:wtf:

I found what trackage were used for each Broadway/Three Rivers. Go to donwinter.com/Railroad Infrastructure and traffic data/Amtrak. It's more than I understand. What would be the route if a new Broadway Limited/Three Rivers would return?

:wtf:

I found what trackage were used for each Broadway/Three Rivers. Go to donwinter.com/Railroad Infrastructure and traffic data/Amtrak. It's more than I understand. What would be the route if a new Broadway Limited/Three Rivers would return?

 

The Broadway/Three Rivers wouldn't return absent a change in federal policy, as Amtrak cannot add new services that add to its operating budget shortfall.

 

But I can tell you what routing it used west of Pittsburgh from 1994-2005:

> Pittsburgh Penn Station to Rochester, PA: Conrail/NS Fort Wayne Line along northerly side of Ohio River

> Rochester, PA to New Castle Jct, PA (aka Mahonington): Conrail/NS Youngstown Line along east side of Beaver River to Chewton/Wampum where it crosses to west side of Beaver River, then to Mahonington to where the Youngstown Line crosses back to the northerly side of the river.

> New Castle Jct, PA to Clark Jct./Gary, IN.

:wtf:

I found what trackage were used for each Broadway/Three Rivers. Go to donwinter.com/Railroad Infrastructure and traffic data/Amtrak. It's more than I understand. What would be the route if a new Broadway Limited/Three Rivers would return?

 

The Broadway/Three Rivers wouldn't return absent a change in federal policy, as Amtrak cannot add new services that add to its operating budget shortfall.

 

But I can tell you what routing it used west of Pittsburgh from 1994-2005:

> Pittsburgh Penn Station to Rochester, PA: Conrail/NS Fort Wayne Line along northerly side of Ohio River

> Rochester, PA to New Castle Jct, PA (aka Mahonington): Conrail/NS Youngstown Line along east side of Beaver River to Chewton/Wampum where it crosses to west side of Beaver River, then to Mahonington to where the Youngstown Line crosses back to the northerly side of the river.

> New Castle Jct, PA to Clark Jct./Gary, IN.

 

KJP, tell the story of how the connection at Mahonington/New Castle Junction came about. A classic case of people refusing to listen until they were forced to.

 

KJP, tell the story of how the connection at Mahonington/New Castle Junction came about. A classic case of people refusing to listen until they were forced to.

 

Let me settle into my rocking chair. OK, now gather 'round.... So way back in the Fall of 1989 when I was just 22 years old, Amtrak was being forced by Conrail to relocate its Capitol Limited (CHI-WDC) and Broadway Limited (CHI-NYC) off the Fort Wayne Line, west of Alliance, OH to Chicago. It meant Canton, Crestline-Mansfield, Lima, Fort Wayne and Valparaiso would all lose train service for the first time in about 140 years. Conrail wanted to downgrade the Fort Wayne Line from 70-79 mph max speeds to 49 mph west of Crestline by replacing trackside signals with radio orders, no longer maintaining the track to tolerances for passenger train standards, etc. But under federal law, Conrail couldn't downgrade the line as long as there were passenger trains on that route. So Conrail offered to pay for track connections and stations on new routes for the two Amtrak trains. Amtrak was looking at rerouting the Capitol Limited via Cleveland and Toledo and rerouting the Broadway Limited via Youngstown and Akron.

 

A year earlier, when I was still 21 and shaking off my youthful shyness, I was named the Akron-Canton Regional Coordinator of the Ohio Association of Railroad Passengers. I began a Cleveland-Pittsburgh rail advocacy project to get Amtrak to start train services between those two cities for the first time since 1964. In January 1989, I successfully encouraged Ross Capon, president of the National Association of Railroad Passengers, to organize a meeting with me and several Amtrak executives at their Washington DC headquarters to discuss options for restarting train service between Cleveland-Pittsburgh, preferably by extending Amtrak's New York-Pittsburgh "Pennsylvanian" to Cleveland via Youngstown. I had already become very familiar with the rail lines in these areas and knew what was physically needed to restart train services here -- right down to the number of switches. Literally -- a sad fact soon to become relevant!

 

So jump ahead again to Fall 1989, Capon called me up and said Amtrak is preparing its list of items it would like Conrail to pay for to reroute the trains. The most expensive item was a new $6 million (if I remember right) "Head In" track connection in Cleveland roughly north of East 18th Street. When finished, this new track would allow the Capitol Limited to come into the Cleveland station "head in" rather than have to pass by the station on the southernmost tracks to reach the switches at the Cuyahoga River bridge and then make a 4,500-foot back-up move into the Cleveland Amtrak station.

 

For the Chicago-New York City Broadway Limited, Amtrak preferred to reroute it via Akron and Youngstown which were on CSX track. The Broadway used Conrail track east of Pittsburgh to Harrisburg, then on to Philadelphia and New York City. That meant Amtrak had to switch from CSX to Conrail tracks somewhere between Youngstown and Pittsburgh. I asked Ross what CSX-Conrail track connection Amtrak expected to use. He said "something called Center Street in Youngstown. Do you know what that is?" I practically jumped through the phone. I told Ross that an Amtrak train would have to go through an extremely complicated and long-neglected track connection that requires a train crew member getting off the train to manually throw five switches for a train traveling in the eastbound direction and seven switches for a train traveling in the westbound direction. I told him the better connection was at New Castle which would require building only one new crossover track from CSX to an existing connecting track via the old Pittsburgh & Lake Erie RR and then to Conrail.

 

Center Street Junction was an awesome maze of connecting tracks at its peak of the Youngstown steel industry. There were five major rail lines that once passed under this bridge, plus an intra-plant switching operation at the adjacent Republic's Hazelton Works. More rail cars passed under this bridge during World War Two than under any other bridge in the world. This is what Center Street Junction looked like in 1968:

 

 

 

That's the Center Street connecting track, at far left, as it looked throughout much of the 1980s:

 

 

 

I even drew a map for Capon and faxed it to him. I kept the original and later scanned it:

 

 

 

So Ross Capon called Amtrak VP of Operations James Larson (who was nearing retirement) and told him what I had just told Ross. Larson said "There's no problem." He said Amtrak will be able to use the Center Street connection in Youngstown. Ross called me back and relayed what Larson had said. While I remember being mad, I also remember taking a "They're in for a big surprise" type of attitude toward the whole thing. With my information, OARP and NARP kept making noise in the coming months. They tried telling everyone possible -- congresspersons, media, other Amtrak staffers -- who would listen that Amtrak was going to route a train over a track connection it couldn't reliably use.

 

Amtrak's big surprise came the next summer (1990). Amtrak ran an inspection train over the new routes to verify possible train schedules. That's when they realized they screwed up. The inspection train approached the Center Street junction next to the long-cold furnaces of the Hazelton Works of Republic Steel. It took the train forever to make its way through the mud-caked, weed-infested Center Street connection, with a crew member having to walk ahead of the train and hand-throw seven switches westbound -- some of which were rusted shut and required them to fetch graphite from the watchman's shanty to lubricate the switch levers. Yes, the junction was guarded by a watchman with a lantern (night) or flag (day) to wave trains through -- just as had been done here every day since the 1890s. At least they had two-way radios now....

 

So when Amtrak's Larson got back to the office, he called Conrail reps and said "We need to include funding to build the New Castle Connection!" Conrail told him the deadline for making capital budget requests for the Capitol and Broadway reroutes had already passed -- the trains were to be rerouted in only a few months, in November 1990. What's the best way to describe how awful the Center Street track connection was? Easy. Let me tell you what was the option they resorted to.....

 

When the Broadway Limited reroute began, it did so with the westbound train backing eastward out of Pittsburgh's Penn Station at 10 mph for two miles, down a connecting track built by Amtrak in 1981 for the Capitol Limited to get from the CSX (ex B&O) mainline from Washington DC into Pittsburgh's station. The Broadway used an old secondary CSX line which curved its way northwest through Zelienople and Ellwood City (see map below), to get around Larson's screw-up. This routing from Pittsburgh to Youngstown required THREE HOURS of travel time. Yet even THAT was better than running trains through the Center Street junction.

