Boatnerd Discussion Forum

Yes, Amtrak #353 was nearly on time only about 10 minutes late which became over 30 minutes late on arrival so it looks like the John M. Selvick may have been the boat in question if the time shown is Central Daylight time. Of course, Norfolk Southern ran two eastbound freight trains before we were able to head west to Chicago. I guess they "tested" the bridge for us!

Thanks for the help!!

An AIS tracking site that has a free vessel passage archive shows the following vessels passing through "NS 5" and their rough times on the afternoon of April 9th

John M Selvick 15:20
Spartan 16:08
MMSI 366925150 22:32 (vessel name not shown, probably a towboat)
John M. Selvick 22:55

But the site doesn't show if the archived times are local times or UTC times (local plus 5 hrs for CDT), so any of those four passages, or any others not recorded could have snagged your train. A good number of the towboats working the Calumet River don't have AIS, so their passages are not recorded via AIS. The only real record would be the bridge tenders log and the vessels log.

Finally, was 353 anywhere near on time? Amtrak's own performance tracking shows the Michigan Service running just 51.9% on time in March and only 31.6% on time over the past year. And that's after they include their "on time" fudge factor where arriving up to 30 minutes late is considered "on time".

Chicago has regularly scheduled bridge lifts on Wed. and Sun. in the spring and fall to allow sailboats through. April 9 was a Wednesday, so if the delay was in the morning this might have been the reason.

I was on Amtrak train #353 on April 9 at Hammond-Whiting, IN station and we were told we were stopped because the Calumet River Bridge was stuck in the up position. Does anyone know more about this and what vessel it may have been opened for? We passed over the bridge after about a 20 minute delay.