oltmannd DwightBranch Yep. Amtrak workers, as with long haul truck drivers, are essentially at work 24 hours a day, on top of needing to learn how to work on a train, you can't expect to pay them the same as the maids at the Super 8 if you want to keep them. A lot of the objections to Amtrak almost seem as though they are coming from people who know nothing about trains: "Why can't they just eat when their trip ends?" (Do you want to go without food for 16 hours?) "Why can't they eat a cold sandwich prepared beforehand as with an airplane?" (Do you want to subsist on that for 16 hours?") "Airlines don't have food prepared on the spot, why must trains?" (That is actually an advantage for Amtrak, that they have room for a kitchen on a train, Airlines are also like riding in a culvert, looking out at nothing but sky.) "Why must the workers be paid more than normal hotel staff?" (Would you work for that if you had to give up your home life?) ETC. Forcing a square peg (the rules of other modes of transport) into a round hole (rail transport). Yes, they work bad, long hours and work hard. The problem is that they don't generate much value - at least value commensurate with the effort it takes. I can get a guy with a back-hoe to dig me a trench in an hour for $50. It a guy with a shovel 12 hours to do the same - $100. This is what needs fixed! Why can't the trainman sell sandwiches during the 40 minutes of slack time between stations? Or, push a snack cart down the aisle? Why does the car attendant have to have a room on the train? Why not rotate them on and off with the "hours of service" guys? Then, nobody has to work a 16 hour day. Nobody is tired and grouchy by the end of the trip. And you have more space on the train to sell. Why couldn't food on a train be of the "to go" variety ala Chili's and other chains? This is not airline food. Most "dinner trains" do exactly this (and charge big bucks!) And, most importantly, why can't I have that scheduled transatlantic steamer service that I want! (at Amtrak prices) Why did we let United States Lines get out of the passenger business without creating AmSea?
DwightBranch Yep. Amtrak workers, as with long haul truck drivers, are essentially at work 24 hours a day, on top of needing to learn how to work on a train, you can't expect to pay them the same as the maids at the Super 8 if you want to keep them. A lot of the objections to Amtrak almost seem as though they are coming from people who know nothing about trains: "Why can't they just eat when their trip ends?" (Do you want to go without food for 16 hours?) "Why can't they eat a cold sandwich prepared beforehand as with an airplane?" (Do you want to subsist on that for 16 hours?") "Airlines don't have food prepared on the spot, why must trains?" (That is actually an advantage for Amtrak, that they have room for a kitchen on a train, Airlines are also like riding in a culvert, looking out at nothing but sky.) "Why must the workers be paid more than normal hotel staff?" (Would you work for that if you had to give up your home life?) ETC. Forcing a square peg (the rules of other modes of transport) into a round hole (rail transport).
Yep. Amtrak workers, as with long haul truck drivers, are essentially at work 24 hours a day, on top of needing to learn how to work on a train, you can't expect to pay them the same as the maids at the Super 8 if you want to keep them. A lot of the objections to Amtrak almost seem as though they are coming from people who know nothing about trains:
"Why can't they just eat when their trip ends?" (Do you want to go without food for 16 hours?)
"Why can't they eat a cold sandwich prepared beforehand as with an airplane?" (Do you want to subsist on that for 16 hours?")
"Airlines don't have food prepared on the spot, why must trains?" (That is actually an advantage for Amtrak, that they have room for a kitchen on a train, Airlines are also like riding in a culvert, looking out at nothing but sky.)
"Why must the workers be paid more than normal hotel staff?" (Would you work for that if you had to give up your home life?)
ETC. Forcing a square peg (the rules of other modes of transport) into a round hole (rail transport).
Yes, they work bad, long hours and work hard. The problem is that they don't generate much value - at least value commensurate with the effort it takes. I can get a guy with a back-hoe to dig me a trench in an hour for $50. It a guy with a shovel 12 hours to do the same - $100.
This is what needs fixed!
Why can't the trainman sell sandwiches during the 40 minutes of slack time between stations? Or, push a snack cart down the aisle?
Why does the car attendant have to have a room on the train? Why not rotate them on and off with the "hours of service" guys? Then, nobody has to work a 16 hour day. Nobody is tired and grouchy by the end of the trip. And you have more space on the train to sell.
Why couldn't food on a train be of the "to go" variety ala Chili's and other chains? This is not airline food. Most "dinner trains" do exactly this (and charge big bucks!)
And, most importantly, why can't I have that scheduled transatlantic steamer service that I want! (at Amtrak prices) Why did we let United States Lines get out of the passenger business without creating AmSea?
Not a good analogy, as Henry has pointed out, over and over again, the food service on any mode of transportation in which the passengers are essentially prisoners, cannot be operated as a money-providing service, nor can it be fairly compared to an entity that provides such a service while not holding its customers hostage. A better analogy would be a prison chain gang hired by a private company to build a lane out in the country. The prisoners will need food but cannot be expected to pay for it, but the operation cannot exist without it, no matter how much it costs. So there would be those who say: "Why must we pay to bring food out to these prisoners? That is a loss-generating service, and not a part of the road-building operation. It's like I am buying their lunches for them. Can't they just buy their own food at McDonald's or Subway?" Absurd.
Sam1The problem lies in a business model that is broken, i.e. long distance trains with diners, lounges, and sleeping cars. It is not the fault of the employees; it is the fault of the management.
This is the problem, exactly. They are asleep.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Sam1 As an aside, when I was growing up in Altoona, which was a crew change point for all passenger and freight crews, the PRR had its own accommodations for the Harrisburg and Pittsburgh crews. It included a nice cafeteria.
As an aside, when I was growing up in Altoona, which was a crew change point for all passenger and freight crews, the PRR had its own accommodations for the Harrisburg and Pittsburgh crews. It included a nice cafeteria.
RR operated crew hotels are making a comeback. NS has opened or upgraded at least 3 in the past few years. Enola, Bellevue, and New Orleans. The issue is food. Most hotels these days don't have dining rooms and the crews need to have a place to eat. These places are generally run by contract, though, by outfits that are in the hospitality business.
henry6 Ok Don, walk into a fine hotel. Open the door and go the the front desk. Enter your name and information into a computer, insert your credit card number, take your reciept and extract your room swipe card. Then carry your luggage over to the elevator, press the buttons and fly to your floor remebering to pick uo your bed linins on the way to your room so you can make your bed. Or, Don, what if you are met at the door by one who takes your bags, opens the door, guides you to the front desk and signs you in then takes you up to your room, bringing linin with him so as to make up your room when you get there? Or, Don, walk into to a fine hotel the door opened and held by a doorman, a porter carrying your luggage. A person greets you at the front desk, handles your check in eye to eye, hands you a room keyswipe card as the porter accomanies you to the elevator to your room where a maid has already made the bed complete with a chocolate on the pillow. Which is service you won't return to and which is service you'll never forget? Why in this country do we demean the value of people and service in the name of profit instead of holding it up the name of value? Do we think so little of our fellow citizens, our customers, that one's profit is ahead of properly servicing our customers and tending to needs and qaulity?
Ok Don, walk into a fine hotel. Open the door and go the the front desk. Enter your name and information into a computer, insert your credit card number, take your reciept and extract your room swipe card. Then carry your luggage over to the elevator, press the buttons and fly to your floor remebering to pick uo your bed linins on the way to your room so you can make your bed.
Or, Don, what if you are met at the door by one who takes your bags, opens the door, guides you to the front desk and signs you in then takes you up to your room, bringing linin with him so as to make up your room when you get there?
Or, Don, walk into to a fine hotel the door opened and held by a doorman, a porter carrying your luggage. A person greets you at the front desk, handles your check in eye to eye, hands you a room keyswipe card as the porter accomanies you to the elevator to your room where a maid has already made the bed complete with a chocolate on the pillow.
Which is service you won't return to and which is service you'll never forget? Why in this country do we demean the value of people and service in the name of profit instead of holding it up the name of value? Do we think so little of our fellow citizens, our customers, that one's profit is ahead of properly servicing our customers and tending to needs and qaulity?
