Edit post

Edit your reply below.

Post Body
Enter your post below.
In FY13 salaries, wages, and benefits chewed up 49.8 per cent of Amtrak's expenses and 69.6 per cent of its revenues.  Approximately 85 per cent of Amtrak's labor force is unionized, which means most of the labor charges associated with a particular product line is direct labor.  Some of it, of course, would be indirect labor expense and would be allocated. The long distance trains are amongst the most labor intensive of Amtrak's offerings.  Thus, if I had to guess, I would conclude that labor is the single biggest expense for Amtrak Texas - my moniker. And it is the major factor driving the run-up in total costs. Here is a small example of labor on Amtrak Texas.  It is approximately 90 miles from San Antonio to Austin. The engineer on Number 22, which departs San Antonio at 7:00 a.m., takes the train as far as Austin, where he is replaced by another engineer, who takes it to Fort Worth. The San Antonio based engineer is off duty shortly after arrival in Austin at 9:30 a.m., assuming the train is on-time. He then goes to a hotel in Austin, where he camps out until it is time to take Number 21 from Austin to San Antonio. It is scheduled out at 6:30 p.m. He gets paid eight hours to bring the train from San Antonio to Austin and another eight hours to pilot it back to San Antonio. Of course, the hotel and meals in Austin are covered by Amtrak. I know of an engineer who used his time in Austin to take classes at the University of Texas. Nice work if you can get it. Most businesses, however, could not afford such an arrangement.
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag