Who does anything at 3:05 AM? Amtrak for one. And how does Amtrak define "On time?" It sort of depends on the train. Click below to read the rest of this.
3:05AM? Who in their right mind would schedule a train to depart Cincinnati at 3:05AM? The truth is, when you run a train from New York to Chicago and it takes 26 hours to make the trip, you got’a be somewhere at 3:05AM. And that brings up another question. Why would you go through Washington, DC., Charleston WV., Cincinnati, Oh., and Indianapolis, In. if you want to travel between New York City and Chicago. I guess Amtrak just wanted to take a little dip towards the south and scoop up people from those areas. Amtrak has trains that go a near straight line between New York and Chicago and another between Washington and Chicago.
Things are looking good this morning. I checked the Amtrak web sight last night and the train was 23 minutes late at Charleston WV. This morning it’s only 6 minutes late between Ashland Ky. and South Portsmouth, Ky. It’s expected to be 6 minutes late arriving at Cincinnati this morning. WOW! For this train, that’s early. Maybe this will be a good omen. Maybe the Coast Starlight will run early on the days we ride it. Maybe the Sunset Limited will be on time also. A few days ago it was almost 12 hours late.
Breakfast is ready. Hot cinnamon rolls. Time to go. It’s a good thing we made our practice trip the day before. We had started our practice trip in Newport, Ky. We crossed the bridge to Ohio, found a sign saying “North I-75”. We followed that sign to I-75 and then took the first exit and that took us right to the station. Well surprise, surprise, surprise! When you cross the river on the I-71/I-75 bridge you can’t get to the exit we took yesterday. We take the next exit and it sends us off on a real tangent. . I’m really starting to sweat. This train better be late or we’re going to miss it. Then I realize that Melissa likes to set the clock in her car about 15 minutes early. I looked at my watch and we still have about 20 minutes. We eventually get back on I-75 going south and get off at our desired exit. A quick turn and about two blocks down the road and we’re at the station. I was surprised to see so many cars. I was even more surprised to see how many people were in the waiting room. I didn’t count them but I would guess around 30 people. The agent instructed us on where to go. As we arrived on the platform the train was coming into the station. It was about 5 or 6 minutes late. It was scheduled for a 7 minute stop but it took 5 minutes to get all the people off that were going to Cincinnati and then it took another 5 minutes or more to get everyone on. We left the station at 3:17, twelve minutes late.
Hamilton Ohio 4:04
Connorsville 5:06 to 5:09
Indianapolis 6:40 to 6:54
Wow! Only 4 minutes late leaving Indy. Amtrak’s luck couldn’t continue. When leaving Indy the dispatcher instructed the engineer to watch for a flagman at an overpass a few miles down the tracks. When the train arrived at that point there was no flagman. The train stopped and confirmed with the dispatcher that he was supposed to be seeing a flagman at that point. After the confirmation the engineer got off the train and walked ahead to the bridge only to find that the contractor was working on the overpass over the tracks and they did not have anyone to flag trains today. Our engineer advised the dispatcher and we proceeded but we probably lost 20 minutes overall.
Renssaeller Ar 8:49, dp 8:49
Dyer Ar 9:45 dp Dp 9:47
Isn’t WIFI great? While we were stopped in Dyer I was able to connect to someone’s WIFI router and check my e-mail. Nothing important there, mostly junkmail.
The conductor just announced that we were one hour from Chicago, barring any unforeseen problems. We should actually arrive just about on time. We arrived at 10:50. He said with the record they have had in the past, “This was ON TIME!”
Posted by john at July 8, 2006 12:08 PM