 

 

 

I kept pitching Amtrak and PennDOT on the need for funding the New Castle connection. I made maps of those areas affected by the routing. Here's an overview I drew in 1992 of a proposed new Amtrak route using Conrail's Youngstown Line between Rochester/New Brighton, PA and New Castle, PA:

 

 

 

And here's a 1992 close-up of the New Castle trackage and existing connection between Conrail and PL&E that needed only a new crossover between the P&LE and CSX at Mahonington (P&LE was due to be acquired by CSX, which occurred a year later in 1993) to allow the Broadway Limited a routing that would be about one hour faster than the route via Zelienople/Ellwood City:

 

 

 

Then some even stranger things happened. Youngstown's steel mills were demolished by the early 1990s as was much of the rail infrastructure along with them. That included much of the connection trackage at Center Street Junction. After 100 years of service, the junction's lantern-waving watchmen gave way to a computer circuit board and some trackside signals. And the twisting alignment of the CSX mainline was realigned as a straight shot through the junction -- and through the property where the Republic Steel mill had stood. Here's a photo I took from the old steel truss spans of the Center Street bridge in 1993, looking generally west towards downtown Youngstown:

 

 

 

By late 1993 and into 1994, we finally started making headway with Amtrak. The company decided to forego PennDOT's help and instead build the New Castle Connection themselves, paying $2.6 million of Amtrak's own money to accomplish what they could have gotten done using Conrail's money -- if they had only listened to that that 22-year-old man five years earlier! So in the summer of 1994, Amtrak constructed the New Castle Connection -- FINALLY. This is a picture I took in 1994 of the finishing touches being made (mostly to the signaling and dispatcher control systems for the switches on the connection). This view is looking east on CSX with the new track connection at right, slicing southward across the ex-P&LE right of way. The bridge in the foreground is over State Route 18:

 

 

 

And if things hadn't gotten weird enough for you..... A few months later in the Fall of 1994, Amtrak discontinued the Chicago-New York City Broadway Limited! The train had been operating continuously under various owners since 1912. it was replaced by a Pittsburgh-NYC day train called the Three Rivers that ran on a different schedule than that of the PGH-NYC Pennsylvanian. So Amtrak, whose neglect of a 22-year-old guy's warning cost them a shot at a free track connection, soon paid for the $2.6 million track connection out of its own pocket, and then discontinued the only train using the track connection less than three months later!

 

Amtrak didn't realize it had orphaned the New Castle Connection until I raised the issue with them. Ironically, that orphaned track connection became a source of motivation for Amtrak. So was the fact that Amtrak was running coach cars off the Three Rivers, switching them to the Capitol Limited at Pittsburgh, and on to Chicago via Cleveland and Toledo was a big hit with travelers. It was so popular that Amtrak was running several "through" cars each way (east and west) every day and selling out every seat (about 180 total seats each way). So when Amtrak began showing interest in growing its mail/express business, the Chicago-New York route was a prime market. Amtrak agreed to extend the Three Rivers train service west of Pittsburgh to Chicago via Youngstown and Akron. Service commenced in the Fall of 1995.

 

Since it missed the larger population centers of Cleveland and Toledo (where connecting Amtrak buses to/from Detroit provided lots of passengers), the extended Three Rivers via Akron and Youngstown never gained as much ridership as the through cars between Three Rivers/Capitol Limited had. The train continued a steady business of passengers but especially mail/express shipments. It was routine for the train to have about six or seven passenger cars and twice as many mail/express cars, including a string of a half-dozen or so RoadRailers on the tail end. In total, it was not unusual to see a 20- to 25-car Three Rivers train. In 1997, mail/express business on the Three Rivers was so good, Amtrak extended the Pennsylvanian from Pittsburgh to Chicago via Cleveland and Toledo and put a ton of mail/express business on it, too. Next, Amtrak attempted to start a totally new Chicago-Cleveland-Pittsburgh-Philadelphia train called the Skyline Connection, which actually appeared in Amtrak's Summer 2000 timetable, even though the train had yet to run. These were heady times for me, as everything I had worked for to restore Pittsburgh-Cleveland trains was actually happening. In the late 1990s, there were now two Chicago-East Coast trains traveling via Cleveland and Pittsburgh with a third on the way. And the Three Rivers train was serving part of the Cleveland-Pittsburgh route.

 

Yet the mail/express business wasn't the panacea Amtrak hoped it would be. Much of it was how Amtrak operated it and marketed it. For example, Amtrak was selling the space on its own freight cars directly to shippers using its own employees, offices, overhead costs etc, whereas most freight haulers (including freight railroads) use brokers and forwarders to generate higher volume at lower costs to fill containers, boxes, trailers, well cars, etc. Another problem was that en route switching maneuvers of mail/express cars were causing significant delays to Amtrak trains. And worse of all, Amtrak was pursuing business that the track-owning freight railroads either already had or were competing with Amtrak to get. This turned the freight railroads from partners into hostile opponents. So Amtrak got out of the mail/express business.

 

With mail/express revenues no longer available, some Amtrak trains began disappearing. The proposed Skyline Connection service never ran. Then the Pennsylvanian saw its route west of Pittsburgh end in February 2003. And then came the Three Rivers -- it was eliminated entirely from Chicago to New York City, leaving Akron and Youngstown with no train service again. And Pittsburgh was left with only one daily round trip to/from Philadelphia for the first time in 150 years. The last run of the Three Rivers was in April 2005. The announcement was made the preceding Sept. 3, 2004. How do I remember? Because the following morning I drove over to Campbell, OH, just east of Youngstown, alongside the ruins of the Youngstown Sheet & Tube's Campbell Works (the first of five city-sized steel plants to shutdown in the valley in 1977) and took this picture from the SR 616 overpass which opened only a year or so before. This is the eastbound Three Rivers nearing track speed (79 mph), heading into Pennsylvania and into the sunrise, only minutes after zipping through the Center Street Junction without even stopping.....

 

 

 

To end this on a happier note... The Capitol Limited is still running daily each way between Chicago, Toledo, Cleveland, Alliance, Pittsburgh and Washington. http://www.amtrak.com/capitol-limited-train This was the Capitol Limited on July 4, 2014, passing through Ravenna, OH, moments after crossing above the CSX tracks that had hosted Amtrak's Three Rivers. Maybe someday those tracks will host a passenger train again. Or maybe we find a better, faster routing to link the C to the P by the Y....

 

^ I remember going down to the New Castle junction area with you, looking for a possible connection. We were not seeing any until I wondered: "Hey, what's that track off the P&LE?" We walked down the track and found it connected directly with the ex-PRR (now NS) line to Pittsburgh. All that was needed was a connection between P&LE and CSX.

 

Amtrak, especially Larson, was too proud to listen to a few "foamers" and they paid the price. Stupid.

 

That is a very interesting story, Ken.  Thank you for sharing it.  I might add that you are a damn fine cartographer, as well!

 

Thanks Jeff! I had an early interest in maps -- I was drawing accurate aerial maps of my neighborhood when I was three years old! :)

 

^ I remember going down to the New Castle junction area with you, looking for a possible connection. We were not seeing any until I wondered: "Hey, what's that track off the P&LE?" We walked down the track and found it connected directly with the ex-PRR (now NS) line to Pittsburgh. All that was needed was a connection between P&LE and CSX.

 

Amtrak, especially Larson, was too proud to listen to a few "foamers" and they paid the price. Stupid.

 

 

A few people at Amtrak deserved to be proud: Al Clark, Wick Leatherwood, Ira Silverman, Tim Gillespie and a few others whose names escape me. But they were accessible and willing to listen. James Larson was an arrogant f---. And since he passed away in 1998 and I'm still living, I get to write his history for him! That's why we should always be polite to younger people..... The history I get to write about him includes a much shorter story than the one I gave above: in 1989 while I was still living in Kent OH, Dr. Adrian Herzog (1948-2001), a rail advocate from California who was with the United Rail Passenger Alliance (and was a colleague on the Amtrak At 80 report with Ron Sheck who later became All Aboard Ohio's chairman!), cold-called me about the Pennsylvanian extension project and gave me lots of good information which remains with me today. I told Dr. Herzog the problems I was having with trying to get Larson to listen to information. Herzog said he had similar problems, including merely to get Larson to return his phone calls. One day, Herzog called Larson again who happen to pick up his phone this time. Larson told Herzog he didn't want to talk with him. Herzog gave one of the all-time great responses: "If I can go to church and talk with God, why can't I make a phone call and talk with you?" Larson hung up on him.