All three don't come at the same price. Oh, wait a minute! You are going to subsidize #3 down to the #1 price? I'll take it!
CMStPnP Sam1 When Amtrak's employees are away from home, their room and board is covered. Last year, I took the Crescent from Washington to New Orleans. The Amtrak crew stayed at the same hotel where I stayed. I can assure you it was not Motel 6. Hotels deeply discount their rates for transportation employees, employees that work for large companies with a large pool of traveling sales employees, etc.. I can assure you that the Amtrak employees paid probably 35-40% less than you did at that Hotel. I work for a very small consulting company by the nature of our business partnerships I can choose between an IBM rate, Oracle rate, Microsoft rate, etc. Hotel / Rental car very deeply discounted compared to what Joe Traveler pays.
Sam1 When Amtrak's employees are away from home, their room and board is covered. Last year, I took the Crescent from Washington to New Orleans. The Amtrak crew stayed at the same hotel where I stayed. I can assure you it was not Motel 6.
When Amtrak's employees are away from home, their room and board is covered. Last year, I took the Crescent from Washington to New Orleans. The Amtrak crew stayed at the same hotel where I stayed. I can assure you it was not Motel 6.
Hotels deeply discount their rates for transportation employees, employees that work for large companies with a large pool of traveling sales employees, etc.. I can assure you that the Amtrak employees paid probably 35-40% less than you did at that Hotel. I work for a very small consulting company by the nature of our business partnerships I can choose between an IBM rate, Oracle rate, Microsoft rate, etc. Hotel / Rental car very deeply discounted compared to what Joe Traveler pays.
Your are correct. Amtrak buys blocks of rooms for a select period. It pays for the overnight accommodations. They are not paid for by the employees.
My point is that Amtrak's employees who are away from home are not on hardship duty. Irrespective of what Amtrak paid for the hotel, their digs are very comfortable.
blue streak 1 here is an interesting quote from deggesty on the wash union station thread. " Columbus Circle is also being completely redesigned and rebuilt to accomodate buses, taxi/livery, and the hugely popular tour buses that originate from the front of Union Station." Now I know why Columbus Circle appeared as it did when I was in Washington in April and May this year. I trust that work will have been finished when I next expect to be in Washington (2014?) I have no quarrel with the current first class accomodations in the station, but I wish there were a little more variety in the snack food available." there has been much argument about getting food at stations instead of on trains. If the above opinion is prevelant at our second busiest train station what can we expect at many of the smaller stations ? SANTA FE was sucessful with their harvey houses because of their mostly on time operation and frequency of trains. That in anyone's opinion is not the case with just a single pair of AMTRAK trains on most long distance routes ( exceptions part of the routes of florida trains and empire service using a 7 hrs break point ) .
here is an interesting quote from deggesty on the wash union station thread.
" Columbus Circle is also being completely redesigned and rebuilt to accomodate buses, taxi/livery, and the hugely popular tour buses that originate from the front of Union Station."
Now I know why Columbus Circle appeared as it did when I was in Washington in April and May this year. I trust that work will have been finished when I next expect to be in Washington (2014?)
I have no quarrel with the current first class accomodations in the station, but I wish there were a little more variety in the snack food available."
there has been much argument about getting food at stations instead of on trains. If the above opinion is prevelant at our second busiest train station what can we expect at many of the smaller stations ? SANTA FE was sucessful with their harvey houses because of their mostly on time operation and frequency of trains. That in anyone's opinion is not the case with just a single pair of AMTRAK trains on most long distance routes ( exceptions part of the routes of florida trains and empire service using a 7 hrs break point ) .
If the future for passenger trains in the U.S. is in relatively short, high density corridors, such as NYC to Washington, where the end points trip takes approximately three hours, the need for on-board food is minimal at most. It could easily be gotten in New York, Newark, Trenton, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore, and Washington.
