(The News-Journal posted the following article by Mike Elswick on its website on May 22.)
LONGVIEW, Texas — Despite on-time performance issues, an Amtrak official says passenger train travel on the Texas Eagle route running through Longview was up 39 percent in March and up 34 percent in April from a year ago.
“We’re leading the nation in growth,” said Griff Hubbard, Longview Amtrak station manager and part of the revenue management team of the Chicago to San Antonio route.
He also said the route experienced a 35 percent jump early this year in passenger miles traveled.
“That means we handled more people who traveled further,” Hubbard said.
He is expecting a busy summer and said a change in scheduling for the northbound train through Longview should boost passenger numbers even more.
Hubbard said ridership at the Longview station mirrors what is happening on the route as a whole. He said Amtrak’s connecting bus service to Shreveport-Bossier City and Houston is also experiencing increases in passenger numbers.
The Texas Eagle route running from San Antonio to Chicago was formerly scheduled to stop in Longview daily at 8:20 p.m. The revised scheduled puts its Longview stop at 7:05 p.m.
“That change should help people who are making connections in Chicago to make them in better shape,” he said. “And, they’ve trimmed 25 minutes from the total route from San Antonio to Chicago.”
While that is the scheduled time, Hubbard said the train routinely runs behind schedule.
He said during a recent seven-day period, the northbound train averaged about 11 minutes late arriving in Longview while the southbound Texas Eagle, heading from Chicago to San Antonio with connections to Los Angeles, averaged one hour and 34 minutes late here.
“That’s an improvement over March,” Hubbard said.Amtrak does not own or maintain the tracks its trains run on, but leases track time from other railroads, such as Union Pacific in parts of East Texas.
Sarah Swain, with Amtrak’s communications office in Oakland, Calif., said for a recent period covering 62 trains running north and south along the Texas Eagle route, 48 arrived at their destination late.
“That gives it a 22.6 percent on-time performance,” Swain said.For April, the on-time performance on the Texas Eagle improved, jumping to 37 percent on-time.Swain said going back to the beginning of Amtrak’s fiscal year in October, the Texas Eagle was on time 40.7 percent of the time.
Swain said the on-time performance of the Texas Eagle is not representative of trains nationwide, which, she said, have a better on-time average.
The Texas Eagle’s performance has been hampered by maintenance work on the Union Pacific tracks in the region. She said work between Texarkana and Big Sandy, between Dallas and Fort Worth and between Temple and Austin all have contributed to the problems.
Swain said between now and summer the stretch of track between Popular Bluff, Ark., and Little Rock has speed restrictions while work is in progress.
“Union Pacific has gangs working eight days on and eight days off in an effort to remove those restrictions,” she said. “We’re working with Union Pacific to attempt to improve things.”
Hubbard said Amtrak executives from Western regional offices in California have scheduled a meeting with Longview Mayor Murray Moore in June to discuss the route.