oltmannd Cool! But, 5 years to upgrade 24 miles of RR? Can't we get this elephant to dance a bit faster?
Cool! But, 5 years to upgrade 24 miles of RR? Can't we get this elephant to dance a bit faster?
As Don Oltmannd so aptly puts it Amtrak needs to rethink the work schedule.
1. Locating utilities needs to be done now.
2. Unknown utilities are a real problem. PRR may have done it right but what about PC?/ then Conrail ? then the early days of Amtrak ? I have never done any buried utility work where unknowns have not reared their ugly head even where RRs were involved.
3. Any crossovers work should be done however the need to modify CAT will complicate the process.
4. Once any required enviromental assestments are complete then the real work can begin.
4a. Track 1 or track 4 can be closed to drill the foundations for the intermediate horizontal supports and any 138Kv stantions that need replacement.
4b. The intermediate verticals can then be installed with maybe the adjaecent track CAT turned off? Any interferrence with signal power & wires will have to be delt with.
5. Here is where I and the rest of us may have made an assumption not based in fact.
5a. IMHO there will be no reason to install PRR type intermediate horizontals at most locations. Instead just install modern 2 track hangers that are used throughout Europe and at some locations on the BOS - New Haven portion and on the new CAT of NJ Transit and other locations. That installation should allow the 2 opposite tracks CAT to stay energized ?
6 . At those locations that do need new Horizontals (( hopefully Amtrak will not install them everywhere )) with the need to shutt off CAT a work window should be established from 9:00 PM to 07:00 AM .
6a. Set up one hour
6b. Shut off CAT
6c for those trains scheduled from 2200 - 0600 either use P-42s or better still lease overnighting NJ Transit ALP-45DPs that are 125 MPH capable. Use them Trenton - Newark or NYP.
6d. This upgrade area only has 2 late evening regionals a Keystone NB and 2 Late evening egionals and 1 Keystone southbound. There is also 66 &67 late night trains and the 2 NB long distance trains Palmetto and Cardinal. Easily covered by overnighting AL-45s. There are a couple NB SB regionals until 0600 in the morning.
So with this type construction this should not be a 5 year project ??
henry6 As for baggage-dorm cars. There are times when labor costs have to be weighed and applied. If a crew can be aboard and available because of a baggage dorm rather than land based hotel or dormatory rooms, then it is the right choice. This also has to be weighed against income for the space. If the space can be rented out every night is one thing, but if only once a week, then it is another. Crew costs...and control...have to be considerd in the operation and not just an offhand chance of taking in revenue.
As for baggage-dorm cars. There are times when labor costs have to be weighed and applied. If a crew can be aboard and available because of a baggage dorm rather than land based hotel or dormatory rooms, then it is the right choice. This also has to be weighed against income for the space. If the space can be rented out every night is one thing, but if only once a week, then it is another. Crew costs...and control...have to be considerd in the operation and not just an offhand chance of taking in revenue.
Henry, I can't quite believe you said that last. If your chance of taking in revenue is only "offhand," it's time to dump the service. Amtrak had better act as if its goal is to run 100-percent full every trip. That's what any private carrier would do.
dakotafred henry6: As for baggage-dorm cars. There are times when labor costs have to be weighed and applied. If a crew can be aboard and available because of a baggage dorm rather than land based hotel or dormatory rooms, then it is the right choice. This also has to be weighed against income for the space. If the space can be rented out every night is one thing, but if only once a week, then it is another. Crew costs...and control...have to be considerd in the operation and not just an offhand chance of taking in revenue. Henry, I can't quite believe you said that last. If your chance of taking in revenue is only "offhand," it's time to dump the service. Amtrak had better act as if its goal is to run 100-percent full every trip. That's what any private carrier would do.
henry6: As for baggage-dorm cars. There are times when labor costs have to be weighed and applied. If a crew can be aboard and available because of a baggage dorm rather than land based hotel or dormatory rooms, then it is the right choice. This also has to be weighed against income for the space. If the space can be rented out every night is one thing, but if only once a week, then it is another. Crew costs...and control...have to be considerd in the operation and not just an offhand chance of taking in revenue.
