Special Message to Riders – Delays of February 17, 2012
February 20, 2012
Dear Capitol Corridor riders,
I truly apologize for the delays that were experienced by Capitol Corridor riders Friday evening. These delays were extensive; in fact, some of the worst in the history of the Capitol Corridor.
At about 4:30pm Friday afternoon, Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) had a major signal outage that stopped all train traffic between Martinez and Suisun. To compound this delay, the timing and location could not have been worse – a Friday evening prior to a three-day weekend along the busiest stretch of Capitol Corridor’s route.
I could elaborate on the technical and communication problems, but that is not the purpose of this message.
This is an apology.
I want all the Capitol Corridor riders that were inconvenienced to know that the CCJPA will be working with Amtrak and UPRR to learn our lessons from this signal outage and its cascading impacts to the passenger and freight trains. We will be working together to establish processes and protocols to ensure that similar outages are either prevented or resolved in a much more expeditious manner.
We did not deliver top quality service to our passengers this evening, but we (CCJPA, Amtrak, UPRR) will make sure that we do everything in our means to recover from this evening’s poor performance and return to our top form.
David Kutrosky,
Managing Director, Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority
Posted in Special Issues
February 20th, 2012 at 6:50 am
It definitely was inconvenient, but thank you for the apology. It was the first time I’ve experienced any delay at all with the Capital Corridor, so I’m sure it will be reliable as usual in the future. Could you tell me what time the trains made it back to the San Jose station, specifically 543?
February 20th, 2012 at 6:24 pm
Thanks,
I was not affected by this but I can understand the frustration of the event. I think it’s very cool you put this letter out. I’m on board with using our rails for travel.
Cody
February 20th, 2012 at 6:51 pm
Thanks for the honest apology. It was unacceptable service which deters ridership. Please keep us informed on resolution so we know that improvements are truly made.
A special thank you for having the Emeryville/SF buses operational 2/20 even though they were not planned. A wonderful commitment to service after 2/17 debacle.
Kudos to the conductors who kept the riders informed in both instances.
February 21st, 2012 at 6:56 pm
Kevin: Our On-Time Performance was pretty dismal for that evening’s trains, as you already know, but Train 543 was 2 hours and 45 minutes late to San Jose. Many evening trains were delayed an hour or more and two trains were cancelled altogether. Our On-Time Performance has been very good, and we’re hoping to return to that quickly!