Amtrak #338 Breaks down at Milw Airport,,,with ME on board

Along with another person, I had an Amtrak trip booked from the Milwaukee Airport to Aberdeen, MD, via the “Hiawatha”, “Capitol Limited”, and “NEC Regional”. Plus I had managed to get a real good price on a “Bedroom” on the “Cap”, even though I booked it only five days before the February 9th departure.

The Hiawatha arrived on time for the 3:10 PM stop at MKA, but never got rolling again. The air system had suddenly gone faulty – they stopped and restarted the locomotive hoping that it would “reboot” it, but with no luck. We all sat there for quite a while listening to the “we’re trying” and “we’ll keep you informed” announcements. Most of the time the engine stayed running, so there were only limited interruptions to the power and heating inside the coaches. However, for us two, it reached the point, in time, when there was no way that we could make it to the 6:40 PM departure of the #30 in Chicago. By this time, they had decided to wait for the northbound Hiawatha, and it was going to push the southbound back to the downtown Milwaukee station.

I called the Amtrak Rewards reservation number and got through immediately and explained our circumstance (arriving 24 hours late would not meet our commitments in Maryland) and was issued a refund to the purchasing credit card. We then exited the train, as the northbound had just arrived, and the crew was working on the coupling process – we were not the only passengers on our train to bail. The two of us then took the shuttle over to the airport terminal – as we rode away the train still hadn’t moved, and the passengers on the northbound had yet to detrain as they were too far south of the platform. I have no knowledge of when the combined train actually reached MKE.

At the airport terminal, we negotiated a one-way car rental to our destination in Maryland. We drove all night, arriving at about 7:00 AM (Central time), whereas our train booking wouldn’t have gotten us there until 4:09 PM (Eastern Time). A friend of mine, who lives in the Milwaukee area, and who knew I had booked this train trip, called me the next day, asking if it was MY train, as the incident had made the Milwaukee television news.
In my 30 plus years of riding Amtrak this might have been the worst glitch. I hold no ill will toward Amtrak, knowing what their situation is and the problems that the cold weather can bring. My biggest disappointment was the fact that my traveling companion was a “rookie” and I was hoping to showcase the positive aspects of train travel.

Note: The two of us are both from the La Crosse, WI area, but Amtrak will not, at this time, sell you a (same day) connection from the #8 Empire Builder to the #30 Capitol Limited (or to the #50 Cardinal/Hoosier State). Thus, in order to avoid overnighting in either Milwaukee or Chicago, we had arranged to drive a vehicle to Milwaukee, for an auto dealer, in order to get to the airport train station.

Scoring Guy wrote:Note: The two of us are both from the La Crosse, WI area, but Amtrak will not, at this time, sell you a (same day) connection from the #8 Empire Builder to the #30 Capitol Limited (or to the #50 Cardinal/Hoosier State). Thus, in order to avoid overnighting in either Milwaukee or Chicago, we had arranged to drive a vehicle to Milwaukee, for an auto dealer, in order to get to the airport train station.

Interesting that they wouldn't sell you the #8 to #30 connection. When I booked my return on #8 for this coming June, the agent was originally going to book me on #30 to Toledo. I asked if there was any way she could book me on the LSL instead, and she agreed so I'm now connecting from the Empire Builder to the LSL, but if I hadn't asked she would have done #8 to #30.

As per the #8 to #30 connection:

Because of the high traffic on the BNSF, for the oil fields, both crude and sand trains, and the bad winter making for track problems, and slowing things down, Amtrak stopped offering a guaranteed connection from the #8 to the #30. My office is right next to the CP tracks in Bangor, WI and I see the #8 coming through 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 hours late almost every day.

It's became such a problem, that a sixth trainset has been added to the #7/27-#8/28 service so as to be able to do on time departures at both ends of the route, as the EB is equally late getting to the west coast cities, which have a much shorter turn around time than Chicago.

Scoring Guy wrote:As per the #8 to #30 connection:

Because of the high traffic on the BNSF, for the oil fields, both crude and sand trains, and the bad winter making for track problems, and slowing things down, Amtrak stopped offering a guaranteed connection from the #8 to the #30. My office is right next to the CP tracks in Bangor, WI and I see the #8 coming through 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 hours late almost every day.

It's became such a problem, that a sixth trainset has been added to the #7/27-#8/28 service so as to be able to do on time departures at both ends of the route, as the EB is equally late getting to the west coast cities, which have a much shorter turn around time than Chicago.

That's tough about the slowdowns.

Where'd the extra equipment for a 6th trainset come from?

