While contracting out to competing vendors might be feasible for food service in regional trains, it doesn't work for the long distance trains unless there is a single contractor nationally -- otherwise you end up with each crew at their away from home destination with no useful work to be accomplished on the return trip.
blue streak 1If I am the manager / owner of a motel that contracts out the restaurant in my motel then I can take the time to oversee that my contractor is serving my customers to my standards. DON'T have to continually check the contractor out and if he doesn't perform can I easily replace him Now if I am moving around up to 1000 miles can I overlook the operation?
You let him have some "skin in the game". Let him keep the profits and just pay you rental for the space.
In Amtrak's case, the rental fee would probably have to be a payment but it would still be cheaper than the status quo.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
If Amtrak outsourced the on-board food service, the first step would be to solicit bids from numerous vendors and award the contracts to the lowest effective cost vendor by route. Starbucks might get the Acela services from Boston to Washington, whilst another vendor might get the NEC regional trains. Different vendors could be awarded the contracts out of Chicago, etc.
Make sure the contracts contain crystal clear terms, including performance and quality standards, as well as appropriate incentives. If the contractor blows it, they lose the contract.
Appoint several high level contract managers to oversee the contractors. This is the most critical factor in managing a contract. Bring them in from outside of Amtrak; I doubt Amtrak has the horsepower that is required.
Perform periodic audits of the service. This is the second most critical factor in managing a contract.
Remember when the New York airports would only allow one food vendor? Then the airport management changed the game and opened up the food and beverage service to multiple vendors. What an improvement! And heaps of people said that it would not work.
If I am the manager / owner of a motel that contracts out the restaurant in my motel then I can take the time to oversee that my contractor is serving my customers to my standards. DON'T have to continually check the contractor out and if he doesn't perform can I easily replace him Now if I am moving around up to 1000 miles can I overlook the operation?
How can AMTRAK supervise a contracted meal service? Going back to my motel how quickly will I loose customers if the food service declines below my competitors?
I do not know much about the Fred Harvey operation on SANTA FE but even there there was competition from SP, CRIP, UP, MP, WP, DRG&W on various routes. Now anyone who operates an AMTRAK concession will have no other RR competition.
At least now there is direct employee oversight of the dinning cars where as a couple of layers of additional management would be in place if the service was contracted out. If I was a marketing manager at AMTRAK such a set up would scare me to no ends.
Sam1 RayG8 Ia there any reason that AMTRAK can't propose a contracted service? Maybe something along the Pullman model? Seems to me that running a railroad and running a rolling restaurant are two very different business. Let the private concern determine the level of service, quality of food etc. The biggest reason, as has been discussed in other threads, is a bureaucratic mind set. I don't know many bureaucrats who get high marks for innovation.
RayG8 Ia there any reason that AMTRAK can't propose a contracted service? Maybe something along the Pullman model? Seems to me that running a railroad and running a rolling restaurant are two very different business. Let the private concern determine the level of service, quality of food etc.
Ia there any reason that AMTRAK can't propose a contracted service? Maybe something along the Pullman model? Seems to me that running a railroad and running a rolling restaurant are two very different business. Let the private concern determine the level of service, quality of food etc.
The biggest reason, as has been discussed in other threads, is a bureaucratic mind set. I don't know many bureaucrats who get high marks for innovation.
The biggest reason may be the bureacratic mindset, but as suggested by Don Oltmann, the reason for the bureacratic mindset is that there is not any incentive not to have the bureaucratic mindset.
There are different ways to set up incentives, and a free market is one. What Don had in mind is that if Amtrak acts more entreprenurial and less bureaucratic, they "don't get to keep" the gains, either in terms of an executive bonus or in keeping the savings to have more trains. Whatever is done, it has to address this question.
The second biggest reason may be the passenger train advocacy mindset. Any change to Amtrak seems to be suspect as playing into the hands of the "anti-train people." And the passenger train advocacy community influences Congress, and it is Congress that ultimately controls Amtrak through its appropriation.
The passenger advocacy enterprise is a "labor of love" as people support Amtrak because they love trains. This is fine and good, but it seems that the advocacy community has become as resistant to change as the railroads "used to be, back in the day." "Don't think that your fancy reform idea is going to help Amtrak, young man, because what you are proposing has been tried and found to be a failure. Just like water-tube steam engine boilers, railroad gas turbines, Diesel multiple units, and a bunch of other things."
Yes, DMU's like the Budd RDC "were a failure." I know this because the one-time president of the local advocacy group told me as much. "As soon as you have enough traffic, you will have multiple cars and will want to use a locomotive. You don't want to mix the power unit and the revenue passenger space."
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
People who work for large organizations, i.e. hospitals, universities, corporations, etc. are bureaucrats just like their government counterparts. But there is one big difference. At least corporate bureaucrats have to face competition. If they don't innovate, ie. do things better, faster, cheaper, eventually they will be out of business. But Amtrak, which is a government owned bureaucracy, has no competitive pressures. Therefore, it has little incentive to change. Moreover, it is hobbled by politics.
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