 

BTW, I'm pretty sure I still have the pictures from that trip we took to New Castle in 1990. I'll look for them.

AUG 15, 2014

For a strong future, rail requires predictable, dedicated funding

Posted by Joseph C. Szabo

 

Over the past week I've had the pleasure to be joined by Congressional leaders from two different states for tours of two very different --but equally impressive-- rail sites. The Amtrak maintenance site in New Jersey and the B&P Tunnel in Maryland are good demonstrations that America's railways need predictable, dedicated funding.

 

The Amtrak maintenance center near Trenton, NJ, is upgrading 23 miles of the busiest rail in our nation between New Brunswick and Trenton.  New signaling systems, interlockings, constant tension catenary, and track improvements are some of the necessary improvements to replace the 80-year old infrastructure that will ultimately improve speed, reliability, and safety along this stretch of track. The work here is really a prototype of what is needed all along the Northeast Corridor between New York City and Washington, DC.

 

But that work can only be done if we have predictable, dedicated funding for rail.

 

READ MORE AT:

http://www.transportation.gov/fastlane/strong-rail-future-rail-predictable-dedicated-funding

Because it's an Amtrak train, and if a private car were profitable, I would just expect Amtrak to offer the service.

 

Private cars are profitable. Some are offered for charter. Some are offered as common-carrier transportation but for a high-end clientele Amtrak is not pursuing. But most are a cross between private jets and mobile homes -- a vehicle owned and used by wealthy people for private transportation and hotel at the same time.

 

I've heard that Amtrak charges $2500 just to hook up the car to the back of a train plus a mileage fee (I don't know what that is, though). The cars are expensive to re-hab and maintain too.  If I were rich I wouldn't want a private jet but I might want my own railcar.

 

KJP wrote:  "A few months later in the Fall of 1994, Amtrak discontinued the Chicago-New York City Broadway Limited!"

 

Actually, it was the fall of 1995.  My first Amtrak ride was on the Broadway Limited on Memorial Day weekend in 1995.  I boarded in Fostoria (I was living in Bowling Green at the time) and went to Johnstown, PA to visit my mom and grandfather.  I actually still had the ticket stub until a few months ago. The train was discontinued a few months later-- fall 1995 along with all of the other Mercer cuts that were made at the same time which included the Toledo-Detroit Pontiac, and I think the Desert Wind, and Pioneer too. 

 

 

KJP wrote:  "A few months later in the Fall of 1994, Amtrak discontinued the Chicago-New York City Broadway Limited!"

 

Actually, it was the fall of 1995.  My first Amtrak ride was on the Broadway Limited on Memorial Day weekend in 1995.  I boarded in Fostoria (I was living in Bowling Green at the time) and went to Johnstown, PA to visit my mom and grandfather.  I actually still had the ticket stub until a few months ago. The train was discontinued a few months later-- fall 1995 along with all of the other Mercer cuts that were made at the same time which included the Toledo-Detroit Pontiac, and I think the Desert Wind, and Pioneer too. 

 

Yes, that's correct. Thanks. The train was restored a year later as the Three Rivers.

Federal grant will help keep Southwest Chief running

Chris Loveless, Digital Content Director , [email protected]

POSTED: 11:56 AM MDT Sep 09, 2014

UPDATED: 11:58 AM MDT Sep 09, 2014

 

PUEBLO, Colo. - A southeastern Colorado Amtrak line with an uncertain future received a big boost Tuesday with the announcement of a federal grant.

 

Eleven Colorado communities along with the state of Kansas, Amtrak and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad (BNSF) applied for the TIGER transportation grant with the goal of saving the Southwest Chief line.

 

The US Department of Transportation awarded $12.5 million to save the existing line, which surpasses the $9.3 million Colorado communities and Kansas offered up as a match.

 

The Southwest Chief line runs from Chicago to Los Angeles. It cuts through the heart of Kansas and the southeastern corner of Colorado.

 

READ MORE AT:

http://www.krdo.com/news/federal-grant-will-help-keep-southwest-chief-running/27955618

FYI:

 

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee introduced the Passenger Rail Reform and Investment Act of 2014 yesterday.  If passed, it would make several changes and set suggested funding levels for the High-Speed and Intercity Rail Program.

 

This is not a good bill.

 

This bill would authorize Amtrak and other intercity passenger rail service for the next five years at a piddling $1.8 billion per year.  That means another five years of declining service when the system should be rapidly expanding.

 

Please tell your representative that you want faster and more frequent trains, not another five years of treading water.

 

The Federal Railroad Administration has established that $5 billion per year is the minimum required to grow the system.  They included these critical investments in the proposed GROW America Act.  The American Public Transportation Association has shown that $9.5 billion is needed to support the current project pipeline and continue Amtrak’s funding.

 

Please click here (http://org.salsalabs.com/o/2228/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=16438) to ask your representative to support at least $5 billion in annual high-speed and intercity rail investments.

http://allaboardohio.org/2014/09/25/coalition-files-friend-of-court-brief-defending-passenger-rights/

 

While All Aboard Ohio wants daytime Amtrak trains in Ohio, it doesn’t want them under recent circumstances in which trains run hours late. All Aboard Ohio has joined a coalition to support legal action to get passenger trains to run on time. July 4, 2014 offered one of many case examples why All Aboard Ohio acted. Shortly before noon, a 6-hour late Lake Shore Limited (Chicago-New York City/Boston) carrying 550 passengers cruised at 79 mph past the Triskett Rapid Transit station on Cleveland’s west side. It should have passed this location about 5:30 a.m. (All Aboard Ohio photo)

 

Coalition Files “Friend of Court” Brief Defending Passenger Rights

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (#14-15)

September 24, 2014

 

Contact:

Sean Jeans-Gail, NARP – 202-408-8362

 

Coalition Files “Friend of Court” Brief Defending Passenger Rights

Confronts Increasingly Serious Delays Afflicting America’s National Train Network

 

Washington, D.C.—The National Association of Railroad Passengers, the Environmental Law and Policy Center, All Aboard Ohio, and Virginians for High Speed Rail have filed an amicus curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in a case that could prove pivotal in eliminating delays that are leaving passengers stopped on the track and stranded at the station.

 

The brief argues for the reversal of a judgment issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals – D.C. Circuit. That judgment struck down a provision of the 2008 rail reauthorization bill that instructed the Federal Railroad Administration and Amtrak—consulting with the Surface Transportation Board, freight railroads, states, rail labor, and rail passenger organizations—to develop metrics and minimum standards for measuring Amtrak passenger train performance and service quality. A decision in this case has taken on new urgency, following the U.S. House’s introduction of the Passenger Rail Reform and Investment Act of 2014 (H.R. 5449), which sidesteps the serious on-time performance issues afflicting train passengers across the U.S. and crippling rail growth just at the moment when Americans are embracing rail travel in record numbers.

 

The amicus, or friend-of-the-court brief, lays out an argument structured around two central facts:

 

I.) “The court of appeals based its decision on two separate grounds: (1) an erroneous finding that Amtrak is a private entity and (2) a complete disregard of the factors indicating sufficient governmental control over the development and implementation of the metrics and standards.”

 

In order to achieve the national goal of maintaining a balanced transportation system in the U.S., Congress created Amtrak to preserve intercity train service in the U.S. at a time when the passenger rail sector was in steep decline. Consequently, Amtrak has been granted special statutory rights throughout its history, such as track access and preferential dispatching. As early as 1978, Congress passed a law declaring that, while Amtrak should be managed as a business, it is not in reality a for-profit corporation. Rather, it is a government corporation that provides a public service—as defined by Congress—that uses ticket revenue and business partnerships to minimize the need for public funding.

 

In the development of the metrics and standards in question, the FRA solicited input from a wide array of stakeholders through the Federal Register. The FRA fully considered these comments, including those made by the freight railroads, before issuing a final version of the metrics and standards in May 2010. These metrics are binding only to Amtrak, do not supplant operating agreements between Amtrak and the freight railroads, and do not serve as a basis to impose sanctions against host railroads. The metrics merely provide a trigger for an investigation by the Surface Transportation Board when certain conditions aren’t met, most significantly on-time performance. The STB only awards damages and other relief if, as a result of their investigation, they find that freight railroads have failed to live up to their statutory obligation to provide preference to Amtrak trains over freight trains—an obligation originating in a 1973 law that not even the freight railroads dispute.

