WeekendTraveler

I see that the northbound Crescent's schedule has been changed so that it goes through Greenville, SC at around 2am and arrives in NYC at around 6pm. It used to be about 10:50pm and 1pm.

This makes the northbound train completely useless between those two cities (and similar segments). I'm not waking up at 2am and spending a whole day on the train; the whole point of a night train is to travel at night and not lose a day.

Does anyone know if this is only temporary?

River in Sight

There’s a discussion thread on an Amtrak Forum that believes this is permanent in order to address new timekeeping standards the freight companies who own the tracks will be held to. Not really familiar with the details but that’s the gist of it.

hhdl

The NB Crescent is somewhat legendary for lateness from ATL north.

WeekendTraveler

River in Sight, thank you very much--you are most helpful.

I still don't get why the schedule was revised in this manner (although River in Sight, you are right as to the reason why). If the schedule just needs to be padded so that the train won't be chronically late, I'd think that having it leave New Orleans maybe an hour earlier would be less detrimental to ridership than having an 11:29pm departure from Atlanta.

DCAKen

I'm guessing that the crew had a mandated rest time from the SB arrival, which has been pushed back 90 minutes.

WeekendTraveler

DCAKen, thanks; that makes sense.

It seems as though the Crescent delays are caused by freight train congestion between Birmingham and north Georgia, so I assume around Atlanta.

If the Crescent is delayed, then I assume that freight trains are delayed, too.

Couldn't Amtrak work with Norfolk Southern to put in an additional few sidings or something to alleviate this? NS got some government funds as part of its Crescent Corridor track upgrades in the last few years; as part of the new infrastructure bill, couldn't funds for additional track on the congested portion of this line be done (and why wouldn't NS be trying to fix its own congestion issues)?

I understand why this schedule change occurred (thanks to River in Sight, DCA Ken, etc.), but it just seems totally avoidable and totally idiotic.

RatherBeOnATrain

My understanding is that the Crescent's schedule changes on June 5, the day when it returns to daily service. The new schedule will have northbound #20 departing from New Orleans at 9:15 am (so no more breakfast service), arriving in Atlanta at 11 pm and DC at 2:12 PM. Southbound 19 will be departing DC at 6:30 pm (same as now), departing Atlanta at 9:28 AM (30 minutes later than now) and arriving at New Orleans at 9:02 am (1.5 hours later than now.)

WeekendTraveler

Thanks. So the northbound Crescent is now a slow New Orleans-Birmingham day train and a slow Greensboro-NYC day train. And a slow overnight train for people in Alabama and Mississippi to travel to northern Virginia and Washington, DC.

Those are all low-ridership routes (if people in Greensboro want to go to NYC, they already have the Carolinian, which has a similar schedule, and the Carolinian hits Charlotte at a better time and Raleigh and Richmond, and New Orleans-Atlanta has always been the weak part of the route). The Crescent's main ridership segments are Atlanta/Northeast, which has been the case for decades.

This route either needs (1) a second train south of Charlotte or (2) the Crescent returned to having departures from Atlanta in the late afternoon/early evening and arrivals in DC and NY in the morning or at least not later than around noon, which has been the case for decades.