Durbin rips freight lines for 'dismal' Amtrak times
The Illini and Saluki lines saw more delays last year, with just 6 percent of Illini trains arriving in Chicago on time
A southbound Amtrak Saluki train runs past Paxton. (Creative Commons/steam_marc)
By Ted Cox
The state’s senior U.S. senator is calling for Amtrak to adopt reforms and hold freight lines accountable after its on-time performance on state train runs got even worse last year.
And keep in mind that’s after Amtrak’s Illini and Saluki lines, running between Chicago and Carbondale via Champaign, were on time on just 29 percent of all runs in 2017, according to a news release from U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin.
Durbin sent letters to both Amtrak and the Federal Railroad Administration in the wake of the latest report from Amtrak’s inspector general titled “Better Estimates Needed of the Financial Impacts of Poor On-Time Performance,” released earlier this month. He blamed preference given to freight trains on lines owned by Canadian National — in defiance of federal regulations favoring passenger trains — for much of the problem.
“As a firm supporter of passenger rail, I stand ready to continue working with Amtrak, as well as with the FRA, to push Canadian National to improve Amtrak’s reliability for Illinois riders,” Durbin wrote in the letter to Amtrak President Richard Anderson. “The people of Illinois deserve better — they deserve assurance that they can arrive at their destination in not only a safe but a timely manner.”
“The people of Illinois deserve better — they deserve assurance that they can arrive at their destination in not only a safe but a timely manner.”
Sen. Dick Durbin (One Illinois/Ted Cox)
Durbin cited figures in the Amtrak report finding that just 6 percent of northbound Illini trains arrived in Chicago on time in 2018, meaning within 15 minutes of the scheduled arrival, while more than one in five, 21 percent, arrived more than an hour late. The northbound Saluki and southbound Illini runs did better, arriving on schedule 49 and 40 percent of the time, but the southbound Saluki was little better than the northbound Illini train, arriving in Carbondale on schedule just 17 percent of the time, while 18 percent arrived more than an hour late.
Calling the performance “dismal,” Durbin pointed out, “This is a stark decline from an already-low 29 percent (on-time performance) on this route as of (fiscal year) 2017.”
Durbin wrote to Anderson: “As you are well aware, freight railroads continue to ignore their statutory obligation to provide Amtrak with preference on their tracks. As a result, freight interference has hampered Amtrak’s financial stability as well as reliability for riders.” He said it caused about 60 percent of Amtrak delays in 2018.
The other detail to keep in mind is these are intrastate Amtrak runs, not the long-distance interstate trains prone to inevitable delays somewhere along the line.
The report explains how poor on-time performance forces Amtrak to pay financial penalties for crew staffing violations, and that it keeps both conductors and engineers on call in both Chicago and Carbondale because of the poor track record. Of the 1,329 penalties for late trains in 2018, 811 were paid to engineers on the Illini/Saluki route, with the Amtrak inspector general saying those Illinois runs alone were responsible for $265,000 of the $430,000 Amtrak paid overall in crew penalties.