Lets say if you have to leave a crew member off at some point and pay room and board for him, maybe even after only 6 hours on duty plus hire another person to cover the next part of the journey at an allocated cost of, for arguement and simplicity, say $500 You could also carry a crew member to his 8 hour limit and get him back to work within a few hours after an 8 hour sleep allocation and not have to have another hire with an allocated cost of $250, Then lets say you could rent his bunk for $100 for the night. So you have decided to take in $100 while you have to spend $500 to make it....doesn't make sense. It just might be that the dorm room is worth more money in your pocket than renting it out. Remember, we are talking a business that is providing services and not running trains.
RIDEWITHMEHENRY is the name for our almost monthly day of riding trains and transit in either the NYCity or Philadelphia areas including all commuter lines, Amtrak, subways, light rail and trolleys, bus and ferries when warranted. No fees, just let us know you want to join the ride and pay your fares. Ask to be on our email list or find us on FB as RIDEWITHMEHENRY (all caps) to get descriptions of each outing.
I appreciate your point, Henry. But if first dibs on the revenue sleeping space goes to the hired help, what do we need with all those new dorms and baggage-dorms? Either way, it looks like we're devoting scarce resources to overhead rather than to the supposed target, the paying public. And running expensive trains up and down the line for the exercise. Chasing our tail.
My position in a nutshell: Buy sleeping cars, not dorms and baggage dorms -- and certainly not baggage cars. Then you can go ahead and put up the help in First Class space but still have more left to sell the public.
When in business you must allocate somethings for employment and production. Keep the dorm cars as part of your employee-production managment and keep segragated from income property. If you rent a cabin for $100 in an company car and then have to spend an additional $500 to hotel an employee to accomodate that passenger, you are not managing properly. If you have the dorm car for employee-production management and use it for employee production management, then you are managing well. However, if on occasion you don't have employees to use the car, you could accomodate passengers for even $50 and be ahead of the game since you are hauling the car anyway. You've got to manage your income and expenses, keep them in balance. You do things that first earn you money and don't do things that cost you money..
henry6 When in business you must allocate somethings for employment and production. Keep the dorm cars as part of your employee-production managment and keep segragated from income property. If you rent a cabin for $100 in an company car and then have to spend an additional $500 to hotel an employee to accomodate that passenger, you are not managing properly. If you have the dorm car for employee-production management and use it for employee production management, then you are managing well. However, if on occasion you don't have employees to use the car, you could accomodate passengers for even $50 and be ahead of the game since you are hauling the car anyway. You've got to manage your income and expenses, keep them in balance. You do things that first earn you money and don't do things that cost you money..
A tiny room on a rail car will always be a more expensive space to own and operate than a standard motel room. (That's part of Amtrak's problem...)
Paying an employee to sleep can never be a winning productivity solution.
Customers don't need a lot of attention while they are asleep. (How many people are on duty at a Hampton Inn overnight? One.)
There are plenty of places to go an benchmark how to staff hotels and restaurants. I'd start with cruise ship companies and hoteliers.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
With respect to the sleeping car, I think the answer is in what the airlines are doing for premium-fare (First Class and Business Class) passenger on trans-Pacific runs, which are of comparable length to trips taken on LD trains, with the exception of riding the full way from Chicago to the West Coast.
Deep recline Business Class seats. Make them only 3-across on a twin-aisle configuration so that you don't need to sleep next to a stranger. Use those clamshell headrest arrangements that Northwest (now Delta) was advertising for their business class -- that arrangement appears to provide some measure of quiet privacy -- perhaps that clamshell thing could be equiped with speakers for personal listening if a person doesn't want headphones -- at the very least provide jacks for headphones so a person can tune out snoring or coughing neighbors with music or other entertainment of their choice or maybe seashore sounds or train sounds or whatever passengers find restful or soothing.
You are already at 4-across with deep-recline seats, so 3-across is a compromise between current LD coach and sleeper service in terms of passengers per train car. Seriously, look into that clamshell seat or whatever else the airlines are doing for First and Business Class -- if this is good enough for airline passengers to pay serious coin on trips of the same length as LD train rides, it should be considered for train travel.
