AMTRAK-missing the small needed items

[schlimm]

Sam1

United Airlines, by the way, filed for bankruptcy, which is a legitimate re-organization process, and came out of it without any significant government help,

 

 I stand corrected:   The government rejected the application claiming United "could probably obtain the $2 billion in financing it needs to emerge from protection without a federal loan guarantee."

There are many who would say a lack of proper regulation allowed banks to become "too big to fail" and engage in questionable practices.

[HarveyK400]

Sam1

HarveyK400

Would you really prefer the slings and arrows of private institutions like insurance companies, banks, and airlines systematically fleecing you; or put up with the occasional aggravations and incompetence of government agencies like Amtrak, the Post Office, and the armed forces?  Neither are desirable; and both need improvement.

I agree that the problems experienced in Atlanta are largely inexcusable and correctable without a lot of money.  In summary, it seems service supervisors are not supervising.  The cost of time as pointed out should be an incentive to Amtrak management.

I have to wonder why the train is reversed, considering the orientation of station facilities. 

Even as a non-smoker and having ridden the Builder and Southwest, I sympathize with the need for a smoking break and protocols to facilitate this without the train spending too much time in the station.  I'd gladly trade a few more minutes if it meant passengers would not sneak a smoke on the train. 

If a bank, insurance company or airline, to cite your examples, fails to respond to its customer's legitimate needs, over a long period of time; it is likely to be history because its aggrieved customers will turn to competitive alternatives.  Just take a look at the airline graveyard for numerous examples of what happens to airlines that cannot compete.  Or ask the former executives of Lehman Brothers or Wachovia what happens when competitive institutions fail to respond to market forces or are mismanaged.

Amtrak has no competition in the intercity passenger railroad business.  If they mess it up, they don't have to worry about losing their customers to another rail operator.  And if they consistently fail to cover their costs, as they have since the day of their birthing, they can simply turn to the tax payers to bail them out.

1)  Amtrak may not have rail competitors; but there are alternatives like driving and flying.

2)  Wide-spread poor performance will lose critical support and funding if not corrected.  Usually a change in top management brings better results and customer satisfaction; but shut-down is an ever-present threat.  Management has been sufficiently motivated by job-preservation to put out the fires of customer dissatisfaction and has avoided a total shut-down in the past. 

[HarveyK400]

It occurred to me that with one round trip, station staff for the representative Empire Builder and Crescent is idle much of the day.  The Builders are scheduled to pass through Shelby about 6 hours apart and a split shift may be possible.  The Crescents are scheduled to pass through Atlanta 12 hours apart which necessitates a second crew, and both must be large enough.

Some of the high labor cost might be reduced by improved automated ticketing at a kiosk or home computer printout..

[oltmannd]

Sam1

And if they consistently fail to cover their costs, as they have since the day of their birthing, they can simply turn to the tax payers to bail them out.

The more important corollary to this is every extra nickel they save or extra nickel of revenue they raise gets subtracted directly from the subsidy. So, if I'm an Amtrak manager, and I can figure out how to get the work done with 4 guys instead of 5, why in the world would I offer that up? All I'd get is the trouble of managing through the change.

[oltmannd]

schlimm

HarveyK400

I wouldn't say Amtrak needs more training for crews without better information.  Bad service and attitude may may stem from inadequate supervision and motivation. 

 

I agree.  Bad service usually starts at the top.  Poor training and supervision, a lack of value and reward for doing a good job, and misplaced priorities usually lead to a poor product whether rail, air, restaurants or other retail establishments.

All of this is good, but all of it will be wasted if you have no way to measure the direct value-added output of each employee as well as you can. That measurement has to be directly related to what that employee has under his control AND you have to give timely feedback to the employee.

[ChicagoRider]

I've ridden Amtrak for many years and have found it very enjoyable. It's true the staff is overworked often and the platforms crowded. Much of this post strikes me as the kind of grousing spoiled Americans like to do. So what if the train arrives early? So what if the bar code scanner doesn't work properly? Maybe it was your low-res print-out. I think that after years of Congress attempting to kill Amtrak, the service does a remarkably good job.

[jeaton]

Last night my wife arrived in Baltimore on a Southwest Arilines flight from Milwaukee.  She had to wait 50 minutes at the baggage carousel for her checked suitcase to get in.  It was wet from the light rain fall.  She paid an extra $10 to get to the head of the boarding line, as Southwest does not assign seats.  Oh yes, the flight appearantly left Milwaukee without either a confirmed landing slot or gate and circled BWI for 30 minutes.

Passengers on airplanes are packed like sardines in seats about as comfortable as stone benches and are subject to all sorts of inconveniences through the whole process.

Highways are congested, often to say just the least, and are in very bad need of repair.

Transit services are subject to frequent delays, reductions in frequency, and often lacking in decent facilities and parking at stations.

Amtrak, see above several posts.

We are getting exactly what we are willing to pay for. 

 

 

[AntonioFP45]

WhiteLeather

I lived in Atlanta for 9 yrs and rode the Crescent north 1-2 times a year.  Over those 9 yrs, the price of the sleeper tripled, nearly quadrupled.  Early in my time there (early 2000s), a coach car was added to the NB Crescent, taken off the SB, so a long stop was necessary.  That stopped around 03 - 04, I seem to recall.  Not sure why - there was always a lot of people getting on NB.

 The real shame is that a city the size of Atlanta has only 1 train in each direction daily.  If one wants to go to Florida from ATL, one has to go to Washington DC first:  a 14 hr train trip in the wrong direction.

 Also, I've seen 3-4 agents on duty when I travelled from Atlanta.

 

WL, 

Here in Florida the passenger rail advocacy group has been urging Miami-Tampa-Gainesville-Atlanta for decades! Preliminary stats showed that it is a viable route.  But, neither CSX nor congress were interested in allowing Amtrak that opportunity.  There are so many markets where medium distance Amtrak service has good potential.  Goes back to the old saying that you get what you pay for.

[HarveyK400]

AntonioFP45

WL, 

Here in Florida the passenger rail advocacy group has been urging Miami-Tampa-Gainesville-Atlanta for decades! Preliminary stats showed that it is a viable route.  But, neither CSX nor congress were interested in allowing Amtrak that opportunity.  There are so many markets where medium distance Amtrak service has good potential.  Goes back to the old saying that you get what you pay for.

 

As you may have heard, Florida, Amtrak & CSX seem to have agreed to upgrade and concentrate passenger service on the former ACL through Orlando and freight on the former SAL through Waldo, the former Amtrak stop for Gainesville.  Ironically, the old SAL is the faster, better engineered route for higher speeds (quite the reverse of North Carolina); but that advantage is lost serving Orlando.

My folks lived in Ocala; and I had an opportunity to return to Chicago on the Floridian.  After delays for separate grade crossing collisions for both the southbound and northbound trains near and in Ocala, I was clocking sustained 103 mph running north of Gainesville behind an SDP40. 

My take is that a pair of round trips between Jacksonville and Tampa would work without over-taxing CSX.