 

II.) “As a matter of public policy, the decision by the court of appeals, which invalidates Amtrak’s on-time performance measures, thwarts the intent of Congress and threatens the future of passenger rail service in the United States.”

 

Under the metrics and standards implemented by the 2008 rail reauthorization law, Amtrak was able to achieve a 2012 on-time performance rate of 83 percent nationwide, and 71 percent for long distance trains. This level of on-time performance played a key part in allowing Amtrak to sustain its explosive ridership growth, which has led to ridership records in 10 of the past 11 years.

 

Since the metrics were struck down by the court of appeals, reported freight interference incidents nearly tripled, and Amtrak’s on-time performance plummeted to 42 percent. The long distance trains have been the most hard-hit; in a particularly extreme case, the on-time performance of the Capitol Limited (which serves the Ohio cities of Toledo, Sandusky, Elyria, Cleveland and Alliance) plummeted to 1.6% in July. Amtrak reported in April 2014 that, in response to these skyrocketing delays, ridership and revenue had fallen by 15% year over year to date.

 

“Dramatic increases in freight train traffic combined with routine summertime track maintenance has resulted in extreme delays to Amtrak trains across Northern Ohio,” said All Aboard Ohio Executive Director Ken Prendergast. “In the week before Labor Day, among the 50 arrivals of Northern Ohio’s Amtrak trains into Boston, Chicago, New York City and Washington, more than half of those (27 trains) arrived at least four hours late. Only five arrived less one hour late and only one of those 50 trains arrived on time.”

 

“These crippling delays directly threaten a transportation choice that Americans have said they want and that tens of millions of Americans rely on every year. Rail links are a public good, and the reason Congress established Amtrak in the first place. It’s no coincidence that these delays followed hard on the heels of the DC appeals court ruling, and it’s also no coincidence that the result has unraveled a decade of record ridership. It’s ironic that these delays hurt Amtrak’s bottom line, increasing its dependence on public subsidies, even as those who back the appeals court ruling decry Amtrak’s business performance,” said NARP President Jim Mathews. “NARP would like to thank our partners in this process—especially the team at ELPC—for their hard work in laying out an airtight argument for why the judgment of the court of appeals must be reversed.”

 

Click here to read the brief in it’s entirety. http://www.narprail.org/releases-statements--letters/coalition-files-friend-of-court-brief-defending-passenger-rights

 

There is a near-term solution to help ease Ohio’s rail traffic congestion. Norfolk Southern’s two-track mainline across Northern Ohio is one of the nation’s busiest rail corridors, carrying more than 20,000 daily truckload equivalents of cargo and a dozen fully loaded Boeing 737 equivalents of passengers per day, according to All Aboard Ohio.  Ohio stations (Alliance, Bryan, Cleveland, Elyria, Sandusky and Toledo) have passenger platforms on only one side of the NS corridor which forces half of all passenger trains to switch between main tracks and run against the flow of traffic to serve each station. Expanding Ohio stations could reduce passenger train delays by about 80 minutes per day, with potentially even larger time savings for freight shippers. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Toledo) secured nearly $1 million in federal funding to evaluate rail traffic flows and accordingly develop detailed plans for station expansions. However the Ohio Department of Transportation has yet to release these funds to a willing project sponsor — the Northern Ohio Rail Alliance that’s comprised of metro planning organizations in Toledo, Sandusky and Cleveland/Elyria.

 

About the National Association of Railroad Passengers

The National Association of Railroad Passengers (“NARP”) is the largest national membership advocacy organization for train and rail transit passengers consisting of 28,000 individual members nationwide. Since its founding in 1967, NARP has worked to expand the quality and quantity of passenger rail in the United States. NARP’s mission is to work for a modern, customer-focused national passenger train network that provides a travel choice Americans want.

 

About the Environmental Law and Policy Center

The Environmental Law and Policy Center of the Midwest (“ELPC”) is a not-for-profit public interest environmental legal advocacy organization. Founded in 1993, ELPC develops and leads successful strategic advocacy campaigns to improve environmental quality and protect our natural resources through the advancement of clean air, clean transportation and clean energy policies at the regional and national levels. ELPC has worked to advance intercity passenger rail in the Midwest and nationwide for almost twenty years.

 

About All Aboard Ohio

Founded in 1973, the Ohio Association of Railroad Passengers (“All Aboard Ohio”) is comprised of citizens, businesses and organizations that advocate for more and better transportation choices in Ohio, including more passenger trains, better public transit and improved rail infrastructure. All Aboard Ohio exists to achieve a modern, consumer-focused, state-wide passenger rail system.

 

About Virginians for High Speed Rail

Virginians for High Speed Rail (“VHSR”) is a notfor- profit coalition of citizens, localities, economic development agencies, community organizations, and businesses that educate and advocate for the expansion of fast, frequent, and reliable rail service. Founded in 1994, VHSR promotes passenger rail as an energy efficient, cleaner mode of transportation that provides significant economic benefits.

 

###

Embedded links at:

http://allaboardohio.org/2014/09/29/train-delays-what-to-do/

 

Frustrated Amtrak passengers wait at Cleveland’a station for 5 hours on Sept. 29, 2014 for freight railroad CSX to give train #49 the all-clear. Norfolk Southern delivered this train to CSX 3.5 hours late, so it left Cleveland 8.5 hours down. That day, all 4 Amtrak trains across Northern Ohio were delayed 6+ hours — sadly a common occurrence in recent months. Read below how All Aboard Ohio is taking action and how you can help! (Ken Sislak photo)

 

Train delays: what to do?

September 29, 2014

 

Was your Amtrak train delayed today by freight? Was your Amtrak train stopped while freight trains rolled by? Or did you hear from the conductor if a signal problem or track work was to blame? If so, that’s still the freight railroad’s responsibility as they own, maintain and manage the tracks/signals for nearly all of America’s Amtrak trains, including those that pass through Ohio.

 

If so, it is VERY IMPORTANT that you submit a complaint e-mail to the federal Surface Transportation Board at [email protected], including:

 

+ your train’s number (it’s on your ticket/reservation confirmation);

+ the approximate time(s) and location(s) of the delay(s);

+ the date(s) of the incident(s); and

+ why you believe the delay was caused by the freight railroad.

 

Please also copy your e-mail to your Senators and Representative in Congress, too! Freight railroads are required by federal law to give Amtrak trains priority over freight trains.

 

All Aboard Ohio is taking action! We are supporting legal action against the freight railroads and we are asking the Ohio Department of Transportation to release funds to address infrastructure improvements to ease rail traffic congestion. READ MORE HERE.http://allaboardohio.org/2014/09/25/coalition-files-friend-of-court-brief-defending-passenger-rights/

 

What is causing these horrific Amtrak delays?

 

+ Heavy and worsening rail traffic volumes — passenger ridership is at the highest since the 1960s, intermodal freight (containers, trailers) traffic is at record highs, oil shipments are at record highs, and shipments from a record harvest will make delays even worse. If misery loves company, freight shipments are also being delayed causing complaints by shippers;

+ Norfolk Southern dispatching software was installed in January at its Dearborn, MI traffic control center which oversees NS’s busy (up to 90 trains a day) Chicago Line west of Cleveland. The “self-learning” software needs a lot of debugging — so much so that NS crews are calling the software “Hal” in reference to the malevolent computer in “2001: A Space Odyssey”;

+ Inadequate capacity of rail infrastructure, including the design of Northern Ohio passenger train stations which force Amtrak trains to process passengers from only one track of the two-track Chicago Line. The result is that half of Ohio’s four nightly Amtrak trains must run against the flow of traffic and thus “slalom” from one track to the other to stop next to station platforms.

 

Your voice counts!! Please share with All Aboard Ohio any responses you receive from the Surface Transportation Board, your Senators or Congressperson by e-mailing us HERE. Thank you!

