ACY We've been over this territory before. You won't get qualified peple who will put up with the long hours and difficult working conditions of onboard service without providing decent pay and benefits. Amtrak tried to contract out (was it Burger King?) and had to abandon the project because the contractor couldn't come through consistently. That's an oversimplification, but it gets the idea across. After a long anf faithful career, employees ought to be able to retire with dignity, a reasonable income, and reasonable security. That's not too much to ask for any employee, whether he or she works for Amtrak or anybody else. Taken to its logical conclusion, your plan would treat Amtrak employees as disposable commodities. If you don't want that for yourself, don't suggest imposing it on any other hard working person. It's insulting. I retired from Amtrak service almost three years ago. I get by on my pension, but if you think I'm the beneficiary of a golden parachute, you're delusional. Others on this forum know I've been over this too many times before, and I find no joy in revisiting it. Tom
We've been over this territory before. You won't get qualified peple who will put up with the long hours and difficult working conditions of onboard service without providing decent pay and benefits. Amtrak tried to contract out (was it Burger King?) and had to abandon the project because the contractor couldn't come through consistently. That's an oversimplification, but it gets the idea across.
After a long anf faithful career, employees ought to be able to retire with dignity, a reasonable income, and reasonable security. That's not too much to ask for any employee, whether he or she works for Amtrak or anybody else. Taken to its logical conclusion, your plan would treat Amtrak employees as disposable commodities. If you don't want that for yourself, don't suggest imposing it on any other hard working person. It's insulting.
I retired from Amtrak service almost three years ago. I get by on my pension, but if you think I'm the beneficiary of a golden parachute, you're delusional.
Others on this forum know I've been over this too many times before, and I find no joy in revisiting it.
Tom
I don't doubt for a second that operating Amtrak requires hard work by a large number of highly qualified employees. That is what makes Amtrak intrinsically expensive.
Consider a motorcoach bus. There is one onboard employee and 45 or more seats. That one employee is the baggage handler-ticket taker-driver-conductor-coach attendant. Is this an unfair labor practice? Is this employee adequately compensated? Someone who has driven motorcoach can weigh in -- a fellow in my model train club has driven charters, and motorcoach travel is a competing mode.
An airliner has a large onboard staff with the Federally mandated flight attendants and the need for two pilots as a safety backup and to handle the workload of a large jet, but the jet travels 10 times faster giving much higher passenger-mile labor productivity. Is this fair? It is a competing mode.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
I love to travel by train but I only travel along the NEC and the lines that radiate to and from it, and not just the Keystone Corridor.
I took the Auto-Train to Florida and I will take it again, but there's no way I'm taking the Silver Star (which arrives an hour closer to my destination) even if just for fun. I will take Acela to Boston, but no way am I suffering the Cardinal or Capital Limited to Chicago. I will happily go to points south in Virginia, but those destinations are now officially part of the NEC so they don't count.
On the flip side, I have the Empire Builder as a vacation-only line item on my bucket list, but I will probably fly to Chicago so I don't miss the connection since Amtrak is somehow okay with regulary being 6 to 8 hours late arriving there.
California passenger rail is exceptionally good everywhere because it's Amtrak California, virtually an independent entity with much higher funding and standards than Amtrak has.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.