At breakfast I met several people who had interesting stories. One girl I ate with was from Australia. She had never been to the United States before, and she had figured that taking the train across the country was a pretty good way to see it. I think she was right. She was trying to hit 30 countries before her 30th birthday. This was her 27th country. Another lady at breakfast was from Ohio, and was travelling home by train from the west coast. She simply did not like to fly. I learned that I was the one who had traveled on that train the most in that group. I told them a little of what they would see on the train, and I guess they decided I would make a pretty good tour guide, so they asked about a thousand questions. After quite some time talking, we all went our separate ways on the train, and one lady, as she got up, just about ran into the Conductor. I heard her make a comment to him. She said to him, as she pointed to me, "You ought to be paying him, he knows everything!" I guess it helps when you have seen that a few times!
In Grand Junction, Colorado, I stepped off the train for a few minutes. That is a service stop, and a crew change point, so the train sits in the station for about ten to fifteen minutes. I stepped out there, took a few pictures, and walked around the station area a bit. I found the Conductor who was getting off there and asked him a bit about the locomotive. He told me exactly what was wrong with it. Amtrak #99 had been the lead unit to Salt Lake City. When the new engineer came on duty there, they began to have problems. He climbed up into the locomotive, as normal, put his reverser key and brake handle in the control stand, and got the thing ready to move. When he went to turn on the generator field switch, a fault message came up on the main computer on the locomotive. The fault message said the engine was failing to load properly. This basically meant it was not generating power for the traction motors, which are what make the train go. Locomotives are hybrid, the engine drives a generator, which powers motors on each axle. (The idea of Hybrid has been around since the 1930's, don't let Toyota make you think it is new!) Since the generator was not producing electricity, the traction motors were no working. After over an hour of troubleshooting, they were able to get the locomotive going, and the train finally departed Salt Lake City, at 6:16am, two hours and six minutes late. At 6:18am, about 150 feet out of the station, the locomotive stalled, and the main computer displayed the same fault message again. After some more troubleshooting, Amtrak decided to call Union Pacific for backup. They were unable to permanently solve the problem without a shop facility, even though the problem was likely an electronics problem, and not an actual mechanical problem. Union Pacific sent out #8072 to help Amtrak. That locomotive was coupled to the head end of the Amtrak train. The prime mover, or the engine, on Amtrak #99 was shut down, and it was towed dead, with the rest of the train. The train finally departed from Provo at 9:08am, just under four hours late. We had a good trip the rest of the way to Chicago on that train. We ran into one minor problem, which had to do with having a Union Pacific locomotive on the train.
Union Pacific runs primarily freight trains, and as such, their locomotives are geared to put out a lot of torque, but not to be very fast. Freight locomotives generally are capable of only 70 to 75 miles per hour. The Amtrak locomotives on the other hand are geared to put out less torque, since they haul smaller trains, but they have a much higher top speed. Their diesel locomotives, the AMD-103 P42 has a top speed of 110 miles per hour. Now, the Union Pacific locomotive we had and the Amtrak locomotives we had have similar sized engines and the same horsepower output, but the gear ratio is the thing that makes the difference. On the route to Chicago, once you get east of Denver, there are a lot of places where passenger trains are allowed to operate at 79 mph. Amtrak typically operates at that speed, and the schedule is made with that speed in mind. Since we had a freight locomotive leading the train however, the train could not go any faster than that locomotive. That meant that even though we were allowed to operate at 79 mph for nearly 1,000 miles, we could only actually go 70 mph. Over a short distance, this makes only a small distance. Over about 1,000 miles, this turns into hours. When we got to Denver, we had actually gained a little time, and we were not as late as we had been leaving Provo. The speed limits are lower across Colorado, due to the mountains, and they are easily in the operating capabilities of any locomotive. Once past Denver, we were operating at our top speed, but under the speed limit, and in the thousand miles between Denver and Chicago, we lost about another three hours. We pulled into Chicago at 9:32pm on Wednesday. Due to such a large delay, many people missed connecting trains, and other arrangements had to be made, which Amtrak took care of.
I was scheduled to leave Chicago on the Lake Shore Limited at 9:00pm, on Wednesday. One time in the past when I had to make that same connection, they actually held the train in the station because they had a lot of people making that connection. On this trip, I had a radio scanner, and I was listening to what was going on behind the scenes, so to speak. I learned that, regardless of the number of the people who had to transfer, they were no holding the Lake Shore Limited. They did not explain why, but basically if we made it in time for people to transfer, that was good, but if not, Amtrak would make other arrangements. I also learned by listening to my scanner that the Lake Shore Limited was running a little late. Despite the fact that it was supposed to depart Chicago at 9:00pm, it was just backing into the station at a few minutes after nine o'clock. I figured it would be a very short layover at the very best, if we were lucky enough to make it. I also learned that we would be arriving on track 26, and the Lake Shore Limited would be departing from track 28, which would be convenient if we made it in time, because then the trains would be across the platform from each other.