Keep in mind that in Australia they acquired Hitachi tilt trains for an accelerated schedule but still an overnight trip. They considered sleeping cars, but instead offer a 3-across seating, somewhat along the lines of what I am proposing.
The other thing to preserve the Amtrak network is to look at some of the long-distance routes as a series of corridors. The Cascades Talgo is such a corridor route overlaid on a traditional LD route.
And this needs to start with the advocacy community because it is we who write our Members of Congress and stir things up if Amtrak dares to discontinue the Three Rivers (a "mail" train from the Amtrak era of experimenting with head-end business) or the Sunset Limited (which we are still fighting). When the infamous Inspector General's report came out calling for elimination of sleeping cars, I had suggested to our brick-and-morter advocacy group that that report could have been a jumping-off point rather than something to fight tooth-and-nail.
I asked, "What if in place of sleeping cars on long-distance trains we could have service along the lines of the Cascades Talgo up and down the Mountain West? Would you consider that a worthwhile exchange?"
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
oltmannd A tiny room on a rail car will always be a more expensive space to own and operate than a standard motel room. (That's part of Amtrak's problem...) Paying an employee to sleep can never be a winning productivity solution. Customers don't need a lot of attention while they are asleep. (How many people are on duty at a Hampton Inn overnight? One.) There are plenty of places to go an benchmark how to staff hotels and restaurants. I'd start with cruise ship companies and hoteliers.
But if you are running a store and you have a janitors closet because you need a janitors closet, you don't rent' the space out. If you have a hotel or motel and have a laundry or janitor's closet, you don't rent that out;. So if you're running trains and have dormitories for your staff when needed, it is part of your business plan and costs and don't go renting it out just because it is there unless absolutley necessary and available. You might, for instance, rent it out if the car is being deadheaded or if it is set that there is an availaibilty because there are not that many crew people. But can only do this, of course, if there is crew enough available to make it happen. No, no, this is not somethning you can plan on and put in the computer; it is an accepted and planned cost of operation. And if booting a crew member and paying his cost of hotel and meals is more than you'll earn from renting the room, you are a foolish businessman and won't last long because you don't hold your expenses down properly.
Gentlemen, baggage-dorms aside, the expenditure of $450 million to remedy long deferred maintenance on 24 miles of track is nothing more than a snow-job; the illusion of progress. An actual sign of progress would have been to tackle the longer standing issue of the tunnels under Baltimore. In 1928 the PRR forwarded “the Baltimore Improvement program, a comprehensive $22 million proposal that included not only constructing new tunnels parallel to the old ones but also extending the four-track system south of the Union Tunnel, reducing curvature” with “the possibility of combining operations with the B&O through the city.” Baltimore is and has always been a bottleneck for passenger as well as freight. $22 million in 1928 calculates to almost $300 million in today’s dollars. As a government project the tab rises by a factor of four or $1.2 billion. B&O’s successor CSX could certainly pick up a reasonable amount of the cost. Which is more in keeping with the National Interest: 24 miles of deferred maintenance or a near-century-old bottleneck for passenger and freight? Perhaps when California HSR is mercifully euthanized, which should be any day now, then some of those monies could be redirected to "The city that reads."
Gentlemen, baggage-dorms aside, the expenditure of $450 million to remedy long deferred maintenance on 24 miles of track is nothing more than a snow-job; the illusion of progress. An actual sign of progress would have been to tackle the longer standing issue of the tunnels under Baltimore. In 1928 the PRR forwarded “the Baltimore Improvement program, a comprehensive $22 million proposal that included not only constructing new tunnels parallel to the old ones but also extending the four-track system south of the Union Tunnel, reducing curvature” with “the possibility of combining operations with the B&O through the city.”
Baltimore is and has always been a bottleneck for passenger as well as freight. $22 million in 1928 calculates to almost $300 million in today’s dollars. As a government project the tab rises by a factor of four or $1.2 billion. B&O’s successor CSX could certainly pick up a reasonable amount of the cost. Which is more in keeping with the National Interest: 24 miles of deferred maintenance or a near-century-old bottleneck for passenger and freight? Perhaps when California HSR is mercifully euthanized, which should be any day now, then some of those monies could be redirected to "The city that reads."
