Amtrak Trains 3, 4, 5 ,6 run on BNSF, which is still suffering from Midwestern floods that have damaged or shut down major routes, necessitating detours.

Add to that a spate of "bad" at Chicago Amtrak, where for several days they did not get trains prepared and out of the coach yard/enginehouse in a state of good repair, for timely departures.

AND once underway, there seems to be no telling whether a train will get over the road without some kind of mechanical problems. On a recent trip of the westbound California Zephyr, both Amtrak units lost traction power, and a BNSF freight unit added to the train broke down, fortunately not too far from Sparks, where UP mechanics could nurse it in; a UP unit was added there.

Train 5(6) started off bad; it pulled out of Chicago on Saturday, August 6,
53 minutes late. By Holdrege, NE it was seven hours late with one dead
Amtrak engine (blown turbocharger reported) and a BNSF freight unit in
the lead. It was 8 1/2 hours late out of Denver, still with one BNSF
unit leading one working and one dead Amtrak engine. 9 1/2 hours late
at Glenwood Springs; ten hours late at Provo. With the advantage of
recovery time, it was 9h 12m late into Salt Lake City.

Ten hours late at Elko and 10h 33m late at Winnemucca, steadily losing
time after the second of the Amtrak Genesis engines broke down and could
not provide traction power; then the BNSF engine gave up, too, 38 miles
out of Sparks, NV. Union Pacific sent help in the form of Mechanical
personnel to bring the train into Sparks, where more Mechanical help and
a Union Pacific engine awaited. It was 13h 26m late at Reno, after
adding two private cars and the UP engine, and after UP Mechanical nursed one
Amtrak unit back to life.

Things got better after that. A good engineer can make up time
westbound on Donner Pass; this train gained back an hour, even with two
double-spots (Truckee and Colfax). A retired Southern Pacific executive
riding the private cars wrote, "I personally experienced one of the smoothest
trips from Reno departure at 10:02pm and the actual arrival at Roseville
at 2:25am in my entire career. Many trips on the (Southern Pacific business
car) Sacramento of the rear of (SP Train) 101 were not this smooth."

Train 5(6) arrived Emeryville at 4:51 am on Tuesday, August 9...12 hours
and 41 minutes late. One of the two private cars was to continue south
to Los Angeles on the Coast Starlight and time was tight to get it
serviced and provisioned, but it made it onto an on-time Starlight at
Oakland.