The Blue Comet wrote:Am a retired Airline pilot who also spent 30 years flying large Air Force Transports (C-141, KC-10's) and was always in the publics eyes in evacuation or large scale WX events. I keep reflecting on the incredible effort during the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 and the failed attempt to rescue so many standee in the Keys. I can't help wondering why Amtrac didn't have countless evacuation trains running North out of South Florida. What a shame. A Federally subsidized interest going to waste
SIMPLE Amtrak does not have sufficient equipment to stage a large scale evacuation or any evacuation for that matter. It is a shame but it is what it is. Another issue is where would they go? The CSX route roughly follows the path of this storm more or less. All of the routes are buttoned up for the duration. Tri-Rail, Amtrak, CSX and the Florida East Coast ran their last trains late in the day Thursday. The crossing gates are wired to their posts to secure them from damage, the wider crossings with long gates will have the gates removed and stored in a safe location. All signals are disconnected and other measures taken to protect vital railroad property.
Update an hour or so ago we received a number of tornado warnings, I don't know whether any actually touched down or not but they showed funnel clouds on the TV along the beach. Even if we do not get a direct hit this is a very serious storm. I don't know whether I will be posting tomorrow or not, have to wait it out.
The train is of limited use in the event of a large evacuation order and I don't really know whether it would be worth the effort. There is a lot of available equipment with the Tri-Rail trains but the rail lines are OOS anyway. Probably other transportation works better at least here and in this case.
Noel Weaver