Editor Emeritus, This Week at Amtrak
Why should CSX spend a dime to fix ATK's problem?
Mac
PNWRMNM Why should CSX spend a dime to fix ATK's problem? Mac
henry6 And if booting a crew member and paying his cost of hotel and meals is more than you'll earn from renting the room,...
And if booting a crew member and paying his cost of hotel and meals is more than you'll earn from renting the room,...
It isn't. A Superliner roomette goes for $200-300. A hotel room in the hinterlands with breakfast is <$100. It sleeps two people, too, just like the roomette.
But if you either boot the crew person, pay for room and board him you may also either shorted your time with him or had to have another employee hired to cover the rest of the assignment and screwed up other parts of your employee template. What part of having an operating plan and sticking to it for efficiency and cost sake is a problem To make a buck? You really won't make a buck, so it is a no brainer: you don't upset or change your operating plans to pick up a penny when it costs dollars. It is a simple, practical thing.
Paul Milenkovic With respect to the sleeping car, I think the answer is in what the airlines are doing for premium-fare (First Class and Business Class) passenger on trans-Pacific runs, which are of comparable length to trips taken on LD trains, with the exception of riding the full way from Chicago to the West Coast. Deep recline Business Class seats. Make them only 3-across on a twin-aisle configuration so that you don't need to sleep next to a stranger. Use those clamshell headrest arrangements that Northwest (now Delta) was advertising for their business class -- that arrangement appears to provide some measure of quiet privacy -- perhaps that clamshell thing could be equiped with speakers for personal listening if a person doesn't want headphones -- at the very least provide jacks for headphones so a person can tune out snoring or coughing neighbors with music or other entertainment of their choice or maybe seashore sounds or train sounds or whatever passengers find restful or soothing. You are already at 4-across with deep-recline seats, so 3-across is a compromise between current LD coach and sleeper service in terms of passengers per train car. Seriously, look into that clamshell seat or whatever else the airlines are doing for First and Business Class -- if this is good enough for airline passengers to pay serious coin on trips of the same length as LD train rides, it should be considered for train travel. Keep in mind that in Australia they acquired Hitachi tilt trains for an accelerated schedule but still an overnight trip. They considered sleeping cars, but instead offer a 3-across seating, somewhat along the lines of what I am proposing. The other thing to preserve the Amtrak network is to look at some of the long-distance routes as a series of corridors. The Cascades Talgo is such a corridor route overlaid on a traditional LD route. And this needs to start with the advocacy community because it is we who write our Members of Congress and stir things up if Amtrak dares to discontinue the Three Rivers (a "mail" train from the Amtrak era of experimenting with head-end business) or the Sunset Limited (which we are still fighting). When the infamous Inspector General's report came out calling for elimination of sleeping cars, I had suggested to our brick-and-morter advocacy group that that report could have been a jumping-off point rather than something to fight tooth-and-nail. I asked, "What if in place of sleeping cars on long-distance trains we could have service along the lines of the Cascades Talgo up and down the Mountain West? Would you consider that a worthwhile exchange?"
Ideally Amtrak should get out of the long distance train business and concentrate on corridor services. However, the political will does not exist for this sensible outcome, so most of the long distance trains probably will be around for the foreseeable future.
I like the notion of deep business class seats for first class in lieu of the traditional sleeping car, which is booked by fewer than 2.5% of Amtrak's passengers. Moreover, even on the trains from Chicago to the west coast, most passengers are on the train just one night. In fact, depending on the route, less than 10% of the long distance train passengers travel from end point to end point.
Sleeping cars are expensive to buy and maintain. Moreover, in the case of the roomettes on the Superliner cars, they are very uncomfortable. This is especially true if a passenger has to get up in the middle of the night to use the toilet, which most of us older folks know about. Replacing them with business class cars makes a lot of sense, which is one of the reasons Amtrak, which is a government bureaucracy, will never do it.