If the future for passenger trains in the U.S. includes continuation of the existing long distance trains, which is a mistake, the operator will have to include on-board food service. In that case, I would discontinue the traditional dining car and upgrade the offerings in the lounge car. I would also discontinue the sleepers and substitute 2 and 1 across business class with deep hollow, nearly fully reclining seats. Works on the Tilt Train in Australia.
In regards to the compensation packages for Amtrak's train employees, it is the total compensation package, not just wages, that is important. Most employees get a shift and an away from home differential. Whether Amtrak's employees, who receive tips, should have a compensation package that is two to three times what a ground based wait person gets is debatable.
On board crews don't give up their home life. It is true that they are away for several nights on end, but they are compensated by more nights at home. For example, the Chicago based crew for the Texas Eagle is away from home for four nights. But when they clock off the train they are home for six or seven nights, unless they are commuting from outside of the Chicago area. I met one wait person who commutes from Pittsburgh to Chicago to work the Eagle or one of the other trains crewed out of Chicago. Job can't be too bad if he is willing to do that.
BaltACD schlimm At Marriott, 2012: Line cook: $11.25 hourly Hostess: $12.18 Restaurant Supervisor: $14.57 Kitchen supervisor: $17.17 - 21.32 hourly (NYC) Bistro attendant: $9.54 (Atlanta) You get the idea. If someone knows how to get the Amtrak numbers, we could compare. Perhaps Marriott isn't your cup of tea, but I believe a satisfaction survey of customers would rate them ahead of Amtrak. How many days away from home are spent by the above employees in the performance of their duties? When you start keeping people away from home for periods of time - the cost to secure such people goes up.
schlimm At Marriott, 2012: Line cook: $11.25 hourly Hostess: $12.18 Restaurant Supervisor: $14.57 Kitchen supervisor: $17.17 - 21.32 hourly (NYC) Bistro attendant: $9.54 (Atlanta) You get the idea. If someone knows how to get the Amtrak numbers, we could compare. Perhaps Marriott isn't your cup of tea, but I believe a satisfaction survey of customers would rate them ahead of Amtrak.
At Marriott, 2012:
Line cook: $11.25 hourly
Hostess: $12.18
Restaurant Supervisor: $14.57
Kitchen supervisor: $17.17 - 21.32 hourly (NYC)
Bistro attendant: $9.54 (Atlanta)
You get the idea. If someone knows how to get the Amtrak numbers, we could compare. Perhaps Marriott isn't your cup of tea, but I believe a satisfaction survey of customers would rate them ahead of Amtrak.
When you start keeping people away from home for periods of time - the cost to secure such people goes up.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
I agree, sam1. I found a few Amtrak numbers 2012 from Pay Scale: Train attendant : $15.35. However, I've seen higher numbers, up to $23.00. On Career Bliss, chef salary range is $32-57K. On the same site, they say Amtrak's average salary is $69K compared to the transportation industry average of $43K, so Amtrak is paying more than 50% higher. There is nothing wrong per se in such a wage structure; what is deficient is the screening and training and supervision of employees and the policies and plans for service.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
I have never been able to find any direct information regarding Amtrak's pay scales. However, according to the BLS, persons engaged in support activities for other transportation, including rail, averaged $19.90 per hour before benefits during 2010. Presumably Amtrak's food and beverage personnel fall into this category.
According to another source, which appears to be an independent employment agency, Amtrak's train attendants average $19 to $21 per hour before benefits.
Lastly, a study prepared by an independent consult for Amtrak in 2007, which addressed the pay scales for Amtrak's shop employees, as opposed to the on-board employees, found that Amtrak's wages for this group were approximately 4 per cent below the national average for comparable positions in private industry. However, after adding in benefits, i.e. health insurance, paid vacations, retirement, etc., Amtrak's compensation package for this group was approximately 19 per cent above the comparable compensation package for employees in similar private industry positions.
Several years ago, when the Sunset Limited was having several schedule problems, a story in the San Antonio Express-News, if I remember correctly, noted that some of Amtrak's sleeping car attendants, due to overtime, were earning as much as $75,000 per year before benefits. Having watched on more than one occasion their making up a roomette bed, they earn every bit of it, at least if back pain is any indicator of value added.
