Amtrak Long-Distance Train Equipment Shortages to Continue Through 2023

About 11 percent of the equipment Amtrak once assigned to its long-distance trains remains sidelined awaiting mechanical restoration.

Amtrak Vice President of Long-Distance Service Larry Chestler told members of the Rail Passengers Association this week that it will be more than a year before that equipment is back in service meaning reduced consists are likely to be norm through much of 2023.

Speaking during an RPA online event, Chestler also said full-service dining is expected to return to the New York-Miami route early next year but did not indicate that Amtrak has plans to move away from the flexible dining model of serving meals in a bowl on other eastern long-distance trains.

Although Amtrak has experimented with allowing business class passengers to buy dining car meals on the Los Angeles-Seattle Coast Starlight with the experiment expected to be soon extended to coach passengers.

However, there apparently are no plans to extend that practice to all long-distance trains anytime soon.

Chestler did indicate that coach passengers on two other trains will eventually be able to buy dining car meals. The overall thrust of his comments was that dining cars meals will continue to be largely limited to sleeping car passengers for the time being.

The equipment shortages that cut the number of coaches, sleeping cars and lounge cars assigned to long-distance trains stems from Amtrak’s decision during the COVID-19 pandemic to sideline a sizeable number of cars at a time when ridership had collapsed.

At the same time, the passenger carrier reduced the size of its mechanical force and is now struggling to hire enough mechanics to get sidelined equipment back in service.

Also exacerbating the availability of Superliner equipment were derailments involving the Empire Builder in 2021 and the Southwest Chief in 2022 that took more cars out of service.

Chestler said Amtrak has yet to complete a schedule for returning idled passenger cars to service although he said such scheduling could be achieved “in the coming weeks.”

As for when that equipment might return to service, he said Amtrak’s objective is to reduce the 11 percent gap during 2023 with an eye toward restoring “as much of the equipment as is feasible” by 2024.

Amtrak also has begun the planning process toward acquiring new equipment to replace the existing passenger car fleet assigned to long-distance trains.

That process is in the design phase and requests for information will be issued to passenger car manufacturers later this year.

Chestler said Amtrak expects to issue a request for proposals by late 2024.

During his presentation Chestler said Amtrak is developing new procedures that call for senior management to get involved in situations in which a train on the road has lost head end power and the crew has been unable to resolve the situation.

Related to that, he said Amtrak is increasing the number of personnel assigned to contact passengers affected by service disruptions as well as seeking ways to make rebooking easier for passengers whose travel plans have been adversely affected.

A report on Chester’s comments can be found at https://www.trains.com/trn/amtrak-long-distance-capacity-to-remain-tight-through-2023/

Clear Block in Springfield

With its station work complete in Springfield, Illinois, Amtrak’s Chicago-bound Texas Eagle is leaving the former Gulf Mobile & Ohio station in the capital city. The image was made on March 1. At one time the signal showing the clear indication was a home signal for an at-grade crossing of a Baltimore & Ohio branch line to Beardstown, Illinois. But the ex-B&O line is long gone so the signal is now just an intermediate signal.

Equipment Shortages Hurt Long-Distance Trains

Equipment shortages have led to cancellations of some trips of Amtrak’s long-distance trains while other trips have departed their terminals with less than the usual assigned cars.

At least twice in September the California Zephyr and Southwest Chief have left Chicago without a Sightseer lounge.

Aside from lacking enough “protection equipment” to cover all runs, the cancellations and the missing equipment issues have sometimes been caused by late inbound trains and crews that turn to make up the next departure of that train. In short, Amtrak has little margin for error.

A report on the website of Trains magazine noted that even in its best of times Amtrak has never had a large number of spare cars and locomotives to make up a trainset as a hedge against late inbound trains at some West Coast terminals.

Yet in the past, the Trains report said, there have been enough spare cars in Chicago and Los Angeles to make up an emergency spare train because those terminals are endpoints for three long-distance routes.

A lack of serviceable equipment that has resulted from shortages of mechanical workers has meant that, for example, the California Zephyr in recent weeks has operated with two Superliner coaches and sleeping cars, one less of each than it had in previous summers.

That has hindered Amtrak’s ability to accommodate passengers displaced by missed connections due to late trains.

The story can be read at https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/a-bad-week-for-the-california-zephyr/

Amtrak Overhauling Interiors of Passenger Cars

Amtrak has launched a media campaign to tout a $28 million project to overhaul the interiors of Superliner and Viewliner cars used by long-distance trains.