The solutions to this situation are going to take months, if not years and a lot of money. Politics, including at ODOT, are only postponing this awful and worsening situation. The big delays to Chicago-East Coast Amtrak trains are a red flag for MUCH bigger problems. This is from a longtime, respected writer at a rail industry publication....

 

The new normal is highly abnormal

Posted by Fred Frailey

on Tuesday, September 30, 2014

 

Amtrak’s Capitol Limited (train 29) left South Bend, Ind., yesterday at 11:08 a.m. Thirteen minutes later, the Lake Shore Limited (train 49) followed. Next stop for both trains: Chicago, 84 miles west. The Lake Shore reached Chicago at 4:26 p.m., the Capitol at 5:20 p.m. This fiasco illustrates how precarious our railroad infrastructure is today, at a time of record shipper demand and probably record shipper unhappiness. The tale of what happened to these trains is worth retelling.

 

West of Cleveland, both run on Norfolk Southern’s Chicago Line, once the New York Central’s Water Level Route. This year, they have been plagued by progressively later arrivals in Chicago, due in part to delays east of Cleveland. But the devil lays in wait west of that city. Both trains lately can expect 60-90 minutes of delay between Cleveland and Elkhart, Ind. And after Elkhart, those last 101 miles to Chicago lately have been trips through hell.

 

At 1 p.m. yesterday I check in on these trains, whose fortunes I’ve been following. I use ATCS Monitor (which gives a dispatcher’s view of track occupancy and signal indications), Amtrak’s Track A Train (which says where trains are and their speeds) and the web camera near Porter, Ind. (to be certain of what I’m seeing).

 

READ MORE AT: http://cs.trains.com/trn/b/fred-frailey/archive/2014/09/30/the-new-normal-is-highly-abnormal.aspx

Best choice right is not to ride. You don't undergo this....

 

Amtrak trains often trickle into Toledo after rash of delays

Late arrivals lead to irate customers

BY DAVID PATCH

BLADE STAFF WRITER

 

Christine Smith boarded Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited in Chicago on Tuesday night to visit a friend in Toledo.

 

The train left Chicago two hours late and made it only about 15 miles to Indiana’s northwest corner, where it sat for about three hours, Ms. Smith recalled. By the time it got to Toledo, it was six hours behind schedule.

 

It was only the latest of a series of late Amtrak trains the Melbourne, Australia, resident said she had encountered since arriving in Los Angeles last month and riding from there to San Francisco, Portland, Ore., Spokane, and Chicago.

 

Read more at http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2014/10/06/Amtrak-trains-often-trickle-into-Toledo-after-rash-of-delays.html#CHKQgESkEIvIV8IK.99

Amtrak has a service advisory on its website:

 

http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?c=AM_Alert_C&pagename=am/AM_Alert_C/Alerts_Popup&cid=1251626863215

 

Significant Delays between Chicago and Washington/New York/Boston via Cleveland

 

Effective through January 12, 2015

 

Passengers traveling aboard the Capitol Limited and Lake Shore Limited may experience significant delays due to heavy freight congestion along the routes. Over recent weeks, both east and westbound trains have typically encountered delays of more than four hours.

 

Amtrak will continue to work with NS Railway, CSX and other carriers to restore dependable service along these routes.

 

Passengers are strongly urged to check the status of their train on Amtrak.com, our free mobile apps or call 1-800-USA-RAIL (1-800-872-7245) for the most up-to-date departure and arrival times.

 

Current on-time performance data is available on Amtrak.com, including responsibility for each element of delay. This information is also presented to passengers when booking travel on the website and is available elsewhere from Amtrak, including these passenger notices.

 

We appreciate your patronage and apologize for any inconvenience. Thank you for traveling with Amtrak.

 

PSN 1014-02

"Effective through January 12, 2015"

 

I was thinking, "Oh, ouch!" Then I realized that's not that long. 3 months.

It's long enough when this is happening every single day. And it will continue through the busy holiday travel season.

 

Today, all four Amtrak trains across northern Ohio were canceled. At least one and possibly three Amtrak trains are sitting in Toledo right now.

^What is going to magically happen by Jan 12, 2015 to relieve the freight congestion which is causing the delays?

^What is going to magically happen by Jan 12, 2015 to relieve the freight congestion which is causing the delays?

 

I've wondered that myself. I "suspect" that two of the major construction projects that are affecting rail traffic on the Cleveland-Chicago route will be substantially completed by then:

 

> One is the Englewood Flyover on the southeast side of Chicago which is elevating Metra's busy Rock Island line on a bridge above Norfolk Southern's Chicago Line.

> The other is the Indiana Gateway, in which 25 miles of third main track is being added to the Chicago Line from Porter, IN west to near the Illinois state line.

 

However, my understanding was the latter would not be completed until much later in 2015.

 

There is also major track and station construction occurring across New York state, including the addition of a second main track on the Albany-Schenectady section Amtrak acquired from CSX last year.

Solutions sought for chronic Amtrak, freight train delays in northern Ohio

By Alison Grant, The Plain Dealer

on October 07, 2014 at 12:00 PM, updated October 07, 2014 at 12:10 PM

 

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Passengers sitting on the tracks one recent morning by an idled Lake Shore Limited train in Cleveland had a lot of time to kill.

 

Their eastbound train was late getting out of Chicago Union Station and pulled into Cleveland about 3½ hours after its scheduled arrival of 5:35 a.m.

 

Then a switch problem or a downed power line on the CSX tracks between downtown Cleveland and Collinwood – reports varied -- meant another delay of five hours before the Amtrak train pulled out of town.

 

....Delays like this --- and they're chronic nationwide, including along northern Ohio's east-west corridor, for both Amtrak passenger trains and freight trains – have  prompted three of this region's metropolitan planning organizations to set up a rail alliance to work on improving what is the fastest-growing U.S. transportation mode in the 21st century.

 

READ MORE AT:

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/10/solutions_sought_to_chronic_am.html#incart_river

^I wonder if it's feasible to sponsor legislation to create a separate, transit-only funding agency in the state separate from ODOT which, quite obviously, is not only useless to transit interest, but a serious impediment.

^I wonder if it's feasible to sponsor legislation to create a separate, transit-only funding agency in the state separate from ODOT which, quite obviously, is not only useless to transit interest, but a serious impediment.

 

Cue ODOT lobbying state representatives to amend the state constitution to ban statewide funding agencies without the letters O-D-O-T.

^I wonder if it's feasible to sponsor legislation to create a separate, transit-only funding agency in the state separate from ODOT which, quite obviously, is not only useless to transit interest, but a serious impediment.

 

Not from this General Assembly. The governor behaves like a mature adult compared to them. Even when Democrats ran the governor's office and legislature, they would be polite to rail and transit but do more than that. Strickland supported 3C only when 100% federal funding was available for construction. That happens once in a lifetime. Want rail? Unite the local/regional jurisdictions into a multi-jurisdictional initiative. The support exists in the cities and towns.

From the misery-loves-company department. This is the same railroad corridor that Amtrak uses between Cleveland, Toledo and Chicago:

 

Sheriff's department issues tickets to prompt train movement

Posted: Friday, October 3, 2014 11:47 am

By ROGER SCHNEIDER [email protected]

 

GOSHEN — Talk didn’t work so the Elkhart County Sheriff’s Department has begun issuing tickets to train crews that block Dunlap road crossings.

 

According to the sheriff’s department, a local resident made a complaint to officers at 1:32 p.m. Wednesday that the crossing on Sunnyside Avenue was blocked by a train. Norfolk Southern, which operated the train and owns the tracks, was contacted, according to police, and reported “the train crew ran out of time.” Railroad employees reportedly told police that it would take two to three hours for a relief crew to arrive and move the train.

 

Sheriff’s deputies went to the crossing and began issuing tickets to Norfolk Southern for blocking the road in violation of state statue. The officers continued writing tickets for every 10 minutes the crossing was blocked, issuing 18 citations in total. Police said a relief crew arrived at 5:05 p.m. and moved the train.

