56 replies to this topic

[steve4031]

6 is on the move over 10 hrs late. 5 is still sitting.

[KevinKorell]

6 is on the move over 10 hrs late. 5 is still sitting.

And that would mean approximately a midnight Chicago arrival if it doesn't lose any more time. No eastbound connections from that train!

[saxman]

Just curious. Have we ever had a severely late train causing missed connections or missed transit riding as a group?

[KevinKorell]

Chris, in our 14 years of Fests we have not thus far had a major incident like the above that would have caused a catastrophe. We've been very lucky. There has been some nail biting (not that I've ever stopped doing that in 54 years) on eastward trains into Chicago with concerns about making connections, but those connections were made with little dwell time in between. Similar story with westbound trains into Chicago. We have never missed a connectoin, but tardiness of inbound trains has caused me to never again make solid plans to do anything while in Chicago because it jinxes us. Often we've barely had time for lunch before needing to be in the Metropolitan Lounge for boarding of the outbound train to the west. There have been minor occurances in places like New York and Boston where we had to quickly establish a Plan B due to lines we expected to ride being taken out of service for maintenance. We have the benefit of time to have learned from those mistakes and we now have several sets of eyes watching the online service announcements within 2 weeks of the Fest. Of course in the case of New Orleans in 2011, there was absolutely no online announcement that the Riverfront Streetcar was out of service -- we simply found out when we got there.

[BillMagee]

Since we are down to a just a couple of weeks to go, here is a mid-month update of the performance of the Zephyrs, the Lake Shore and the Capitol Limited. It's been a nasty couple of weeks.

The formatting is now consistent for all the charts. Up to 29 minutes late is GREEN, 30 to 119 minutes late is YELLOW, 120 to 239 minutes late is PINK, 240 or more minutes late is bright RED, and a missing report or Service Disruption is shown in dark grey.

EDIT: Updated charts have been posted HERE.

[BillMagee]

To compliment the charts in the prior post, here is the latest statistical analysis of the critical arrival and departure times.

The “10% at or before” time is the time when 10% of the recorded trips arrived by that time and 90% arrived after. That is a decent measure of the earliest likely arrival with a few outliers arriving earlier.

The “Half before and half after” is the time where half of the recorded trips arrived before and half after – the statistical median. That is the arrival time predicted by the trips recorded. If one were a betting person, that would be the “over/under” time.

The “10% at or after” time is the time when 90% of the recorded trips arrived by that time and 10% arrived after. That is a decent measure of the latest likely arrival with a few outliers arriving later.

Put it all together and it provides a range of expected arrivals. For example, #49 arriving Chicago is scheduled to arrive 9:45am. The data says it is 80% likely to arrive between 10:05am and 1:23pm, with 11:21am being the most likely time.

This is an update of a post from about two weeks ago. The prior times are shown STRIKETHROUGH so you see how the times have shifted.

WB #49, Ar CHI (scheduled 9:45am)
10% at or before 10:03am 10:05am (10th percentile)
Half before and half after 11:14am 11:21am (median)
10% at or after 1:19pm 1:23pm (90th percentile)
(probability of arrival before the 2:00pm departure of #5 is 94% 95%)

WB #5 Ar SLC (scheduled 11:05pm)
10% at or before 10:23pm (no change)
Half before and half after 11:40pm 11:49pm
10% at or after 2:26am 3:27am

EB #6 Ar CHI (scheduled 2:50pm)
10% at or before 2:35pm 2:42pm
Half before and half after 4:14pm 4:20pm
10% arrive at or after 8:53pm 9:30pm
(probability of arrival before the 6:40pm departure of #30 is 80% 77%)

[pennyk]

Thanks for your analysis Bill. I noticed that today's (6/19) Capitol Limited was over 6 hours late into WAS. I also noticed that 97, Silver Meteor arrived in WAS a bit early, but left 19 minutes late. It looks like they held the Meteor for a short while so the passengers from 30 could connect. The California Zephyr (6) is running over 6 hours late and has not yet arrived in CHI. From what I can tell, it looks like they are planning to hold 30 until 9pm. (That is encouraging for those of us who plan to connect from 6 to 30 on our way home from the RRF).

[shanghai]

The LSL was delayed until the Empire Builder arrived on 6-20. We were to board at 8:20pm for a 9:30pm departure (no more wine & cheese). We left the lounge at 9:40pm and I think the train departed around 10:00pm. The EB arrived at 8:48pm and LSL passengers made the connection. We were late arriving NYP by over one hour.

[pennyk]

I am not sure where to post this, put will try this thread. Does anyone know if one can store luggage in the SLC Amtrak station and Denver Amtrak station? We will be checking out of our hotels well in advance of leaving those cities. I think it would be more convenient to store luggage at the train stations rather than at the hotel since it will involve another trip to the hotel and back. (unless you are staying across the street from the Denver station at the Oxford Hotel)

[steve4031]

The Salt Lake City station is open from 10 pm to 5:15 am the next morning. It's not open during the day according to the amtrak app.