Most of the Amtrak employees that I have encountered this year, as well in previous years, have done a good job. Several of them, in fact, were so good that I sent a letter to Mr. Boardman bringing them to his attention. The problem lies in a business model that is broken, i.e. long distance trains with diners, lounges, and sleeping cars. It is not the fault of the employees; it is the fault of the management, who are responding to political pressures and union pressures, to pay what may be above average compensation for the jobs performed.
Do you know the wage and benefits packages of food service folks on Amtrak compared to those of people in middle of the road chain restaurants? Someone should check it out. I think we'd be surprised at how much higher the Amtrak wage is for doing less and often poorer work.
I would agree with you Schlimm if they would pay the trained personnel at a better wage than offered. If you cut the staff by one or two leaving one to do the work of one or two, you've got to compensate accordingly and not leave his pay the same or reduce it. Amtrak is not allowed to do the job it has been charged with. It needs to be redsigned by Congress which has to keep its hands off. It is not an investor capital venture. And it is not a welfare program for unemployables, relatives, and feattherbedders nor a LIonel set around the Christmas tree, all concepts I have felt COngess has shown toward it. It has to have the freedom of marketiing but not on a cookie cutter one thing fits all. It has to have the freedom to make long term plans and committments which cannot be overturned by Congressional fiat. It has to be a non political entity with the freedom to be a passenger rail service either on its own tracks or freight railroad tracks..
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.
And again, you completely miss my point. I'm talking quality service. How many people would rate a night in a Pullman on the Lake Shore as a quality experience compared to a Hampton Inn or Fairfield, etc. Not many, yet that LSL would have a larger staff tripping over themselves. My point is this: it's not the number of staff, it's the quality, based on attitude and training. Judging from the labor costs on Amtrak, they are probably paid more than folks in comparable hotels. Are Amtrak non-operating employees trained in hotel programs at community colleges like many hotel folks? Doubtful.
But what is missing is what people expect in service. Schlimm is at the extreme of wanting to get rid of as many people as possible without seeing what is lost when those people aren't there. Amtrak has to decide the level of services it needs on a train by train basis. Some trains need to cater more to the customers than others. There is a certain amount of civlity, modicum, service that is expected at every level and that has to be provided. If the service is one where bags are expected to be carried by porters and dinner served at tables with linin cloths, then there has to be personnel to provide. If one wants cold plate from behind a glass door and spun through a microwave, that's a different train. I know, I've handled hospitality for railroad presidents and CEO's of large companies and other managers as well as janitor's picinics. You always need enough people to make people happy and well served. Chince on it, and they will not be back...then you've not served your bottom line, but eliminate the bottom line and the company,
travelingengineerDenigration of "living in the past" is an unfortunate accusation, "schlimm," for in addition to passenger train travel, many folks pleasantly enjoy playing baseball, going to church, having dinner together as a family, talking on a telephone instead of tweeting, mowing one's own lawn, etc. by choice. I suppose that you consider these activities to be anathema, and thus inconsistent with present day life of impersonal efficiency, speed at all costs.
You really like to make assumptions without any factual basis. If you throw out sam1's comments, we are talking about having decent, modern food service on Amtrak, rather than its half-a***d approach which is either a horribly outdated, failed attempt at reviving the Lucius Beebe gilded age era (hardly working class!) or a diner which makes Mickey D's look like Tru or charlie Trotter's in Chicago in comparison. If the brains at Amtrak and their "market research" folks need a model that works, look at the DB or SNCF or FS. Or get a middle of the road restaurant chain to run the service the way the ATSF used Fred Harvey.
henry6 Sam's statement about Amtrak being a welfare agency rubs me wrong for several reasons. First, it is the same thing anti union factions say often and used to throw out agains the railroads in the middle of the 20th Century. Yes there was featherbedding and overlaping and more jobs than work...but it was because unions and managment decided to be adversaries instead of working for a common goal of efficiency and industry. Often management didn't care simply because it was ready to retire or would so before the new contract would run out, so they just caved into union demands then blamed the union for the problems in a fantastic use of deflection and deception. Second it rubs me wrong because it echos contemporary investment managements whose sole purpose is to make as much money as possible for themselves forsaking the product's integrity, quality, safety and purpose with a customer be damned attitude and no care about the future of the product or service. When are American business people going to realize the importance of people and labor not as an expense but as an asset for quality and integrity and assurance of profits in the future. Its not the joke of how many whatever it takes to screw in a light bulb but the practice of how many investors does it take to close a business while blaming labor.