I have ridden the Tilt Train between Brisbane and Cairns. It is a nice train. However, on one of my trips the bloke behind me snored loud enough to keep me as well as other passengers awake most of the night. I suspect that he had had a bit to drink before boarding the train and whilst on borad it. Had I flown I could have avoided the snoring. And that is what most Australians, as well as most of the people in the world, do for long distance trips.
henry6 But if you either boot the crew person, pay for room and board him you may also either shorted your time with him or had to have another employee hired to cover the rest of the assignment and screwed up other parts of your employee template. What part of having an operating plan and sticking to it for efficiency and cost sake is a problem To make a buck? You really won't make a buck, so it is a no brainer: you don't upset or change your operating plans to pick up a penny when it costs dollars. It is a simple, practical thing.
The keys are revenue $/car mile and revenue/ hour. That's how you make a buck. It's why Amtrak did Viewliners and Superliners rather than just re-doing the 10-6's. It's why Amfleet II instead of redoing the 44 seat coaches.
You're right....by today's investor minded business....anything to bring in a buck, anything to eliminate employee, product or service. When you've eliminated expenses like them, it is all clear profit until you die.
Compare and contrast:
http://hamptonroads.com/2012/01/norfolk-southern-add-portlock-yard-track-amtrak
Project dreamed up last year, funded in current budget, construction this year, service next year.
Would that suggest that EIS's for the EPA, etc. aren't always the reason for Amtrak's slow progress?
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
schlimm Would that suggest that EIS's for the EPA, etc. aren't always the reason for Amtrak's slow progress?
That the Heartland Corridor got done from plan to finish in less than 3 years.
That the new Amtrak Service to Norfolk is going to get done in less than 3 years - including construction of a new connection in Petersburg.
That three new, greenfield, intermodal yards went from design to first shovel full in less than a year. (and will be open for business in less than a year)
EIS is not a killer, but you do have to do the design work in parallel with your fingers crossed.
oltmannd Compare and contrast: http://hamptonroads.com/2012/01/norfolk-southern-add-portlock-yard-track-amtrak Project dreamed up last year, funded in current budget, construction this year, service next year.
Service starts on 12/31/12. That's less than 2 years from thought to completion.
oltmannd Service starts on 12/31/12. That's less than 2 years from thought to completion. Good catch Don: Here is one news release and I'll post others by editiing. http://www.wric.com/story/16548326/amtrak-service-to-norfolk-to-begin-in-2012 http://www.wavy.com/dpp/news/local_news/norfolk/amtrak-service-to-norfolk-begins-in-12
Good catch Don: Here is one news release and I'll post others by editiing.
http://www.wric.com/story/16548326/amtrak-service-to-norfolk-to-begin-in-2012
http://www.wavy.com/dpp/news/local_news/norfolk/amtrak-service-to-norfolk-begins-in-12
This shows that with cooperation of all parties that an Amtrak project will not take 5 years.
Sam1 I like the notion of deep business class seats for first class in lieu of the traditional sleeping car, which is booked by fewer than 2.5% of Amtrak's passengers. Moreover, even on the trains from Chicago to the west coast, most passengers are on the train just one night. In fact, depending on the route, less than 10% of the passengers travel from end point to end point. Sleeping cars are expensive to buy and maintain. Moreover, in the case of the roomettes on the Superliner cars, they are very uncomfortable. This is especially true if a passenger has to get up in the middle of the night to use the toilet, which most of us older folks know about. Replacing them with business class cars make a lot of sense, which is one of the reasons Amtrak, which is a government bureaucracy, will never do it. I have ridden the Tilt Train between Brisbane and Cairns. It is a nice train. However, on one of my trips the bloke behind me snored loud enough to keep me as well as other passengers awake most of the night. I suspect had a bit to drink before boarding the trains and whilst on borad it. Had I flown I could have avoided the snoring. And that is what most Australians, as well as most of the people in the world, do for long distance trips.
Sleeping cars are expensive to buy and maintain. Moreover, in the case of the roomettes on the Superliner cars, they are very uncomfortable. This is especially true if a passenger has to get up in the middle of the night to use the toilet, which most of us older folks know about. Replacing them with business class cars make a lot of sense, which is one of the reasons Amtrak, which is a government bureaucracy, will never do it.