Some of the renovated cars are being placed in service this month.

The first overhauls are being made to Superliner cars with Viewliner sleeping cars expected to be overhauled next.

The project involves giving the cars new seat cushions and upholstery; carpeting; curtains; LED lighting; tables; bedding, linens, and pillows; towels; and updated toiletry dispensers with eco-friendly body wash, conditioner, shampoo and soap.

My First Look at an ALC-42 Charger

Shown above is the first of what I expect to be dozens if not hundreds of photographs of Amtrak trains pulled by Siemens-built ALC-42 Charger locomotives.

The City of New Orleans is just under an hour late as it rips through Humboldt, Illinois, on the Champaign Subdivision of Canadian National with No. 304 in charge.

Amtrak began phasing the new Charger locomotives into revenue service last spring on the Chicago-Seattle/Portland Empire Builder. The CONO was the second train to receive the units.

However, not all CONO train sets have the ALC-42s. The day before this image was made, the northbound CONO was pulled by a P42DC.

Over the next few years the ALC-42 units will replace P42 and P40 locomotives on long-distance and select corridor service trains. In the Midwest, corridor trains have been pulled for the past three to four years by Siemens-built SC-44 Chargers.

The ALC-42s have introduced Amtrak’s Phase VII livery, which features a dark blue carbody with red accenting and white stripes.

Perhaps in time I’ll become as tired of seeing this livery and locomotive as I’ve come to be with seeing the P42DC in action in the Phase V scheme. But that day is years away for now.

Classic Scene in Arcola

Amtrak’s northbound Saluki charges through Arcola, Illinois, as it race toward Chicago. Perhaps few, if any, passengers noticed passing this former service station located next to the tracks.

Although it has the herald of Marathon Oil Company, information I found online indicated that it actually used to be a Sinclair station. It was cosmetically restored in the early 2000s and has been a town landmark ever since.

It is not difficult to imagine some customers from bygone days sitting in their cars as the attendant fills there tank and taking note of a passing Illinois Central Railroad passenger train. What a sight that must have been.

Eagle’s Nest

The eastbound and westbound Texas Eagles are meeting in Fort Worth on March 15, 2005. This is a scheduled event so both trains were on time. Partly visible in the distance in front of Train 22 (right) is the equipment for the Heartland Flyer laying over before departing later today.

The Capitol Limited Has Arrived

It is May 20, 1998. Amtrak’s Capitol Limited has arrived at Chicago Union Station from Washington and passengers are disembarking and heading into the depot to continue on to where they are going. I was aboard this train but don’t remember if we were on time or, if not, how late we were. If the latter it probably was not too much lateness. I had boarded in Cleveland and had a more than six hour layover until boarding the southbound Illini to continue on to Mattoon, Illinois.

Adding a Coach in St. Louis

The Amtrak reservations system shows a Chicago-St. Louis “section” of the Texas Eagle, trains 421 and 422. In reality this is not a separate train as are trains 448 and 449, the Boston section of the Lake Shore Limited.

Rather it is a Superliner coach added and removed from the Eagle at St. Louis.

The image above was made on March 20, 2005, in St. Louis. The northbound Eagle is getting the coach that will operate as Train 422. Note that it is being attached to the rear of the train, meaning coach passengers seated there will need to walk through a sleeping car to get to the dining car or lounge car.

An Amtrak P42DC is acting as the switcher in the operation.

Racing North Near Leverett

To appreciate this image it probably helps if you grew up in a place with a lot of flat farmland.

Shown is Amtrak’s City of New Orleans racing northbound toward Chicago near Leverett, Illinois, shortly after sunrise on a Sunday morning.

No. 58 was more than an hour behind schedule leaving Champaign. The train is on the Chicago Subdivision of Canadian National, which at one time was the mainline of the Illinois Central between Chicago and New Orleans.

As for what I, an east central Illinois native, see in this photograph, I see familiarity. There are no striking physical features such as mountains and valleys, just farmland and in the distance traces of urbanization in Champaign-Urbana. Above the Superliner cars you also can see the top of the grain elevator at Leverett.

This is all familiar to me and in a way comforting.

I would not have been able to get this image had No. 58 been on time as it would have been dark as it passed through here. It was a nice way to get a day of railfanning off to a good start.

If you look closely, you will see there is frost on the crossties of the CN track. Temperatures were in the 20 when I made this photograph on a winter morning.

I later checked and determined No. 58 halted at Chicago Union Station 58 minutes late.