Canadian National, not Amtrak, is making this train late
2 comments September 26th, 2008
Amtrak tries hard, but there’s nothing the national passenger train company can do about the Canadian National, which owns the tracks our train runs on.
At the moment we are sitting on a siding somewhere in rural Mississippi while we wait for a northbound CN freight train to pass us. In theory, passenger trains are supposed to have prioritiy over freights. That’s in theory. In practice, it doesn’t happen. The conductor keeps us updated, admitting that “we don’t know where he is” about the freight train. Obviously, we can’t proceed if he’s still on the main line coming our way.
What was supposed to be about a five-minute delay is now a half hour, and no sign of the northbound. You think maybe CN is trying to tell Amtrak something, like scram?
Now we are under way again. Funny, that northbound never did show up. Hope he’s not down the line somewhere. This is only a single track mainline.