I have ridden the Tilt Train between Brisbane and Cairns. It is a nice train. However, on one of my trips the bloke behind me snored loud enough to keep me as well as other passengers awake most of the night. I suspect had a bit to drink before boarding the trains and whilst on borad it. Had I flown I could have avoided the snoring. And that is what most Australians, as well as most of the people in the world, do for long distance trips.
1) Amtrak is run perhaps not so much as a business but in response to what the stakeholders demand through the political process. That is why I believe that the advocacy community is important, and that is why I argue that the advocacy community should be held accountable for the failures as well as success of Amtrak. Amtrak will run a Business Class if the stakeholders demand it.
2) With respect to Snoring Man, perhaps one of the advantages of the private room of the sleeping car is that my Airline Business Class style seating proposal retains some of the disadvantages of the open section sleeper of times past or the share a compartment with strangers sleepers in other countries apart from the U.S.
If you have travelled the tilt train in Australia, that suggests that you have travelled between the U.S. and Australia more than once, and as a somewhat frequent trans-Pacific traveller, you have probably endured everything from high-density coach seats for a 14-18 hour flight to perhaps business class on the long-distance plane owing to if you fly long enough the airline sometimes puts you there owing to various circumstances?
Do you face the same problem in airline trans-Pacific Business Class of a restless flight owing to less-than-model fellow passengers? Or do the airlines have a better way of handling that? Or maybe the airline cabin is a noisier environment (at cruise altitude, you really don't hear the jet engines, but you hear the constant rush of air over the outside of the cabin) -- maybe that masks the noise of snoring passengers?
blue streak 1 oltmannd: Service starts on 12/31/12. That's less than 2 years from thought to completion. Good catch Don: Here is one news release and I'll post others by editiing. http://www.wric.com/story/16548326/amtrak-service-to-norfolk-to-begin-in-2012 http://www.wavy.com/dpp/news/local_news/norfolk/amtrak-service-to-norfolk-begins-in-12 This shows that with cooperation of all parties that an Amtrak project will not take 5 years.
oltmannd: Service starts on 12/31/12. That's less than 2 years from thought to completion. Good catch Don: Here is one news release and I'll post others by editiing. http://www.wric.com/story/16548326/amtrak-service-to-norfolk-to-begin-in-2012 http://www.wavy.com/dpp/news/local_news/norfolk/amtrak-service-to-norfolk-begins-in-12
Remember, this whole project sprang up when NS said rather spontaneously last spring, "You know, we can do the work to upgrade the route for 79 mph passenger service. I would cost $x". I['d guess is was their attempt at steering the talk of HSR to Norfolk into something that would be practical and palatable for NS.
That got the ball rolling since one of the hard parts is creating a deal with the host road and this showed that wouldn't be too tough. Next, the state of VA got busy and found some money. This was pretty easy coming on the heals of the Lynchburg train's success. And, Amtrak pretty much went along for the ride....
This is really more of an NS/VA project with some help from Amtrak and CSX than a project Amtrak was directing.
"If you have travelled the tilt train in Australia, that suggests that you have travelled between the U.S. and Australia more than once, and as a somewhat frequent trans-Pacific traveller, you have probably endured everything from high-density coach seats for a 14-18 hour flight to perhaps business class on the long-distance plane owing to if you fly long enough the airline sometimes puts you there owing to various circumstances?
Do you face the same problem in airline trans-Pacific Business Class of a restless flight owing to less-than-model fellow passengers? Or do the airlines have a better way of handling that? Or maybe the airline cabin is a noisier environment (at cruise altitude, you really don't hear the jet engines, but you hear the constant rush of air over the outside of the cabin) -- maybe that masks the noise of snoring passengers?"
I lived in Australia from 1999 to 2004. I have made 22 trips between the U.S. and Australia as well as one trip between Australia and the UK. On four of the trips I flew business class; otherwise, I toughed it out in economy class. Although my company paid for business class when flying overseas, I was so shocked at the price difference that I, as well as several other members of our company, opted for economy. We were shareholders. We did not think that it made a lot of sense to take money away from ourselves.
