Trip Report: October 24 to October 31, 2006
by Ted & Sylvia Blishak
GrandLuxe Express to Denver
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Denver to Salt Lake City on Amtrak
Our report on our outbound trip from Klamath Falls to Denver on the Grand Luxe Express will follow shortly, but in the meantime, here is the beginning of our report on our return trip on Amtrak.
Planning our departure from the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver carefully, we requested a wake-up call at 5:45am, then set my alarm for 5:30am. What could go wrong? We had vouchers for breakfast at
Ellyington's, the main dining room of the Brown Palace Hotel. We are told that breakfast begins at 6:00am, or 6:30am, or 7:00am, nobody seemed to be sure. Checking the Amtrak web site, I learned that the California Zephyr was due in early this morning at 6:50am, but would leave on schedule at 8:05am. We completed our packing, called for a bellman to pick up our bags and went to the front desk to check-out. Sylvia strolled over to Ellyington's to find it closed. The young night clerk tells me that breakfast is never served before 7am at the Brown Palace Hotel, appearing haughtily proud of their leisurely life style, dating back 113 years.
We took a taxi to Union Station, where a friendly Amtrak baggage man brought a cart out to the curb for our luggage, checked two bags through to Klamath falls and offered Red Cap service to the train. He reaffirmed that No 5 would arrive early this morning and we compared watches, it was 6:45am, just enough time to pick up some coffee and juice at the snack bar. Unfortunately, I found that the snack bar and gift shop had closed months ago as a part of the station improvement project, so we settled for cold apple juice from the vending machine before boarding.
I glanced up at the main hall clocks, and to my horror, found they were set to 5:45am! We and the baggage man had forgotten to set our watches back. The wake up call operator had failed to remind us of the time change. The front desk clerk never even questioned our arriving in the lobby at 5:30am for a 6:30am breakfast. We had thought of everything except the change from Daylight Savings time to Standard Time, and there was nobody to remind us! How lucky for us it was the Fall time change, rather than the Spring.
Fortunately we had picked up a Denver Post and a New York Times at the hotel, so were not at a loss for amusement during our one hour wait on the comfortable traditional benches at Union Station.
The westbound California Zephyr did arrive 45 minutes early at 6:45am. Shortly, our tickets were pulled and an Amtrak Station Agent loaded our carry on luggage on to her golf cart and took us on the lengthy ride to Sleeper 531, near the front of the train, right next to the diner.
Breakfast was being served in the dining car, and we had excellent omelets and sausage patties, with plenty of juice and hot coffee.
The dining car had been recently refurbished with fresh dark blue upholstery and carpeting, as had the Lounge Café car and our sleeping car. The Lounge Café car now consists of half viewing seats, and half 4-top table booths. The sleeping car has all new plumbing and a completely redesigned annex module in the deluxe bedrooms that somehow makes both the room and the annex seem more spacious.
The public restrooms and shower have also been completely redesigned to be more attractive and spacious. The shower even includes a bench inside the shower stall to make bouncing, high speed showers safer and easier. There is an enlarged counter and mirror in the dressing annex. How the ingenious designers made everything more spacious in the same amount of floor space is a wonder to behold.
Back in our Bedroom (formerly called Deluxe Bedroom), we find the same dark blue upholstery and carpeting, a newly redesigned chair, a larger mirror with an arched design, and control modules redone to include an electrical outlet next to the window, eliminating the need for the long extension cable to my laptop which is resting on the fold our table by the window.
The sink plumbing in all of the Bedrooms and all of the Public Restrooms has been redesigned to eliminate the flimsy old faucet handles which always seemed to release a blast of water which tended to spray water all over the room. Now, circular push faucets release a controlled flow of water from gooseneck faucets, all much easier to use.
We settled down in the Lounge Café car to enjoy the climb up the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains . All of the individual seats were taken but the booth seating encourages the meeting of new people while enjoying the scene. It is a lengthy climb up to the 6200 foot long Moffat Tunnel at an elevation of 9000 feet above sea level. Before entering the tunnel we make out the long abandoned right of way climbing up the north side of the canyon, the old Rollins Pass route, which crosses the Continental Divide 3000 feet higher than the Moffat Tunnel, at great expense in power, and great danger from avalanches.
Although the car attendant warns us that this train is subject tedious delays due to the insufferable condition of the Union Pacific Railroad, (there is even a letter on that subject posted on the wall of the sleeper lobby), we arrive in Winter Park on time, and even enjoy an unscheduled platform walk while waiting for an opposing coal train to pass.
Lunch is by reservation, and we select 12 noon to enjoy our cheeseburger and chicken sandwiches, with iced tea.
We are on time at Granby, and even our afternoon stop at Glenwood Springs is on the money. What can be happening here, has the Union Pacific Railroad relearned the art of running passenger trains on schedule? Our attendant tells us as a result of a letter (reproduced below) from Amtrak to the Union Pacific Railroad in August, the Federal Railway Administrating has ordered the Union Pacific to restore their poorly maintained tracks, in order to make it possible for Amtrak trains to run on time, or face closure of the line.
