Floridians cancelled; VIA’s Canadian skirts brush fires, derailment

CHICAGO — More evidence of how Amtrak’s equipment is stretched thin surfaced over the weekend when the company was forced to cancel Saturday’s northbound Floridian out of Miami because no locomotive was available to fill in for ailing motive power, according to Amtrak. As a result, the Chicago-Washington, D.C.-Miami through substitute for the Capitol Limited and Silver Star is cancelled out of Chicago today (Aug. 25, 2025) as well, because that train’s equipment never left Miami.

The cancellation adds to lengthy delays experienced by passengers aboard the eastbound Empire Builder, Sunset Limited, California Zephyr, and Southwest Chief, plus two City of New Orleans trains in rural Louisiana, but the tardiness was generally the product of circumstances beyond Amtrak’s control.

— The Empire Builder departing Seattle on-time Thursday afternoon, Aug. 21, encountered “rail congestion and speed restrictions” starting with a four-hour delay through Glacier Park in Montana. The delay doubled by the time the train reached the Twin Cities. It arrived Sunday morning at 1:49 a.m. Friday’s Builder left Seattle 3 hours, 40 minutes late after a tardy westbound arrival in the morning; that train arrived in Chicago on Sunday night just before the scheduled departure of the Lake Shore Limited, which was held 15 minutes for connections.

— After a 90-minute mechanical delay leaving Los Angeles, Friday’s eastbound Sunset Limited lost more than two hours across west Texas. Both the Sunset and the Texas Eagle were thus delayed almost four hours leaving San Antonio. Recovery time into New Orleans and St. Louis, respectively, trimmed the deficit to less than 3 hours for each train

— Flash flood warnings and a blinding dust storm east of Reno, Nev. that affected concertgoers at the nearby Burning Man festival contributed to a four-and-a-half-hour delay to the eastbound California Zephyr. It lost additional time in eastern Colorado Sunday night and was running more than five hours late across Iowa on Monday.

—“Heavy freight train interference” was blamed for delays to the eastbound Southwest Chiefs out of Los Angeles on Friday and Saturday evening; this tends to usually occur on BNSF Railway’s Transcon east Barstow, Calif., Saturday’s train, however, was also challenged by weather-related speed restrictions affecting performance along the passenger-only route from Lamy through Raton, N.M., as well as through eastern Kansas.

— Explosions and a fire Friday afternoon at a factory in Arcola, La., next to tracks used by the City of New Orleans forced Canadian National to shut down the line for an extended period. The passenger trains were annulled at McComb, Miss., southbound and Hammond, La., northbound; passengers of both trains were apparently bused to New Orleans and that day’s southbound City out of Chicago was short-turned at Carbondale, Ill. Service operated normally the next day.

Disruptions in Canada

Meanwhile, both of VIA Rail Canada’s twice-weekly westbound Canadians encountered challenges at both ends of their route on Sunday. The train that departed Toronto on Wednesday, Aug. 20. had whittled hours-long delays to 20 minutes off the advertised leaving Kamloops, B.C., but an out-of-control brush fire east of Yale, B.C., in Canadian National/Canadian Pacific directional running territory closed CN tracks Saturday used by westbound passenger and freight trains. The online news source Castanet reported that fires had jumped to both sides of the Fraser River by Saturday evening.

The Canadian was delayed by more than 8 hours waiting for a slot against eastbound traffic to head west over Canadian Pacific. Thanks to three hours of scheduled recovery time, tardiness into Vancouver B.C. was reduced to five hours, 27 minutes late. As of midday Monday, it is not known what the situation will be for the eastbound Canadian scheduled to leave at 3 p.m. No Rocky Mountaineer disruptions have been reported on that company’s website.

In the east, a CN freight derailment on the Canadian’s regular route necessitated a lengthy move to a wye long enough to reverse the direction of the 20-plus-car consist. Sunday’s westbound Canadian thus departed Toronto more than five hours late.