I was only bothered by fellow airborne passenger(s) on one occasion. Two young women on a flight from Melbourne to LAX spent the better part of the flight talking in a very loud voice. In fact, the flight attendant finally asked them to tone it down. Otherwise, most of my flights were quite comfortable. One factor that makes air travel more enjoyable than train travel is cell phones are not permitted to be used on airplanes whilst in flight.
The trick in flying coach on long distance flights is to schedule your trip during an off period. For example, between the U.S. and Australia, the best time to go is Tuesday through Thursday. Moreover, choose an aisle seat between rows 55 and 65 on the inside block of seats on the 747-400, which is the airplane used primarily between the U.S. and Australia. If you get lucky, which I did most of the time, there will be no one beside you.
I travel frequently on planes and trains. I have encountered disturbing passengers on each mode. Last October I flew from Austin to Tampa. A seriously hung over college student sat next to me. A half hour into the flight he got so sick that the cabin attendants had to ask if there was a doctor on board to attend to him. A doctor was on the flight and was able to help him. Mercifully, the doctor got to him with some medicine before he threw up. On a recent Amtrak trip from Washington to Baltimore a passenger behind me literally shouted into a cell phone most of the trip. Ironically, I had booked business class hoping that I could avoid this kind of behavior. And a couple of years ago, whilst taking the train from Denver to San Francisco in a sleeper, I was roused from my sleep by a fellow passenger who was shouting into a cell phone in the middle of the night. Although I was in a roomette, it seemed like the guy was standing outside of the door to my compartment.
No matter how one travels in commercial transport, he runs the risk of encountering a fellow passenger who does not care how his or her behavior impacts their fellow passengers.
Sam1 No matter how one travels in commercial transport, he runs the risk of encountering a fellow passenger who does not care how his or her behavior impacts their fellow passengers.
The same can hold true on highways, where some drivers occupy the left lane without passing because they are driving the speed limit, other drivers tailgate aggressively at every opportunity, truck drivers are generally courteous and professional in the face of all manner of provocation but can be fatiqued owing to the demands of their jobs.
But it is especially true on a common-carrier mode, be it bus, plane, or train, that the conduct of fellow passengers, or perhaps oneself as a passenger, can have a great deal of influence on the quality of the experience. Maybe it isn't just transport. There is a custom of dropping towel litter on the floor in bathrooms where I work when a person deems the trash can too full (there are plentiful trash cans on the halls); there is a custom of spitting on the sidewalks outside, whether from the influence of smokeless tobacco to make a person drool or just out of habit when other persons would use a Kleenex. This is to the extent that you really need to watch where you walk on the campus of a major public university, especially in cold weather.
That is why when someone complains about an Amtrak experience, those of us who advocate for trains should listen and let that person have there say, and to not immediately start scolding about how that person is a misanthrope who doesn't get along with people. Part of the Amtrak or any other experience where we come in contact with other people is the result of the service provider, part of it is the general culture. I am thinking that the hippie movement of the 1960's promoted the idea to the broader populace that not drawing attention to oneself is "square" and the inhibition of individual expression. Or maybe there are other cultural factors. But we need to listen to what people have to say to come up with ideas how Amtrak could be better.
.....Very interesting reading on the subject from Sam1 and Paul. And very well written. A real pleasure to read.
Quentin
Agree.
oltmannd You can make perfectly good 125 mph baggage cars out of Amfleet cars.
You can make perfectly good 125 mph baggage cars out of Amfleet cars.
Wow, that is a very interesting idea. Bravo!
aegrotatio oltmannd: You can make perfectly good 125 mph baggage cars out of Amfleet cars. Wow, that is a very interesting idea. Bravo!
oltmannd: You can make perfectly good 125 mph baggage cars out of Amfleet cars.
...and I'm no genius. What of the people who's job it is to come up with ideas like this? Maybe their highest goal it to go the path of least resistance and don't rock the boat? Doing what's best for the companies owners might be a bigger hassle, so it doesn't happen.
possibly the horizon cars will be retired from passenger service before any amfleet cars, because of their inferior ability to cope with cold weather. but then they too can make good baggage cars good idea and truck improvements can make any existing amtrak equpment good for 125 mph. even heratage equipment.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.