A beleaguered Empire Builder pulls around the west leg of the wye at West Grand Forks and into the depot to pick up and drop off approximately 25 passengers. At this point, the train is about 11 hours late, partly as a result of hitting a pickup truck about 30 miles west of here near the former town of Shawnee, ND. Although the station stop at Grand Forks only lasted 5 minutes, the train ended up spending about 4 hours in town after the lead locomotive lost its main reservoir pressure not more than 30 seconds after officially departing the station. Once the train finally did leave Grand Forks with a rearranged consist, its crew died on hours, causing a further delay until a relief crew from over 200 miles away in St. Cloud, MN could continue to pull the train east. All in all, it took the train an unbelievable 9 hours and 43 minutes to travel between Devils Lake, ND and Fargo ND; it should take about 2 hours and 42 minutes. Learn more at Grand Forks Railfanning.
