Noticed/Questioned Major Delays, Annulments, Reroutes

JimBoylan wrote:Did the Cafe get restocked enroute, possibly ma train in the opposite direction, as the Performance Improvement Plans suggest?

Not really. Somehow they got more microwave hotdogs and cheeseburgers in Albany (but nothing else).

The attendant was an artist. He spent all day telling people he didn't have what they wanted, suggesting something else (the yogurt was the last thing to go) and no one got audibly ticked off.

A67 (16) is currently operating 5 hours late. Departed New York at 8:00 AM on 2-17-15.

Did Wolverine #354 (15th) really drop 9'00" from DET to PNT? Shows 47" late at DET and 9' 56" Ar. PNT.

Crescent and Meteor both 4-5 hours late

Amtrak is reporting "Status currently unavailable due to service disruption" for the Cardinals, possibly due to a CSX derailment in West Virginia.

According to this: http://www.boston.com/news/weather/2015 ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, the 7AM Acela out of Union Station died near Providence, and the passengers (including Ed Davis, former Chief of Police in Boston) were gangplanked over to an MBTA commuter rail train.

As the train approached Providence, things went downhill.

“Everything died. The train lost power completely,” Davis said. “Next thing you know, an MBTA commuter rail train comes up next to us. The whole Acela evacuated on a gangplank and came across to the MBTA trai

I just got an email that my west(south) bound Northeast regional 85 (leaving Trenton NJ at 4:00 PM to Washington) for tomorrow was cancelled ("service disruption" they say) . Looking at the Amtrak site to find another train, I see it is listed as "sold out" (which I think they do when something is cancelled). I then looked at leaving Philadelphia to reschedule (since it has more options including Acela), and about 1/2 of the trains for tomorrow afternoon are "sold out". Anyone know if there is a major disruption and these are all really cancelled, not "sold out". Or is business really that good.
There was some minor snow last night, but not a big deal.
JS

JimBoylan wrote:Amtrak is reporting "Status currently unavailable due to service disruption" for the Cardinals, possibly due to a CSX derailment in West Virginia.

CSX dropped a few oil tanks into the Kanawha River in WV, and set some on fire for good measure. http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 3&t=158902" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
These were the new type of tank cars with the latest standards I read somewhere else, so I suppose it could have been worse. JS

KYW 1060 AM Radio in Philadelphia mentions on the Traffic & Transit Reports that Amtrak is using a modified schedule on the NorthEast Corridor due to the weather. I guess that means that not all of the trains are running.

.

Last two days I had three segments on Empire and NEC.

Empire train ALB-NYP left 1.5 hrs late. arrived 2 hrs late.
first NEC train on time. (one of the few Sunday afternoon, it appeared)
second NEC train left Washington Union Station (it's originating point) 1hr 40 mins late. (I was going to Baltimore and ditched Amtrak in favor of an on-time MARC).

Lots of frozen doors, missed MetroNorth slot, "stops for an alarm". I suppose a lot of this is forgivable given the weather. Trains were full and switching to another was impossible.

I can take most of this in stride, except the very late NEC Regional originating WUS that left 1hr 40 mins late. There were no announcements other than "delayed due to incoming equipment" with no estimated departure time ever given. And there appeared to be at least one available Amfleet train sitting empty at the scheduled departure time.

Amtrak now has a service alert up for the NEC: "modified schedule ... in the aftermath of a winter storm." Also, on the Amtrak ticketing website, almost all the trains for today that showed up yesterday as "sold out" now show up as "cancelled" - about 1/2 of the NY to Washington trains in the afternoon.

I still don't get what "winter storm" they are talking about . Monday night there was only about 4-6" of very fluffy snow from Washington up to central NJ, with much less further north. The streets were all dry by early afternoon. Clearly something else is going on.
JS
EDIT: Metro North (NY to New Haven) and NJ Transit (NY to Trenton) all are showing normal service w/o delays.

I have a friend coming in on 2160 from NYP to Route 128 and that was cancelled. Fortunately, she seems to be able to be re-ticketed on 2158 leaving NYP an hour earlier (12:03).

Regional 181 (NYP-WAS) was all Amfleet IIs this morning.

That seemed strange to me, but I am not a regular on the corridor, so I apologize if this is not noteworthy.

Finally just got on NEC train 173 at Trenton for Washington , 2 hours late. The conductor says it will be just as bad tomorrow with cancellations - he has never seen so much equipment & trains out of service. (and he looks my age, like he has been around a long time).

Looking at tickets for tomorrow 12:00 noon to 6:00 PM, Philadelphia to DC, 6 of 10 trains are cancelled on the Amtrak website already, 2 are sold out, and only 2 have tickets available. What the heck is going on??
JS