Amtrak Capitol Limited Thread

[Ken W2KB]

Oh the Capitol Limited is stranded and the Silver Star, Silver Meteor and Auto Train are all stuck in Richmond "stuck" as there are tons of trees and wires down on the RF&P. Best that could happen is they at least try to keep beverages and food flowing to the trains stuck in Richmond. And with all the single level overnight long distance trains essentially canceled at least (minimum) through tomorrow, Sunday February 7th, it would prudent of Amtrak to try and add Amfleets and Viewliners to the Lake Shore Limited to try and get what will likely be a backlog of passengers from the Midwest to the East Coast. Pennsylvanian could be extended to Chicago temporarily with Viewliners and a Diner to Chicago in place of the Capitol Limited west of Pittsburgh. The Pennsylvanian, ironically, is still running as per last reports. I just don't see the mess between Washington DC and the Carolinas getting cleared up at least until Monday, if not Tuesday......then another storm is supposed to hit in some regions on the Northeast on Tuesday, February 9.

The wires and trees entangled therewith, to the extent they are power lines, will need the utility to remove them. The railroads do not have anyone qualified to do that work, so the railroad is essentially held hostage to the utility's storm system restoration plan.

[neroden]

The wires and trees entangled therewith, to the extent they are power lines, will need the utility to remove them. The railroads do not have anyone qualified to do that work, so the railroad is essentially held hostage to the utility's storm system restoration plan.

Huh. I would lay bets any electrified railroad *would* have people qualified to do that work. But I guess CSX isn't an electrified railroad.

[Sirsonic]

The employees of an electrified railroad, qualified to work on energized circuts, would know better than to attempt work on lines they have no control over, such as those owned by the power company.

[David Benton]

The wires and trees entangled therewith, to the extent they are power lines, will need the utility to remove them. The railroads do not have anyone qualified to do that work, so the railroad is essentially held hostage to the utility's storm system restoration plan.

Huh. I would lay bets any electrified railroad *would* have people qualified to do that work. But I guess CSX isn't an electrified railroad.

Probably not . traction wires are considered quite different from utility wires , and would entail different training . for example traction wire is usually a single single phase wire , whereas utility wiring involves several wires of different phases , quite close together .
Here , tradesmen are allowed to handle higher voltage traction wires , than their level of training would allow , if they were utility wires .

[neroden]

Very interesting. I figured that there would at least be some people on an electric railroad handling really high voltage distribution lines, who would therefore be qualified to handle smaller residential distribution lines dropping on the tracks, at least sufficiently to get them *off* the tracks.

[TREnecNYP]

That snowed in train is a trip. I want to see a steam powered rotary plow!!!!

- A

[FFolz]

Looks like Amtrak still hasn't learned that a two-minute speech can generate enormous customer goodwill.

Hazards of having management based in Washington, DC. WMATA treats every "incident" like a full-blown national security emergency. IMO, their attitude is completely unacceptable, but that's where that culture is coming from.

From a (public transit) labor point of view, it also doesn't help that communications has been "professionalized". Here's what happens: management (maybe as a result of bad public relations incident) decides they need real marketing, etc so they hire marketroids. These people may be pleasant to talk to but they know bupkis about transit (and often give inaccurate info to the newspapers). Because they now have "professional" communication, and perhaps they also fear the voice of disgruntled personnel, mgmt forbids all front-line employees from talking to media. Mix in a few incidents where employees speak to passengers (which is technically against policy for operators b/c of the distraction factor) who turn out to be journalists, and you'll have people made an example of or fired for talking. End result: front line employees are forbidden/highly discouraged from giving ANY information during a serious incident. They won't talk because they're afraid of being fired. The marketing/communications experts up the line of course don't get involved until way too late for the passengers to care. (They work 9-5 and have no direct line into or experience with operations. The answer would be to train operations personnel in marketing/comms to have the best of both worlds, but in my experience in the US since the 1990's this is never done.)

Now in practice I've heard of many examples where Western train crews have done "emergency management" due to delays or incidents and earned the goodwill of passengers by making sure they had food even in the middle of nowhere and so on. That can happen in an environment where the crew chief etc is not punished by district management for making decisions.

