But what's the excuse for the summer delays?
Last week on Tuesday, Northbound Surfliner 565 had to hook up to a disabled Coaster train and push it out of the way. This required edging up to the Coaster almost delicately, connecting the couplers, and then all the power and air hoses. The pressure gets tested and then we pushed. Eventually we got it to doubletrack where we could disconnect, back up, and go around it. Score that for an hour+ late into LA.
That afternoon it happened again. Southbound Surfliner 582 had a long stop near the freight yard in east LA, while the engineer "replaced the lights on the engine." Apparently that didn't work, so we had to limp slowly downline. Apparently a lightless locomotive can't go through a crossing in the daylight at any faster than 20mph or something. After San Juan Capistrano, we pulled aside at the woodpile, and waited for the next Amtrak, 784, to come past, back up, and tow us to San Diego. I was about 2.5 hours late on that leg. So last Tuesday was really bad.
Every train I took last week was late to some extent, and it didn't get fixed this week. On Tuesday, I left early and caught train 580, the 3.00 departure from LA. At the woodpile, we stopped. And waited. Once the Northbound train passed, I figured we would get moving....but no, we waited. And then a southbound metrolink PASSED us. And still we waited. We waited OVER AN HOUR at the woodpile, so we were 90+ minutes late getting home.
Last night it was almost a relief that 580 was only 30 minutes late.
What's going on? I'm calling it #AMtrakSummerCurse
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