(The Associated Press circulated the following story by Steve Lawrence on July 27.)
SACRAMENTO — Passengers are experiencing delays of up to 11 1/2 hours on the Coast Starlight, a passenger train between Los Angeles and Seattle that was once one of the nation’s most reliable, a rail passengers’ group complained Thursday.
The Train Riders Association of California said it has been monitoring the southbound train’s arrival times at Paso Robles over about the last month and has noted consistent, long delays ranging from five to 11 1/2 hours.
“This is so far beyond the mild lateness we’re used to that something needs to be done,” said Alan Miller, the association’s executive director.
The group asked the governors of California, Oregon and Washington to pressure Union Pacific Railroad and the federal Surface Transportation Board to correct the problem.
Gerald Cauthen, TRAC’s president, said part of the problem is that there is only a single track to handle freight and passenger trains between Portland and Sacramento and he suggested that UP could ease delays by adding a second track.
He also contended that Union Pacific’s dispatchers don’t give passenger trains required preferences.
“We don’t think that UP dispatchers really care enough about passenger service,” he said. “We don’t expect them to deny themselves profits to help passengers, but they are under some obligations.”
James Barnes, a spokesman for Union Pacific, said the railroad’s managers and dispatchers “make every reasonable effort to provide priority to passenger trains on the Coast Starlight corridor.”
But he said the line is one of the mostly heavily traveled in the country and that the section between Eugene, Ore., and Roseville, Calif., is undergoing repairs that require slower train speeds.
“The bulk of that work is being done over the course of this year,” he said. “That will help remove some of those restrictions.”
He said adding a second track between Portland and Sacramento was “an option. But I’m not sure how viable the option is,” he added. “Putting in track is a weighty endeavor.”
Vernae Graham, a spokeswoman for Amtrak, which runs the nation’s passenger trains, said the Coast Starlight used to have one of the nation’s best on-time records. Now it has one of the worst, she added.
“The delays have been disastrous for us on the Coast Starlight, but it’s been disastrous for years.”
She said the line not only has heavy freight traffic but also is shared by commuter trains in the Los Angeles and San Francisco-Sacramento areas. In summer months, repair work adds to the congestion, she added.
“Usually they try to work around the passenger train schedule, but we still incur huge delays and huge hits…” she said. “Antiquated equipment is a huge, huge problem. If the track is broken it’s got to be fixed.”