August 4, 2006
Mr. xxxxx xxxxxxxx
Executive Vice President Operations
Union Pacific Railroad Company
1400 Douglas Street
Omaha, NE 68179
Dear Mr. xxxxx:
I am writing to seek your immediate assistance in correcting the chronic unacceptable performance of Amtrak trains operating on the Union Pacific Railroad, particularly Amtrak's long-distance trains.
It's sobering to look at how bad long-distance Amtrak train performance on UP has become. In July, 97% of the 211 long-distance trains operated primarily on UP arrived late. Even more amazing is the degree of lateness: 84% of long-distance trains arrived more than 2 hours late, 74% more than 3 hours late, and 66% more than 4 hours late.
To further put this into perspective, over 67,000 Amtrak passengers traveled on UP long-distance trains that were over 4 hours late...in the month of July alone! The resulting damage to Amtrak's brand, reputation, and repeat business is immense.
The vast majority of delays are from causes attributable to UP-nearly 90% of all delays incurred by Amtrak trains operating on UP in July. As high as these UP-responsible delays are, they continue to increase .
Amtrak has tried to work with UP to improve this situation. Our cooperation has ranged from adding over three hours of scheduled recovery time and changing the scheduled slot of the Sunset Limited, to repeatedly rerouting the California Zephyr away from the ridership-producing Rocky Mountain scenery for weeks at a time each summer to assist with UP trackwork, to modifying the schedule of the Coast Starlight last month on extremely short notice to support UP trackwork in Oregon.
In return, overall long distance train performance has continued to worsen. UP's encroachment on Amtrak's contractual and statutory rights reached a point this Spring where Amtrak had to initiate a contract arbitration over our right to operate, in which Amtrak prevailed by a unanimous 3-0 vote of the arbitrators.
A primary root cause of this unacceptable performance is UP's chronic violation of the slow order limits in our UP-Amtrak operating agreement. Each of the four Amtrak long distance routes operating on UP is in violation of these clear contractual obligations.
UP is making investments in some of these slow order areas, and Amtrak appreciates that step in the right direction. However, these investments cover only a portion of the route-miles where slow orders exceed contractual limits, and have not been enough to bring slow orders into compliance with the operating agreement.
Clearly, we cannot continue like this. Tom xxxxxx has requested a meeting with Joe xxxxxxx. I trust that Mr. xxxxxxx will be prepared to discuss with Tom a program for immediate corrective action, to be taken while simultaneously working to correct the chronic slow order contractual violations on all Amtrak routes where they exist.
The responsibility for operating Amtrak trains with minimal delay over UP rail lines is clear in both federal law and in UP's operating agreement with Amtrak. The magnitude of Amtrak's performance problems on UP has begun to attract significant public attention. If our two companies cannot improve Amtrak performance on UP, it is an invitation for government to solve our performance problems for us, an outcome neither of us wants to see happen.
Sincerely,
xxxxx xxxxxx
Sr. Vice President, Operations
Amtrak
Strong language indeed, and probably only possible due to the recent resignation of Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta, who would never permit Amtrak to speak up for its rights under the law.
We don't know what is going to happen on the rest of our return trip, but our experience today is something that I have never experienced on this route since the early 1970's, when the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad operated the Rio Grande Zephyr between Denver and Salt Lake City. Seeing Union Pacific coal trains being held in sidings for us to pass is indeed something to behold.
HOLD IT!! It is 3:37 pm and the conductor is announcing our arrival into Grand Junction . Before he can complete his message, we go into full emergency braking, and his message is cut off with a gasp.
He announces that our train may have hit a trespasser on the right of way, and they have stopped to investigate. In a few minutes an emergency ambulance appears. By 3:50pm we are on our way again. The conductor resumes with voice slightly shaken, his Grand Junction, but makes no mention of the accident. We can only assume the worst.
As we exercise our legs in the balmy afternoon air at Grand Junction, we recall our previous visit here over three years ago, in June, when the temperature in Grand Junction was over 100° F.
We learn from our car attendant that the emergency incident involved a young man, possibly of limited sense, who was playing chicken with Train 5, and apparently leaped aside at the last moment, ran to his off- road vehicle and drove away. The local officials gave us the highball, and we actually arrived into Grand Junction on time.
The store and gift shop at the Grand Junction station is still open and we pick up some cashews and almonds to enjoy with our cocktail hour in the Café Lounge. At our reserved 5:00pm dinner seating, Sylvia has the salmon, and I have the pork, both of which are excellent. We share a half bottle of Italian Pinot Grigio.
The stop at Green River, Utah, is on time at 5:58pm. The hamlet boasts less than 1000 people, but is so far from any other town, warrants a brief stop.
As we race into the Utah night, after a lengthy and colorful sunset over this dry and rocky wilderness, we look forward to a comfortable night in our Bedroom, although we plan to be awake at midnight in Salt Lake City, where there is a Sprint PCS Digital Cell Phone signal, and we can send out this report to our Webmaster.
PS. Arrived into Salt Lake City 30 minutes ahead of schedule at 11pm. This message is being transmitted from Salt Lake City.
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