With less traffic, trains are flying
With freight down in the U.S., trains are running into less traffic on the rails. Which means if you're thinking of taking a trip, it should be a smooth ride. Eve Troeh recently found that out on Amtrak's Coast Starlight from L.A. to Seattle.
Amtrak's Coast Starlight, which runs from Los Angeles to Seattle, northbound at San Jose Diridon Station (wikipedia.org)
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TEXT OF STORY
Bill Radke: If you're driving this Labor Day weekend, some good news: gas is a dollar cheaper than a year ago and AAA says there'll be 13 percent fewer cars on the road. Of course, you don't have to worry about either issue if you take the train, which is what reporter Eve Troeh did.
Eve Troeh: For my summer vacation, I climbed aboard the Coast Starlight and rode all the way from Los Angeles to Seattle. The train runs along the Pacific Ocean, through the hills of wine country, past snowy mountains and clear streams.
To me, it sounded relaxing. But most people just asked: How long will that take? Answer: 34 hours. And delays often made the trip even longer. That's earned the Coast Starlight a nickname:
David Warmouth: The "Coast Starlate."
David Warmouth was another passenger. He told me the train was usually late because Amtrak has to pull over for trains owned by Union Pacific or Santa Fe.
Warmouth: Amtrak doesn't own the rails, so the freight traffic had priority.
Last year, the Coast Starlight was late about half the time. No fun for passengers, but not always so bad for train workers. Like Tom, a sleeper car attendant:
Tom: Two, three, four, five, six hours late in each direction. Every day. Everybody wanted to work this train because it was the moneymaker. Overtime!
But lately, the train's been 90 percent on time.
Tom: You know, since the economy's gone bad, there's no freight trains. And without freight trains we run on time.
Freight is down about 18 percent, according to the American Association of Railroads. Which sure helped my ride. When I woke up for my second day on the train, evergreen forests whizzed by all the way to Puget Sound. That evening, we reached the end of the line.
Conductor: Prepare yourself for arrival in the Emerald City of Seattle, Washington. Seattle, Washington, this is it.
We were 40 minutes early. So early, in fact, that my ride wasn't there yet to pick me up.
Waiting in Seattle's King Street Station, I'm Eve Troeh for Marketplace.
Comments
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From HI, 09/11/2009
"
electronic box that "talks" to the engineer...I'm a career RR exec
"
You bet. I remember now, that was the year that Nancy poured the sodium silicate into all your cabooses so that you would need to buy electronic box for each rear car (virtual caboose) plus once every year a software update plus software update tax.
Oh! Yes! And what ever happened to all those unemployed caboose guys?
Oh! Now I remember. That was the year you built railroad on top of San Andreas Fault, one year before the big earthquake -- The Big One. Not to worry about those soon to be unemployed caboose guys who got swallowed up by the fault line, that wasn't your fault. The main thing here is -- what do you think about my *Piggy Passenger Cars* idea.
Just wondering
!
From Madison, WI, 09/09/2009
Mr Nonymus should catch up on railroad technology...cabooses on freight trains all but disappeared in 1980s, replaced by an electronic box that "talks" to the engineer...I'm a career RR exec & international rail consultant...
From HI, 09/07/2009
Thanks, New Year's Eve.
One hundred years ago passenger trains had locomotive, express freight car, baggage car, mail car, coach cars, dinning car, Pullman cars, and privately owned cars -- in that order. After the First World War air traffic began to steal rail passengers. By the end of WW2, military passengers mostly disappeared. 1960 ushered in the jet-set and a final good bye to the lovable Chu-chug-train.
But if passenger train can have express freight cars, then why not freight train having passenger cars attached behind its caboose? Passengers riding piggy-back on fast freight could be on time every time. Do tramp freighter ships take passengers? You bet your bootee, Herr Kommissar. Is a longer train more efficient with our streamlining and our carbon hoof-print? You bet your other bootee, Cootie.
When locomotive reaches the bottom of a downgrade then begins upgrade ascent, tension of knuckle coupler between caboose and passenger cars relaxes as caboose, still on downgrade slows. At moment of coupler relaxation, caboose personnel reach over and release the coupler. Passenger cars then drift free of the main train and wait few minutes for the switch engine to pick them up for trip to convention center, hotel or perhaps even to the *Side Track Cafe*. Next fast freight that comes along can then slow down enough to give switch engine chance to plaster the same passenger cars to second train's caboose or even to the rear of its own subset of piggy-passenger cars.
And the beat goes on.
TOOT TOOT
TOOooooot
From Los Angeles, CA, 09/07/2009
Yes, I did talk to several people in the train industry, including the CEO of the American Association of Railroads. This was meant to be a brief feature from the passenger's point-of-view, and there was simply no room or reason to go into the intricate partnerships and deals that did indeed improve performance shortly *before the economy turned downward. Yet a decrease in freight is making that performance much better than the agreements have done alone. Also, don't you think veteran employees have a pretty good idea of what's making a train run on time or late?
From Houston, TX, 09/07/2009
Low priority on the lines really magnifies delays such that a minor breakdown can turn into a major delay as the passenger train falls out of its time slot. Since we want to encourage train travel, perhaps our federal government could pass a law that passenger trains have priority over freight. Passenger trains are such a small portion of the track usage that it should not be too hard on the freight trains. Plus the law would apply to all operators so no one company could gain an advantage. Otherwise when the economy picks up... so will the delays on the passenger trains as every maintenance problem gets magnified as the repaired train falls out of it's "time slot".
From seattle, WA, 09/07/2009
What a shoddy story. What did you do for research? Ask a train attendant and google "freight train traffic"?
It was more than just freight traffic that was causing the Coast Startlight trouble: It was the UP's merger and acquisition binge of the 90's, which left them vulnerable and with miles of antiquated infrastructure, particularly on the west coast, where the Southern Pacific had been limping along for years.
If you had actually done some reporting on this story, you would have found out that the west coast states, Amtrak, and the Union Pacific have all worked together to make improvements on the tracks, resolve the bottleneck points, and the tighten up the timekeeping.
I realize this was a fluff piece, but business reporting is business reporting - and there's quite a successful government/industry partnership story here.
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