displayed. We were told the train would be leaving about an hour late. We were told this 3 more times until FINALLY the train backed into the station at 9:30 pm CST, or 10:30 PM EST, 10 minutes AFTER the train was supposed to have arrived in Grand Rapids! We all got on, and I'm pleased to say it was the fastest trip from Chicago to GR on the train I had ever made. Once we pulled out of CUS we never stopped once until the first station stop at St. Joseph, about an hour after we had left Chicago. We sailed right along and got into GR before 2 am, not bad considering we had left at about 10:45 pm. For the record, it was extremely cold that night and apparently they were having problems with the track, switches, cars and the locomotives, which was the reason for the 4 hour delay.

I realize that most of the time the delays aren't Amtrak's fault, but they're annoying nonetheless. It really makes me stop and think about how much of a joke Amtrak really is, compared to the rest of the world's passenger rail systems. We've got trains that on average only go about 20 mph faster or so than a freight darting between freight trains on already busy routes. Something needs to be done, I want Amtrak to suceed and continue to improve, but I don't know what.

[ns8401]

Signal problems = Sitting in the hole at say Burns Harbor waiting on two or three freights to pass, at least in my experience on the Wolverine to and from Chi-town.

You fix the problems by having Amtrak work out deals with the freight railroads to give the train a higher priority (similar in stature to an intermodal train lets say) and then that way the slow junk freights and unit trains can get out of the way and the delays are lessened, I'm not blaming everything on NS, but it seems that the dispatchers don't plan very well for them coming on and off at Porter. They should usually be able to slip Amtrak in and run it around freights on the largely triple track down there.