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"Nice picture show", but "breaking new ground"?

https://youtu.be/CQQukDzKk54

Gilbert B Norman wrote: ↑Fri Feb 03, 2023 7:17 am "Nice picture show", but "breaking new ground"?

https://youtu.be/CQQukDzKk54

Nah, just the problem bubbling up to the shareholder level the long way around. Weither or not they do anything about it is another story.

We had a bad delay March 11 on train 42. The diesel died in Harrisburg, and we had to wait for a replacement engine to come from Philly. We left Harrisburg over 4 hours late with a lot of unhappy passengers. My wife and I were going to a concert in Altoona and missed almost all of it. Two and a half hours late, and we could have been there for the start of the show, but not 4 hours late. Amtrak gave us a refund but the experience was a huge disappointment.

Literalman wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 7:41 pm We had a bad delay March 11 on train 42. The diesel died in Harrisburg, and we had to wait for a replacement engine to come from Philly. We left Harrisburg over 4 hours late with a lot of unhappy passengers. My wife and I were going to a concert in Altoona and missed almost all of it. Two and a half hours late, and we could have been there for the start of the show, but not 4 hours late. Amtrak gave us a refund but the experience was a huge disappointment.

Ridiculous that they don't have spare power at Harrisburg. It's like they want to tee people off.

Literalman wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 7:41 pm We had a bad delay March 11 on train 42. The diesel died in Harrisburg, and we had to wait for a replacement engine to come from Philly. We left Harrisburg over 4 hours late with a lot of unhappy passengers. My wife and I were going to a concert in Altoona and missed almost all of it. Two and a half hours late, and we could have been there for the start of the show, but not 4 hours late. Amtrak gave us a refund but the experience was a huge disappointment.

Oh yeah, I heard about this from someone else on the train. They're in the same Telegram rail chat I'm in and reported it live. P42 engine 93 died -- he thinks it was a prime mover issue. They had to pull a P42 from Philadephia and refuel it in Harrisburg before getting it on your train.

Sorry to hear you missed your concert!

WashingtonPark wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 9:00 am

Literalman wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 7:41 pm We had a bad delay March 11 on train 42. The diesel died in Harrisburg, and we had to wait for a replacement engine to come from Philly. We left Harrisburg over 4 hours late with a lot of unhappy passengers. My wife and I were going to a concert in Altoona and missed almost all of it. Two and a half hours late, and we could have been there for the start of the show, but not 4 hours late. Amtrak gave us a refund but the experience was a huge disappointment.

Ridiculous that they don't have spare power at Harrisburg. It's like they want to tee people off.

Why should they have spare diesel power in Harrisburg? That's kind of like requiring that they have spare power at every station they serve. Train 43 has a P42 from Philadelphia to Pittsburg so its not like they swap engines at Harrisburg on a regular basis.

They do maintain spare ACS-64s in Harrisburg for the Keystone service, but those can only go east out of there, not west.

The westbound Pennsylvanian is train 43, not 42.

Basically because it is a terminal point. What happens if the thing goes down in Huntingdon? Wait 4 hours for an engine from Pittsburgh or 4 hours for one from Philadelphia? Harrisburg is a major terminal point for Amtrak. No reason why they can't have a spare P42 to do yard work and head out on the line if there's a problem. It's not like their motive power is in perfect working order. Pittsburgh's only got 2 round trips. Do they even bother to keep a spare P42 there?

WashingtonPark wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2023 3:45 pm Basically because it is a terminal point. What happens if the thing goes down in Huntingdon? Wait 4 hours for an engine from Pittsburgh or 4 hours for one from Philadelphia? Harrisburg is a major terminal point for Amtrak. No reason why they can't have a spare P42 to do yard work and head out on the line if there's a problem. It's not like their motive power is in perfect working order. Pittsburgh's only got 2 round trips. Do they even bother to keep a spare P42 there?

Nope, I've never seen a spare engine up in Pittsburgh. Amtrak basically has to emergency-order a NS rental to get up and back.

Besides, it's more like 2 hours to get from Philadelphia to Harrisburg, maybe 1h30m nonstop no-consist engine deadhead, and they had to refuel it from Harrisburg to boot. Won't be too surprised if they had a tech ride up to Pittsburgh to diagnose the engine, then ride back when it had to be fully shopped in Philly, and had another P42 come up from DC.

Which makes me wonder....

If the P42 came lite from PHL to HAR, it would take longer than typical revenue speeds due to reduced braking on the engine(s).

nomis wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 6:47 pm If the P42 came lite from PHL to HAR, it would take longer than typical revenue speeds due to reduced braking on the engine(s).

It could also be that the P42 had to be yanked off the NYP-bound Pennsy first, and it wasn't at PHL yet.

30 (25) annulled
29 (26) annulled

Down to "server issues," i. e. IETMS outage, which there seems to have been quite a few of lately.

EDIT: Looks like today's 48/448, 50, and 59 are all also cancelled.

Those server issues...is this a PTC thing and are the freight railroads also taking a hit?

Friday and Saturday were a mess. Both IETMS and ACES were having problems as MARC Penn Line service was getting delays and had to cancel some trains. I won't be surprised if CSX track trains had issues too (as 29/30 are out of WAS).

Mess continues but seems to be clearing today. Issues in Chicago and Washington. Not seeing anything out of NYC.

Predictably, this Chicago local news outlet is not the only one reporting the matter:

Chicago ABC News

Owing to sports, the other two network TV outlets did not air evening news last night. There was a further report this morning on my radio source WBBM 780/105.9.