(and wow, if that's accurate, that's really a wasteful utilization of resources unfortunately.)

I don't know where the equipment came from;
it was announced in a NARP bulletin, but without that clarification.
I suspect the small number of protection cars already at the two west coast cities plus some "borrowed" from other locations.
But I'm just guessing,,, no expert info here.

With that extra set protecting the west coast departures, Theoretically they could now depart the #8/28 earlier from the west coast, so as to have a better chance at arriving into Chicago in mid-afternoon, but of course the connection from the northbound Coast Starlight is lost. Which is more important? Or for that matter, will the contracts with the railroad allow it to happen?

Scoring Guy wrote:I don't know where the equipment came from;
it was announced in a NARP bulletin, but without that clarification.
I suspect the small number of protection cars already at the two west coast cities plus some "borrowed" from other locations.
But I'm just guessing,,, no expert info here.

With that extra set protecting the west coast departures, Theoretically they could now depart the #8/28 earlier from the west coast, so as to have a better chance at arriving into Chicago in mid-afternoon, but of course the connection from the northbound Coast Starlight is lost. Which is more important? Or for that matter, will the contracts with the railroad allow it to happen?

One problem with you ( often offered) suggestion of departing the west coast earlier is enroute crew rest.. I won't go into the details here, but departing earlier brings a whole different batch of issues into play. That is not to say that it cannot work, but it further complicates things.

amtrak likely has extra equipment during the winter when demand is down.

Suburban Station wrote:amtrak likely has extra equipment during the winter when demand is down.

Bingo, plus some equipment was shuffled west to compensate. Additionally, the western PTC test trains operated in cooperation with BNSF and UP aren't running right now.

This is slightly off topic but for the record, just about all same day connections at CHI from the Builder are discontinued.

Nuts that they couldn't find something to tow the train in - you've got two very busy railroad towns in CHI and MKE with all kinds of passenger and freight traffic in between. Amtrak, CP, WSOR, Bueller...

It also absolutely destroys the railroad's credibility when a corridor trip goes back like this. Four hour delay on LD train? No problem, you're a dope not to expect such. Even a cross-country airline passenger has a reasonable risk of a 4 hour delay. More than 20 minutes delay on a Hiawatha? That's crazy. You just ruined any hope of being drive-competitive and probably scared away a handful of potential repeat business travelers who will never try the train again.

I don't ride the Hi for vacation, I ride it for work. I have to be at meetings on time. If they're 4 hours down, I look like a schmuck.

Tadman wrote:Nuts that they couldn't find something to tow the train in - you've got two very busy railroad towns in CHI and MKE with all kinds of passenger and freight traffic in between. Amtrak, CP, WSOR, Bueller...

It also absolutely destroys the railroad's credibility when a corridor trip goes back like this. Four hour delay on LD train? No problem, you're a dope not to expect such. Even a cross-country airline passenger has a reasonable risk of a 4 hour delay. More than 20 minutes delay on a Hiawatha? That's crazy. You just ruined any hope of being drive-competitive and probably scared away a handful of potential repeat business travelers who will never try the train again.

I don't ride the Hi for vacation, I ride it for work. I have to be at meetings on time. If they're 4 hours down, I look like a schmuck.

Have you ever troubleshooted a locomotive? Especially with these computer-driven models, there are literally hundreds of little things that can go wrong. Then there's also the fact that a new problem that crops up can sometimes trigger another existing, latent problem, which the loco had managed to keep running with all along. This puts the number of possibilities well into the thousands. What I'm trying to say is that it usually takes more than twenty minutes - just because there are so many different ways to attack the problem, and so many different things you have to try.

The reason why the other Amtrak trainset is almost always used as the "rescue engine" is simple - because that other equipment is never more than an hour and a half away. In light of that fact, the expensive proposition of getting a freight engine is usually ruled out right away. Anyway, by the time an available engine and an available crew are hunted up, chances are a whole bunch of time will have already elapsed. The CP's operations in both Milwaukee and Bensenville are quite lean these days - and of course getting from BVille to the C&M is already a nightmare as it is. (As information, the Sturtevant switch engine has not been around for a couple of years now.) If the breakdown happens in Metra territory, you MIGHT get a shove from the next Metra revenue train - but you definitely will not get a special rescue engine from Metra, because again, it doesn't make sense for various reasons. Metra rarely dispatches special engines to rescue its OWN trains.