Sam's statement about Amtrak being a welfare agency rubs me wrong for several reasons. First, it is the same thing anti union factions say often and used to throw out agains the railroads in the middle of the 20th Century. Yes there was featherbedding and overlaping and more jobs than work...but it was because unions and managment decided to be adversaries instead of working for a common goal of efficiency and industry. Often management didn't care simply because it was ready to retire or would so before the new contract would run out, so they just caved into union demands then blamed the union for the problems in a fantastic use of deflection and deception. Second it rubs me wrong because it echos contemporary investment managements whose sole purpose is to make as much money as possible for themselves forsaking the product's integrity, quality, safety and purpose with a customer be damned attitude and no care about the future of the product or service. When are American business people going to realize the importance of people and labor not as an expense but as an asset for quality and integrity and assurance of profits in the future. Its not the joke of how many whatever it takes to screw in a light bulb but the practice of how many investors does it take to close a business while blaming labor.
Very few of those commenting on this thread are working class, Henry, and most don't know how workers, the overwhelming majority of the population, work or live.
Nonsense! What a loaded set of alternatives! How about the most typical one? You check in with a polite reception person who uses a computer, get your pass card or key and you take your bags to the room (carts available) which has a bed or two with fresh linen, the bed is made and fresh towels are in the bathroom? That is what most Americans experience in the year 2012 at most hotels. Why on earth should Amtrak be staffed (in numbers, not quality of service) like a Ritz-Carlton? Because Amtrak is living in the past.
How many people does it take to screw in a light bulb? One. But, buy an LED bulb and you only have to do it every 20 years.
And, that's just the point. You can keep very busy doing something inefficiently and work up a real sweat but you aren't being very productive. The goal is productivity, to get the best service for the least cost, not the same old service, the same old way, for ever increasing cost.
I don't think it's always fair to tar mgt with the "profit over service" brush. These things are not mutually exclusive. I've recently had a good experience with AT&T (surprisingly) and a lousy one with IKEA (also surprisingly). Both these outfits are big on productivity, keeping people involved in the high value work (which is more rewarding to do) and trying to let people "self serve" for the easy stuff. The quality of the experience had to do with the attitude of the employees and not the nature of the work they were performing.
Selling a can of soda is "easy stuff". Why have a person do it? Even McDonalds lets you fill your own cup with ice and soda these days...
Sam1The boarding process at Temple is labor intensive. The station agent opens the gate and makes sure that everyone in line has a ticket. The conductor or trainman inspects the ticket (now read with a scanner) and points the passenger to his or her car. The car attendant marks the passenger's destination on a seat check and hands it to him or her
Anyone who was riding trains before 911 will remember when boarding was a lot more efficient. All you did was to climb on the train. No one checked your ticket until the train was moving. But the terrorist attacks on that terrible day have changed many things about America. Amtrak is not exempt from these changes. That is the reason for all of this checking before you get on the train and may explain some of the personnel. But it you think Amtrak has inefficient boarding procedures try flying. It is easy to find long lists of complaints about TSA officers. You may be able to get through airport security in minutes but you may find yourself in a line that takes an hour or more. I don't know enough about security to argue for or against these procedures. However, all government offices and some private companies now use them. Amtrak is not exempt.
I am deleting this post. It is irrelevant.
henry's statements about the relationship between management and labor and the short-sighted view of many in management to maximize profits in the near term ring true. However, that does not mean staffing levels on Amtrak should be carte blanche, especially when the work performed often seems so slipshod. The methods Amtrak uses to board trains is slow and inefficient, as anyone who has ridden on most passenger systems abroad can attest to.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.