IME, almost no-one who deals front-line with patrons wants to make patrons unhappy! (Unless the patron is a real ass. >:D) However, almost all of them want to keep their job.

[FatNoah]

Now in practice I've heard of many examples where Western train crews have done "emergency management" due to delays or incidents and earned the goodwill of passengers by making sure they had food even in the middle of nowhere and so on.

Almost three years ago, I was on a very trackwork-delayed (8+ hours) Sunset Limited headed from LA to San Antonio. UP trackwork caused most of the delays, though an hour stop so Border Patrol could snag a passenger didn't help either. The crew of the train kept us well-informed and even held an impromptu story time to entertain the numerous children onboard. When we arrived very late in San Antonia, several motorcoaches well-stocked with bottled water and donuts were waiting and several crew members directed people to the proper buses.

Obviously individual crew initiative played a part in that customer relations success. I wonder what it would take to apply that lesson to other services.

[AMTKHawkeye]

Because they now have "professional" communication, and perhaps they also fear the voice of disgruntled personnel, mgmt forbids all front-line employees from talking to media. Mix in a few incidents where employees speak to passengers (which is technically against policy for operators b/c of the distraction factor) who turn out to be journalists, and you'll have people made an example of or fired for talking. End result: front line employees are forbidden/highly discouraged from giving ANY information during a serious incident. They won't talk because they're afraid of being fired.

On the contrary, Amtrak is pushing its Conductors/ACs (of which I am one) to indeed KEEP the riders informed. We are supposed to make announcements every 15 minutes, even if it's just to say, "We have received no new information since the last update." Of course, we are instructed to use tact (i.e., a fatality is an "Incident involving a trespasser"), but experience and history has shown time and again that while the bad news will frustrate riders, the vast majority are at least appreciative and understanding to be kept informed at all. It is vital to do so for customer satisfaction reasons, and all the more important to be able to preserve Amtrak's future funding levels. (And yes, achieving crew compliance with this policy is still a work in progress...)

[ToledoRailFan]

It's sad that people can't act like rational adults in a lot of these cases and realize how little control the people operating the train have over the situation. It's the same thing with flying... I fly quite frequently, and it never amazes me to see how people act.

It quite sad when you catch someone in a service position off guard because of being polite and understanding to them - it happens damn near every time I travel during a peak season.

[jhdeasy]

When did train 29 of February 5th depart Connellsville, or is it still stuck there?

Did it eventually go all the way to CHI?

Update please ....

[JimBoylan]

These are the dates scheduled to arrive in Chicago:
From the "Status" tab at Amtrak.com: 29 2/6 Chicago Arrived: 27 hours and 28 minutes late. 12:13 p.m., probably on Sun. 2/7
29 2/7 did not operate
29 2/8 & 2/9 "Information Unavailable: Sorry, due to a service disruption, we are unable to provide estimated departure and arrival times."

[steve4031]

I read that passengers were bussed from the stranded 29 to Pittsburg. Then they were put on 30's equipment that left Chicago Friday night. I don't know where the original 29 equipment is. It was trapped between a derailment and other stalled equipment

[JimBoylan]

These are the dates scheduled to arrive in Washington for Train 30, the Eastbound Capitol Ltd.:
From the "Status" tab at Amtrak.com:
29 2/6, 2/8 & 2/9 "Information Unavailable: Sorry, due to a service disruption, we are unable to provide estimated departure and arrival times."
29 2/7 did not operate

[TomNelligan]

[On the contrary, Amtrak is pushing its Conductors/ACs (of which I am one) to indeed KEEP the riders informed. We are supposed to make announcements every 15 minutes, even if it's just to say, "We have received no new information since the last update."

I think that's absolutely the right idea from a customer service standpoint. I find it far less frustrating to be told, say, "we're going to be here for about an hour and then we should be moving along" and know what to expect than to simply be stopped in the middle of nowhere with no explanation. And while I know some passengers will always be idiots, I would hope that most folks don't blame the train crews for simply passing along info about circumstances outside their control.