EMERYVILLE, Calif. — The eastbound California Zephyr is shown above as it pulls into its originating station at Emeryville at 12:13 p.m. Sunday after being serviced at Amtrak’s Oakland Maintenance facility. It departed at 12:31 p.m., more than 3 hours late, after the equipment arrived on its westbound counterpart at 1:57 a.m., 9 hours, 47 minutes late. The westbound train had been delayed by more than 7 hours after hitting a track obstruction east of Glenwood Springs, Colo., one of many significant delays to impact Amtrak’s national network during the past week.
The Empire Builder, one of the hardest-hit trains last week [see “Mudslides, snow threat trigger more Amtrak cancellations …,” Trains News Wire, Jan. 7, 2022] continued to experience woes throughout the weekend. The westbound train that departed Chicago on Friday, Jan. 7, reached Minot, N.D., before being cancelled because of weather, while that day’s eastbound No. 8 originated in Spokane rather than Seattle. The Saturday departure from Chicago was cancelled, as were departures from both endpoints on Sunday. Tthe westbound trains scheduled to depart Seattle and Portland today (Monday, Jan. 10) have also been cancelled. Also, Saturday’s eastbound Cardinal left Chicago more than 7 hours late because of what were variously described as equipment and mechanical issues on the Amtrak Alerts Twitter feed. — Russell Sharp and David Lassen
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