 

READ MORE AT:

http://www.goshennews.com/news/article_96a2c3fe-4b14-11e4-90d1-8b0d530e37de.html

East Coast-Chicago @Amtrak trains turning back at Toledo to avoid congestion w/ dozens of buses bridging CHI-TOL gap. Despite the trains turning at Toledo, eastbounds are still departing Toledo hours late each morning:

 

Amtrak woes may point to bigger rail service problems

BY CURTIS TATE

McClatchy Washington BureauOctober 9, 2014

 

Last year’s freight congestion that was snarling Amtrak service in the upper Midwest has shifted east, and it’s gotten so bad that Amtrak has resorted to putting passengers on buses.

 

Congestion on Norfolk Southern in recent weeks has delayed Amtrak trains from Chicago to Detroit, Boston, New York and Washington.

 

“Everything we have between Chicago and Michigan and the East Coast uses that route,” said Marc Magliari, an Amtrak spokesman.

 

The Chicago-Seattle Empire Builder experienced the most severe delays last fall. Now it’s the Chicago-Washington Capitol Limited, which was late 97 percent of the time in September.

 

At least through Friday, Amtrak is putting passengers of its Capitol Limited and Lakeshore Limited trains on buses between Chicago and Toledo, Ohio.

 

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/10/09/242875_amtrak-woes-may-point-to-bigger.html?sp=/99/200/&rh=1#storylink=cpy

Unusual to see two Amtrak trains parked in the middle of the day at the Amtrak station at Toledo MLK Plaza. But this has been occurring everyday since 10/7. All Aboard Ohio photo

 

Since Tuesday, Amtrak has been running a bus-bridge involving dozens of buses between Chicago and Toledo and turning Amtrak trains to/from East Coast around at a wye-track just west of the Toledo MLK Plaza station:

 

Amtrak to bus delayed passengers on Chicago route

BY MARLENE HARRIS-TAYLOR

BLADE STAFF WRITER

 

Chronic passenger train delays of eight to 12 hours between Toledo and Chicago have prompted Amtrak to begin busing passengers on that route.

 

Amtrak started busing customers on Sunday when the train was more than 10 hours late, said Amtrak spokesman Christina Leeds.

 

“We have an ongoing issue of on-time performance. It is severe in this area right now,” Ms. Leeds said.

 

She could not provide an estimate of how long Amtrak will need to use buses to supplement its passenger service. The company will continue to monitor the situation to determine how long the buses will be necessary, she said. All passengers with train tickets who will be affected by the change will receive notification from Amtrak, she said.

 

Read more at http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2014/10/07/Amtrak-to-bus-delayed-passengers-on-Chicago-route.html#HEkaWZcYpKwUp8qM.99

 

Good to see the volume of media coverage the last couple weeks for both the Amtrak and freight delays through this corridor. I'm interested in whether the vested interests have the teeth to actually fix the issues quickly. From the sounds of it, the freight growth really started a few years ago. Not too surprising nothing was done until recently. Necessity is the mother of all invention, after all.

BTW, you can see and hear what's happening with the NS mainline about 40 miles east of Chicago at Chesterston, IN. Unfortunately the camera is located just east of Porter, IN where Amtrak's 10 daily Michigan trains split off, but there's plenty of freight activity (and four daily Amtraks to/from Toledo, Cleveland and the East Coast when Amtrak restores the CHI-TOL link). Right now, you will likely see a fleet of multiple trains in one direction for awhile, then a long quiet period of 30-60 minutes, then a fleet of trains coming in the opposite direction. The reason is that the NS mainline is down to single track in places between Porter and the Illinois state line for construction of a third main track as part of the Indiana Gateway project to relieve rail traffic congestion that existed in 2010....

 

http://www.railstream.biz/live-cameras-free/chesterton-in-west-free

Got delays? Don't stay silent! Use/share this flier:

http://freepdfhosting.com/d0466c3f7a.pdf

Amtrak on Tuesday began turning back at Toledo its trains that originated on the East Coast and are bound for Chicago (except the Cardinal which goes via Cincinnati). The goal was to avoid the worst rail traffic congestion and construction-related delays on Norfolk Southern from the Elkhart, IN area and 100 miles west to Chicago. It's not working out as planned unless reducing 8- to 16-hour delays to 4- to 8-hour delays is the goal....

 

> The "bus bridge" involving dozens of buses Chicago-Toledo is time-consuming, confusing for passengers and causing eastbound train #30 (Capitol Ltd to Washington DC) and #48/448 (Lake Shore to New York City/Boston) to originate from Toledo 1-3 late. For example, this morning's #30 departed Toledo 1:14 late and #48 left Toledo 1:05 late. Those delays are actually at the low end of the scale for the past week.

 

> Today's train #49/449 from NY/Boston went through Toledo to Chicago for the first time in five days. At 1:30 p.m., it is 5 hours late out of Elkhart and is just entering what has typically been the most problematic part of the route. If it doesn't arrive Chicago within the hour (which won't happen), the train and crew won't be turned around in time to depart Chicago eastbound at 9:30 p.m. Here it is passing Chesterton, IN:

 

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10202063700308917

 

> Northeast Ohio has been a disaster area for Norfolk Southern in the last few days. Freight trains have idled for hours due to traffic congestion, dispatching gaffe's, and no place to put trains. An NS employee and a key NS shareholder (he rode a recent NS shareholder train from Cleveland-Bellevue with CEO Wick Moorman) were at the AAO Cleveland local meeting this morning and outlined how shorthanded NS is in terms of crews and available capacity on the mainlines. Doubling the size of Bellevue Yard will only give NS more places to park trains that can't leave due to mainline congestion.

 

> Example: I went to bed last night just after midnight and saw that Amtrak train #29 left Pittsburgh right on time. It then departed Alliance, OH only 9 minutes down at 1:48 a.m. When I woke up at 7:30 a.m., #29 still hadn't traveled the 58 miles (normally a 1-hour trip) into Cleveland! It didn't arrive Cleveland until 10:20 a.m. It passed Berea 11 miles and one hour later, and paused at Elyria's station 14 miles and another hour after that, at 12:44 p.m. So it took #29 11 hours to travel 83 miles from Alliance to Elyria!

 

> Other trains were affected by this Northeast Ohio traffic jam. NS crews are being called to baby-sit trains parked on the mainline for up to six hours at a time. Like #29, this morning's #48/448 took two hours to travel between Elyria and Cleveland. It is now four hours late out of Erie, PA.

 

> At 9 a.m. today, all Northern Ohio Amtrak trains would normally be about 200 miles beyond the Ohio state lines. Instead, all were still in Ohio. Daytime service is great -- just not under these circumstances.

 

> And as of 2 p.m., today's Amtrak story still has yet to have its final chapter written as none of the trains have reached their endpoint terminals. If you want to see how this story ends, check http://dixielandsoftware.net/Amtrak/status/StatusMaps/ by Saturday evening and click on trains #29, 30, 48 or 49 on the Midwest, Northeast (not NE Corridor) or East maps.

Ohio, third world country of rail. The only thing missing is water buffalos walking across the tracks

Ohio, third world country of rail. The only thing missing is water buffalos walking across the tracks

 

You need to expand that geographic description to much of the USA. If Ohio was the only place where these delays were occurring, then I would agree with you.

Article with embedded links at: http://allaboardohio.org/2014/10/14/feds-ask-norfolk-southern-for-amtrak-reliability-improvements/

 

Feds ask Norfolk Southern for Amtrak reliability improvements

October 14, 2014

 

In a recent letter to Norfolk Southern Corp. (NS), the federal Surface Transportation Board (STB) has asked NS how it will address serious on-time performance problems of Amtrak passenger trains using NS tracks. The STB, which regulates railroads, noted serious on-time performance problems in recent months experienced by Amtrak passenger trains that use NS tracks from Chicago east into Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and to the East Coast.

 

Specifically mentioned were Amtrak’s daily Capitol Limited (Chicago-Washington DC) and Lake Shore Limited (Chicago-New York City/Boston) services which make daily stops in the Ohio cities of Bryan, Toledo, Sandusky, Elyria, Cleveland and Alliance. Also affected were several Michigan routes — the Wolverine service to Metro Detroit, the Blue Water to Port Huron and the Pere Marquette to Grand Rapids. Combined, these five routes carried 1.5 million passengers in 2013 on 14 trains a day — a daily average of 294 riders per train. Ridership was growing in most years since 2000 on these routes until these rail traffic delays occurred.

