Cross country on amtrak

[EMPshockwave82]

Depends on the specific area of the country you're talking about. For the West-bound Sunset Limited, it's quite typical to be (at least) 5 hours late arriving in Maricopa, AZ. Wherever there's 2 parallel tracks, passenger trains can use one for west-bound, and freight can use the other East-bound. But where there's only a single track section available, one of the two trains must pause for a while, to let let the other train go past. Very long freight trains easily outnumber passenger trains for that part of the country.

In single track situations the passenger train might be put in a siding for an extended period of time so that a freight train that is too long to fit in sidings can pass. That doesn't mean that the company can get away with it without facing penalties.

I work for a railroad as a yard manager and have been in centralized dispatching situations before also.

 

[mmntech]

I got back yesterday. Definitelyone of the highlights of my trip. Surprisingly, the train from Halifax to Montreal wasn't as busy as I thought it would be. The cabin in had was pretty small, but big enough. Spent most of my time in the coach lounge because they had movies going up there. The food in the dining car was actually really good too.

The train passes through a lot of small towns so it's a great way to see the countryside. It's too bad they didn't have the dome car on. They only use it in the summer. Just relaxing to sit and watch the world go by. The whole trip took me 28 hours to get back to Toronto. Probably as long as it would take to drive. Probably would have cost as much too thanks to motel stays and ludicrous gas prices.