WASHINGTON — As the next mix of high winds, rain, and snow moved up the East Coast, Amtrak cancelled frequencies for trains departing late today (Tuesday, Jan. 9) and early Wednesday but managed to preserve some service on all Northeast routes.
This was the same scenario the company used earlier in the week when some — but not all — trains on Midwest corridors, mostly scheduled to run today, were cancelled days in advance [see “Amtrak announces service changes, cancellations …,” Trains News Wire, Jan. 5, 2024].
In the Northeast, Wednesday’s first early-morning Acela New York-Boston round trip was dropped, along with an early-morning departure from Springfield, Mass., but the New York-Washington segments of most trains were set to operate. Some Virginia service to Newport News and Richmond is curtailed along with 10 of 26 Keystones west of Philadelphia. The latest Northeast Corridor update is available on the Amtrak website.
The lone long-distance network cancellations were the Coast Starlight in both directions north of Emeryville, Calif., today and Wednesday, and the already-announced eastbound Empire Builder sections that would normally have departed Portland, Ore.,and Seattle today as a result of their westbound counterparts being scrubbed Jan. 7. Snows along the route the days of the cancelled trains turned out to be nothing unusual for this time of year.
The Builder round trip leaving Chicago on Jan. 6, however, was delayed more than 3 hours following a vehicle strike west of Milwaukee, which cascaded into a 5-hour, 36-minute late eastbound departure from Seattle on Jan. 8. It was more than 7 hours late rolling through Glacier Park, Mont., Tuesday afternoon.
Other major delays befell Southwest Chiefs in western Kansas, Colorado. and New Mexico late Monday into Tuesday, with Sunday’s eastbound out of Los Angeles over 6 hours late at Kansas City, and Monday’s westbound nearly 4 hours late at Las Vegas, N.M. And though the California Zephyrs leaving Denver and approaching Chicago Tuesday afternoon were both more than 3 hours late, the westbound arriving in Sacramento was an hour and a half late, and the other three Zephyrs on the 2,438 mile route were less than a half-hour late. Not bad, considering that portions of Interstate 80 in Nebraska were closed due to white-out conditions on Monday.
Another challenge for Amtrak lies ahead this weekend, when near-zero temperatures appear to be headed for the Great Plains and Midwest.
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