 

Under federal law, if a host freight railroad fails to meet an 80 percent on-time performance standard for Amtrak passenger trains in two consecutive quarters, then the STB may impose large fines payable to Amtrak and prescribe remedies such as funding plans and physical improvements that address traffic choke points. The metrics for determining Amtrak on-time performance are the subject of a freight-railroad court challenge to be argued before the Supreme Court in December. All Aboard Ohio supports Amtrak in this matter.

 

In its Oct. 6, 2014 letter, the STB requested the following information from NS:

 

+ The primary causes of delays experienced by Amtrak trains on NS lines.

+ Locations where delays occur most frequently.

+ Measures that NS is taking to improve Amtrak performance, including but not limited to expansion of network capacity and resources, changes to train dispatching protocols and procedures, and modifications of network operating plans.

+ NS’s expectation of when Amtrak service will improve.

 

In August 2014, on-time performance fell on the Capitol Limited and Lake Shore Limited routes to 4 percent and 16 percent, respectively. Average delay per arrival was four hours. For most of the summer, All Aboard Ohio has noted the delays were occurring west of Toledo and especially in zones where new track construction is occurring along the rail corridor which has two parallel tracks. This includes new third main tracks added between Goshen-Elkhart, IN and Porter, IN-Illinois state line. Meanwhile the Englewood Flyover is being built southeast of Chicago to separate a busy at-grade rail-rail crossing of the Metra Rock Island District and NS’s Chicago Line. However, these were designed in 2010 to address rail traffic levels of four years ago — not the boom in rail traffic which has occurred since.

 

Since the summer, the area of worst rail traffic congestion expanded east to between Toledo-Cleveland where high-priority Amtrak trains and NS intermodal freight trains snake their way through lower priority freight trains awaiting fresh crews. These delays were made worse by errors caused by NS’s new Auto-Router computer-aided dispatching software.

 

The design of passenger stations is also a factor in causing delays by constraining the throughput capacity of the NS rail corridor. All Northern Ohio stations are limited in their ability to process passengers from more than one track, requiring passenger trains to run against the flow of rail traffic half of the time to reach a station platform. This “slalom” causes up to 80 minutes of delay per day to Amtrak trains and at least as much delay to NS freight traffic. The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) awarded funding to the Elyria station project but similar stations projects are needed corridor-wide.

 

Rep. Marcy Kaptur and others in the Northern Ohio Congressional delegation are seeking to transfer to the Northern Ohio Rail Alliance (NORA) a federal appropriation of nearly $1 million unused by ODOT since 2010 to carry out the objectives in its State Rail Plan to facilitate the movement of goods and people by rail. The funding would allow NORA to identify current and future rail traffic choke points from the growth of freight and passenger traffic and to propose solutions to those constraints.

 

"The STB's letter should be a rallying point for all stakeholders to join forces to tackle these worsening rail traffic delays and implement long-term solutions that ensure economic growth," said Ken Prendergast, Executive Director of All Aboard Ohio.

 

###

Feds ask Norfolk Southern to explain how it will address Amtrak train delays

By Alison Grant, The Plain Dealer

on October 14, 2014 at 2:34 PM, updated October 14, 2014 at 5:51 PM

 

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The federal agency that oversees railroads is asking Norfolk Southern Railway to explain how it plans to improve the tardy performance of Amtrak passenger trains on its tracks.

 

Of particular concern to the Surface Transportation Board is Amtrak service on the two lines that come through Cleveland --- the Capitol Limited that goes from Chicago to Washington, D.C., and the Lake Shore Limited, connecting Chicago and New York City, according to a letter from the board's chairman.

 

Amtrak data shows the Capitol Limited has been punctual less than 40 percent of the time in the last 12 months, and in the peak rail traffic month of August its on-time rate was less than 4 percent, Chairman Daniel Elliott III wrote in the Oct. 6 letter to Charles Moorman, chairman and chief executive of Norfolk Southern.

 

READ MORE AT:

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/10/feds_ask_norfolk_southern_to_e.html

All Aboard Ohio @AllAboardOhio

Updated our @Amtrak delays article w/ @nscorp's response to the Surface Transportation Board's inquiry http://allaboardohio.org/2014/10/14/feds-ask-norfolk-southern-for-amtrak-reliability-improvements/ … #Ohio #rail

Amtrak zeroing in on train delays, cites Chicago-to-Cleveland sluggish service

By Alison Grant, The Plain Dealer

on October 28, 2014 at 5:00 PM, updated October 28, 2014 at 5:12 PM

 

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Amtrak said Tuesday it's stepping up efforts to relieve rail traffic gridlock in Chicago, the effects of which it described as radiating out nationwide.

 

Amtrak specifically cited delays of four hours or more between Chicago and Cleveland that it said have become a near daily experience.

 

Just last month, passengers on the Lake Shore Limited out of Chicago arrived in Cleveland 3½ hours late, then were hung up for another five hours before leaving town, causing one passenger to describe the Amtrak schedule as more of a "wish list" than a timetable.

 

"The unprecedented level of rail congestion is causing major delays for Amtrak passengers and freight shipments, which are damaging to the U.S. economy," Amtrak said in announcing that it's appointed a panel of rail and transportation leaders to study how to ease the congestion.

 

READ MORE AT:

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/10/amtrak_says_its_zeroing_in_on.html#incart_river

I will be taking the train east in a couple weeks, so I've been keeping an eye on its timeliness.  I have noticed that the last couple weeks it has been "better", normally running between an hour and a half and two hours late instead of six to eight hours late.  Did something improve in western Indiana?

 

EDIT:  I did notice in NS's response to the STB that the Englewood flyover was completed a few weeks ago.  Could that be having a dramatic effect?

I will be taking the train east in a couple weeks, so I've been keeping on eye on its timeliness.  I have noticed that the last couple weeks it has been "better", normally running between an hour and a half and two hours late instead of six to eight hours late.  Did something improve in western Indiana?

 

EDIT:  I did notice in NS's response to the STB that the Englewood flyover was completed a few weeks ago.  Could that be having a dramatic effect?

 

All Aboard Ohio and others got lots of media publicity on the delays as well as got people to start sending their complaints to the STB rather than Amtrak. The result was that STB sent a letter to NS, which was a shot across the bow. STB can substantially fine a "host railroad" or impose other remedies when it doesn't run Amtrak trains at least 80 percent on time in two consecutive quarters. The delays on NS already meet that requirement. Right after the STB sent its letter, things magically got better. But like you said, it's not yet good enough.

 

Oh, and yes the Englewood Flyover certainly helps. As does advancement of other major track projects. As does NS acquiring 150 new/rebuilt locomotives. As does NS shifting rail traffic to other routes (including via Lakewood, Fort Wayne, and to interchange with western lines at STL and KC instead of Chicago). As does NS shifting train crews from the southern states to the north to handle the heavier traffic up here while they hire and train more new-hire crews. This is a multi-faceted response.

 

It is shocking however, that NS is running 110 trains a day Chicago-Elkhart and 100 daily trains Elkhart-Toledo -- WITHOUT the benefit of a third main track.

 

I sometimes am shocked at how many trains pass by this live cam at Chesterton, IN but if this camera was 1 mile to the west at Porter it would be even busier!

http://www.railstream.biz/live-cameras-free/chesterton-in-west-free

All Aboard Ohio and others got lots of media publicity on the delays as well as got people to start sending their complaints to the STB rather than Amtrak.

 

Awesome!  Thanks for your hard work.

 

Unrelated, but I recently used one of All Aboard Ohio's forms to submit letters to Rob Portrman, Sherrod Brown, and Marcia Fudge about Amtrak funding.

 

I got back a ridiculous canned "Republican talking points" response from Rob Portman which had absolutely nothing to do with the letter I sent.  I guess that's to be expected.

 

Sherrod Brown replied with a letter that seemed as if it was actually written by a human and directly addressed my concerns.

 

Marcia Fudge sent back a canned email about public transportation funding which did at least mention funding for rail in it, but her opening was "Dear Amtrak Funding [MyLastName]", which I thought was pretty unprofessional and showed a lack of care by not being able to get their automated system working right or at least have a human check over the responses to make sure they make sense.

Thanks for taking the time to contact them even when they don't take the time to address you. Pretty sad, but I hope you and others will keep writing!