As I mentioned, we pulled into Chicago at 9:32pm, just over six hours late. When we pulled into the station, the Lake Shore Limited was still sitting across the station. They had not quite been ready to leave when we got there, so I got off the California Zephyr, and got across the platform and onto the Lake Shore Limited just as fast as I could. My layover was literally less than one minute long. The Lake Shore Limited did not wait long before pulling out. Fortunately, I had made the connection, despite the fact that it was a very fast layover. Those who did not make it were put in a Chicago hotel at the expense of Amtrak, and caught the same train the next day.
As we rode the Lake Shore Limited out of Chicago, I found out why they were not going to wait in Chicago, even though quite a few people were connecting to that train. Train crews are only allowed to work 12 hours at a time. After 12 hours, they need a minimum of eight hours off before their next shift. This is a safety regulation. Normally, the crew who brings the westbound Lake Shore Limited into Chicago in the morning gets their eight hours off during the day, and then operates the eastbound train out in the evening. That morning, the westbound Lake Shore Limited had struck and killed a pedestrian. The crew was not to blame for that, but they are required to take a day off to recover from that. Regardless of who is to blame, it is emotionally challenging whenever a train crew has a fatality on their shift, so a day off helps them recover a bit. The pedestrian had been a 17 year old high school student who thought he could make it across the tracks at a crossing before the train got to the crossing. The good news is he and the train tied in that race. The bad news is he still lost. After that incident, a new crew was notified that they would be taking the eastbound train that evening, and they came to get things ready. While they were making a reverse move with the train at one point, within the Chicago yard area, they ran through a red signal. That is a big no no. Running through a red signal is a mandatory drug and alcohol test, and three days out of service. So, the replacement crew was not allowed to operate the train east that night either. A third crew was called in, just a couple hours before the scheduled departure time. This is why the train was backing down to the station after it was supposed to be gone. They were not holding the train, because that crew was to take it to Toledo, Ohio, and they barely had the hours to make it there. They would make it, but they could not really delay in Chicago more than they absolutely had to, or they risked running into the 12 hour limit before getting to Toledo. When a crew runs into the 12 hour limit, they are required to stop the train wherever it is and wait for a replacement crew. There are no exceptions to that rule. Normally it is not a big problem, because Amtrak can get a replacement crew out there, and the delay is just a few minutes. In this case, if that happened, it would be two days before another crew was available, and the train would have to sit for two days. Obviously, that is not an option, so the train had to get out as soon as possible.
As I mentioned, we did leave Chicago a bit late. We hurried to Toledo, racing against the clock, and we actually go to Toledo ahead of schedule. Our crew was able to turn the train over to a new crew, and no one went over their hour restrictions. The train continued on, through the night, and I woke up the next morning. After a brief check of the train by the US Border Patrol, in Erie, Pennsylvania, we continued on to upstate New York. We ran through a blizzard there. Fortunately those cause only minimal delays to the train typically, and we only lost a few minutes there. The rest of the trip went fine. We did lose a little time before Albany, but there were no major delays. In Albany, the train split. Five cars headed east, to Boston, and the other ten went south, to New York. We made it almost all the way to Boston before we ran into any delays. As we left Worcester, Massachusetts, we got stuck behind a couple of freight trains and a commuter train, and we went pretty slow for a while. We got around them, and then we picked up some speed again. We had to slow down for a minute again, just outside of Boston, because someone had run their car off the Massachusetts Turnpike, which parallels the railroad. They had hit the guardrail so hard they went through that, and also through the chain link fence behind it, and out onto the railroad tracks. Fortunately they did not end up on our track, but there was quite a scene of emergency personnel, and we had to slow down as we went through the scene of the crash. From there, it was just another few minutes into Boston. We arrived in Boston, also at 9:32pm, Thursday evening, just about a half hour late. When I got off the train, I got on the Boston subway, the "T," and headed out to meet Steven and Michael. They drove me home from there. It was a nice trip. I enjoyed it a lot, even though it proved, as always, to be a bit of an adventure. Every time I take the train, I get a new story out of it. I still love travelling that way though. There is no other way quite like it to really see the country, and get a feel for the size and beauty of it. Harry S Truman once said, "You get a real feeling of this country and the people in it when you are on a train." I think he was right. It is a unique way to travel, and I'll keep doing it, even if it takes an extra 50 hours to get home!
