necrails posted:From the Amtrak/VIA live map, Westbound Empire Builder, both over 10 hours late, Eastbound Empire Builder both over 3 hours late.
https://asm.transitdocs.com/map
I watched that happen with the Builders last night. I suspect that the westbound 7 was held between Wis Dells and Tomah on the siding and the eastbound 8 at Lacrosse for HOURS due to weather in the area, lots of snow and high winds. I must say, that for the Builder, they were running pretty well until that wicked cold snap back in January, and all the Snow in Seattle earlier this month. They've been so screwed up since then, missing entire trains at least once a week or maybe twice. Just when I think they have it back together, it happens again.
Maybe the CP was just letting the freights go through last night, as passengers are no longer considered a "perishable commodity". What are they going to do, complain to Amtrak. 
A cynical person would say the railroads are doing this on purpose, to make their case for dumping the service, especially since they have a very sympathetic administration in power. My cynical factor is about 75%. I believe Congress has the final say on this, and so far the trains are being funded.
As a result, very unusual thing happened this morning. The two hour late #8 met the ten hour late #7 at the depot in St Paul. The #7 was sitting just in view of the camera, as the #8 pulled in on the track next to it. This happened around 9 AM. On time is normally 7 AM for the eastbound #8 and 10 PM for the westbound #7.
St Paul Union Depot, AKA SPUD, has two rail cams on Youtube. Combine that with the website that has all the Amtrak trains listed above, and a thing called ATCS monitor, which gives users a dispatcher's panel view of train traffic, I can literally see them coming miles away, so I can watch then come in, on the cameras.
If you haven't noticed yet, I'm an Amtrak Empire Builder junkie. It's what I model.