Sunday's delay to 338 was unfortunately the maximum it possibly could have been, because it happened right around the same time 337 was just leaving Chicago... bad timing, what are you gonna do? The crew was on the phone with the "diesel doctor" the entire time they were sitting there, and still couldn't get 'er going. I know this because I _was_ the engr on 337 that day. For the record, the issue ended up being a rare electrical problem that is normally not repairable in the field - only in the diesel shop. This prevented the locomotive from, well, providing any locomotion. (The air was fine. Although once we left back out of Milwaukee with the combined train as a late #340, we did have an unrelated air problem just a few minutes out of town, due to a hose parting between coaches.)

I agree that a major snafu like this is NOT GOOD for such a short haul service, but again - what are you gonna do? "It" happens. We did the best we could under the circumstances. I'm sorry about the OP having to suddenly and drastically alter his travel plans.

Eric, you make some good points and I guess my point should've been clear that my frustration is not with the crews and/or their actions that day, but rather the less than optimal maintenance all of the equipment gets. If UP or BNSF lost the power on a Z-train out west, they'd be in big trouble, so they make sure those engines are in great shape. There's no old engines or sub-par maintenance on Z-train power. Corridor trains should be treated like Z-trains, IE include funds to do proper PM's and perhaps a backup engine in each terminal. Metra generally does that, there's usually one double-header each day to move a backup engine around.

Tadman wrote:Eric, you make some good points and I guess my point should've been clear that my frustration is not with the crews and/or their actions that day, but rather the less than optimal maintenance all of the equipment gets. If UP or BNSF lost the power on a Z-train out west, they'd be in big trouble, so they make sure those engines are in great shape. There's no old engines or sub-par maintenance on Z-train power. Corridor trains should be treated like Z-trains, IE include funds to do proper PM's and perhaps a backup engine in each terminal. Metra generally does that, there's usually one double-header each day to move a backup engine around.

So which unfortunate passengers should count on getting the crappy locomotives? And where are these extra locos coming from?

There's a big difference between protecting a few Z trains and the other freight trains that already have a pretty low velocity and trying to protect passenger trains. Even coach passengers don't want to be treated as less important.

Tadman:

I'd like to advise you that not all engine problems are caused by the engine. This is the time of year that snow and ice damage the lines. As train move at speed, flying ice can shear off valves and puncture reservoir tanks. When this happens, the compressors are hard at work, trying to compensate for the leak but they are basically trying to charge the Earth's atmosphere. Eventually, this will kill the engine. As a matter of fact, someone was yammering about the 600 possibly dying because the train it was on terminated in Baltimore. It had very little to do with the locomotive and everything to do with the air leaks that stopped the engine from charging the train. With electrics, it is even more of an issue because you need a certain amount of air pressure to keep the pantograph up and even more to keep the main circuit breaker closed.

That being said, a lot what you say, but where are you getting all of the equipment to compensate for the equipment that is out of service? As you mentioned Tadman, this equipment is hard run and that has as much of an impact as maintenance. Last week, 5&6 took heavy hits due to avalanches. 6 arived in CHI almost 24 hour late. Now, you're short turning power for other trains. Now 6 arrives a full day late, and they rob the vast majority of that equipment for 30 since they used 29 (which was supposed to turn for 30) for some other train that they used for 5. Now the engines that should have received some rest are in WAS DC after running for almost 7 days straight. However, DC is short electrics, so they sent 20's and 98's diesels through to PHL. Guess what pair is taking a joyride to Florida? Now CHI is short a set and they can't even count on the rest of the trains to arrive on time to compensate. How late is inbound 8 these days?

It goes on and on. The fleet is in need of an upgrade. There are facilities begging for their protect engines and cars back. This winter has taken a serious toll on the fleet. The P32AC-DCs are in dire straits and they can't even supplement them with straight diesels to outlying points so they can short turn at Alb and protect the electric portion of the trip.

These are not excuses...they are facts and I'm sure that doesn't help the people that are stranded. However, it will get to the point that cancellation is the only step.

This is why I believe it would be better to have a 2500hp engine on each end of a train, rather than a 4500 hp engine and a NPCU. In event of an engine failure, you at least have 1/2 power to get you home. brake or hep failure in the coaches , presumably you would be able to isolate and power at least 1/2 the train.( in case of brakes continue at slow pace).

David Benton wrote:This is why I believe it would be better to have a 2500hp engine on each end of a train, rather than a 4500 hp engine and a NPCU. In event of an engine failure, you at least have 1/2 power to get you home. brake or hep failure in the coaches , presumably you would be able to isolate and power at least 1/2 the train.( in case of brakes continue at slow pace).

And just where are these 2500 hp locomotives going to come from?