This is for the daily east-west trains between Chicago-Toledo-Sandusky-Elyria-Cleveland-Alliance-Washington DC service. Perhaps Amtrak will seek a separate action for the CHI-NYC/BOS Lake Shore Limited other daily train that shares the Chicago-Cleveland portion of the route. If there are damages to be awarded, I hope they are significant enough and used to address rail traffic chokes points along the route, especially the Northern Ohio stations which can process passengers from only one Amtrak train at a time....

 

 

Monday, November 17, 2014

Amtrak files complaint with STB over Capitol Limited performance

Written by  William Vantuono

 

Amtrak has filed a complaint with the U.S. Surface Transportation Board against Norfolk Southern and CSX over substandard on-time performance of the Washington D.C.-Chicago Capitol Limited, which operates over right-of-way owned by NS and CSX. Including an earlier complaint filed against CN, this is Amtrak’s second such action regarding substandard on-time performance of its long-distance trains.

 

Attorneys Linda J. Morgan, Kevin M. Sheys, and Katherine C. Bourdon of Nossaman, LLP, and Amtrak Managing Deputy General Counsel William H. Herrmann filed the complaint on Nov. 17, 2014, pursuant to 49 U.S.C. 24308(f), to initiate an investigation by the STB.

 

MORE:

http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/passenger/intercity/amtrak-files-complaint-with-stb-over-capitol-limited-performance.html?channel=41

Amtrak asks feds to investigate Norfolk Southern, CSX, over train delays

 

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Amtrak today asked the federal government to investigate Norfolk Southern Railway and CSX Transportation for "causing unacceptable delays for passengers" traveling on the Capitol Limited, which runs through Cleveland on its route between Chicago and Washington, D.C.

 

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/11/amtrak_asks_feds_to_investigat.html#incart_river

Here's the press release. The trains have been running closer to schedule recently (except this morning due to the extreme weather).....

 

http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/278/152/ATK-14-105-Amtrak-STB-Filing.pdf

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Nov. 17, 2014

AMTRAK ASKS SURFACE TRANSPORTATION BOARD TO

INVESTIGATE NORFOLK SOUTHERN AND CSX RAILROADS

 

Freight train interference causing unacceptable delays to passengers

traveling between Chicago and Washington, DC

 

WASHINGTON – Amtrak is taking action to improve the on-time performance (OTP) of

its trains that operate over tracks controlled by other railroads. In a complaint filed on Nov. 17,

Amtrak is asking the Surface Transportation Board (STB) to investigate Norfolk Southern

Railway (NS) and CSX Transportation (CSXT) for causing unacceptable delays for passengers

traveling between Chicago and Washington, D.C., on the Capitol Limited service.

Amtrak is taking this action under Section 213 of the Passenger Rail Investment and

Improvement Act which mandates that the STB initiate an investigation upon the filing of a

complaint by Amtrak if the on-time performance of an intercity passenger train falls below 80

percent for two consecutive quarters. In addition, under federal law, Amtrak has a statutory right

to preference in the dispatching of intercity passenger trains before freight trains.

 

Due to persistent excessive delays caused by NS and CSXT freight train interference, the

OTP of the Capitol Limited at its endpoint terminals was 2.7 percent for the quarter ending Sept.

30, down from an already substandard 33.6 percent the previous quarter. The delays are

continuing as Amtrak had to provide bus transportation between Toledo and Chicago for six days

in October to better accommodate passengers when Capitol Limited trains had often been eight

to ten hours late.

 

Poor on-time performance creates a major disruption for Amtrak customers due to delayed

trains and missed connections. It also negatively impacts Amtrak and state-supported services

through decreased ridership, lost revenues and higher operating costs.

 

Amtrak has taken additional actions to help improve the OTP of passenger trains

including filing an amended complaint with the STB seeking an investigation of Canadian

National Railway for causing unacceptable delays for passengers on the Illini/Saluki service in

Illinois; twice testifying before the STB about the poor OTP of Amtrak trains; and establishing a

Blue Ribbon Panel of rail and transportation leaders to identify infrastructure and operational

improvements to address rail traffic gridlock in Chicago.

 

The Capitol Limited operates daily between Chicago and Washington, via Harpers Ferry,

W. Va., Cumberland, Md., Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Toledo, South Bend, Ind., and intermediate

stops

 

###

NS just had to be threatened with a lawsuit to do permanent repairs on the Ledge Road bridge in Macedonia.  They're getting all "because we can" again, it seems.

 

 

Amtrak revenue now covers 93% operating of costs, compared to only 71% for FAA. Amtrak uses mostly private sector-owned, financed rails. Federal highways funded 51% by general taxes, artificially reduces cost of driving.

 

A press release:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/amtrak-delivers-strong-fy-2014-financial-results-300000840.html

 

Amtrak Delivers Strong FY 2014 Financial Results

Five consecutive years of revenue growth, higher operating cost recovery; More investment needed to meet future passenger demand

 

WASHINGTON, Nov. 25, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

 

Fiscal Year 2014 Highlights:

 

+ Record revenue of approximately $3.2 billion

+ Operating cost recovery rises to 93 percent

+ Lowest federally funded operating loss in 41 years

+ Moody's confirms long-term debt rating at A1/Stable

 

Today, Amtrak reported unaudited record revenue totaling approximately $3.2 billion for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2014, representing the fifth consecutive year of revenue growth, and the eighth out of the past nine years.

 

In FY 2014, America's Railroad® covered 93 percent of its operating costs with ticket sales and other revenues, up from 89 percent the year before. In addition, Amtrak's unaudited federally funded operating loss of approximately $227 million was the lowest level since 1973, representing a 37 percent decrease from the prior year and 52 percent lower than in FY 2007.

 

As a result of the company's strong operating performance, long-term debt reductions of approximately 61 percent over the past seven years to $1.3 billion, and other contributing factors, Moody's Investor Service confirmed Amtrak's A1/Stable debt rating on Nov. 12, 2014.

 

"Our financial performance over the past year is the clearest indication yet that Amtrak's investments, operating efficiencies and focus on its customers is paying off," said Amtrak Chairman of the Board Tony Coscia. "Under the leadership of Amtrak's Board and management,the company is transforming how it does business. We are delighted with our latest financial results and committed to making further progress in the years ahead.  As we continue to make improvements in our operating and financial performance, we call upon the federal government and our stakeholders to support the capital investments necessary to keep moving Amtrak forward."

 

"Our efforts to operate a more financially sound railroad for our stakeholders continues to exceed expectations," said Amtrak President and CEO Joe Boardman. "Amtrak's customer value proposition improves each year as seen by our continued ridership and revenue growth for the better part of the past decade."

 

Amtrak's corporate restructuring has resulted in a strong emphasis on increased financial transparency, a de-leveraged balance sheet, and providing an improved product to its existing customer base while attracting new passengers. This has resulted in consistently strong ridership and revenue growth, and less reliance on federal operating grant support.

 

Amtrak also is building the equipment, infrastructure and organization needed to ensure its strong growth continues. Over the past few years, the company has seen the expansion of state-supported services, the introduction of Wi-Fi and eTicketing technologies, the procurement of new equipment for Northeast Corridor and long-distance services, a major planning effort for the development of next-generation high-speed rail, and the installation of positive train control safety technology to more sections of track maintained by Amtrak, among other critical capital projects. These actions form the foundation that will support more and faster service, improve the reliability and safety of current and future operations, and meet the expectations of a growing number of customers choosing Amtrak for their travel needs.

 

Boardman added that to meet future passenger demands, increased levels of federal capital investment are needed to improve, expand and replace the aging infrastructure that supports intercity passenger rail. Predictable dedicated funding from the federal government to build new tracks, tunnels, bridges and other rail infrastructure—particularly on the Northeast Corridor and in Chicago—will keep Amtrak advancing and its customer base growing.

 

 

SOURCE Amtrak

Does that FAA figure include security?

Does that FAA figure include security?

 

No, that's under the TSA whose revenue recovery ratio is far worse. It's something like 55%.

 

EDIT: All Aboard Ohio issued the Amtrak release with its own "preamble" at:

 

http://allaboardohio.org/2014/11/25/amtrak-delivers-strong-fy2014-financial-results/

 

The above link includes sources for the aviation/highway stats I've referenced.