Stephen Gardner, Amtrak’s CEO, is stepping down. He spent approximately 16 years with the company. A new CEO has not been named.
What does this change mean for the company? What is behind the change?
Feature Gardner is a quitter. Getting pressure from DOGE, the smelly piles generator.
If you BELIEVE in what you are doing - you FIGHT! There are benefits to be fired and not resigning.
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I’m not optimistic.
Remember the 8 years Reagan tried to ‘zero-out’ Amtrak? Congress would fund Amtrak, anyway.
This is not that.
Trump/Musk are ignoring appropriations from Congress, so Amtrak could just plain run out of cash.
Amtrak is not a government agency, so not so simple to just fire everyone and steal the assets.
They could have the board order the liquidation of assets, though, and from the “goodness of their hearts”, give Amtrak-owned ROW to states.
This would end LD trains and chop NEC into unsustainable parts.
It’s all bad. I’m not sure it will be fixable, either.
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The actions that are being taken to all the DOGE afflicted departments are designed to destroy their operations to the extent that they cannot be replicated and return to effective operation.
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Agree with your analysis. It seems that we need to examine the resignation more closely. Here we have an agency not directly a product of the US government with a no explanation resignation. Did someone at doggie have something on Gardner? Dod Gardner receive a threat of major damage to Amtrak if he did not resign? Although not likely was he told to increase capacity immediately which would effect his bonus? about bonus, will he get any delayed compensation unless he stasyed on at Amtrak? Any other ideas?
I’d like to think it was because Musk & Trump, having ridden the Lake Shore Limited
themselves, were unhappy with Gardner’s foot-dragging regarding the restoration of full dining car service.
But I’m going to guess his resignation is for another reason: He’s probably old enough to retire with a nice package and–here’s my main point–he probably just doesn’t have enough “gas in the tank”–to fight the upcoming fights that will be necessary to keep Amtrak together and its funding sufficient.
Maybe he can just read the room well.
Might have something else lined up, too.
I feature his thought process was this crappy job is not worth fighting for.
When individuals get to those levels of jobs - they most likely are no worrying how they are going to pay next months bills and if the aggravation of the job exceeds their FQ it is ‘See you later suckers!’.
So far, I agree with all of the replies as possibilities. Hopefully, the actual reason(s) for his resignation will emerge over time.
Rich
The real reason 'I don’t have to put up with this 
!
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Seems straight forward to me. Candidate Trump has said he wanted to dismantle USAID, Dept of Education, and Amtrak among others. President Trump started on the first two, and is going on to the next. He has removed the heads of the first two departments and replaced them with someone to dismantle the department. Now its Amtrak’s turn. Congress has not stood up to save the first two, so I don’t expect it to stand up for Amtrak. It does not look good for ATK.
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Too many congress critters are afraid that they’ll lose their cushy jobs if they stand up to them. Musk has even threatened to use his money to get them primaried. What they don’t understand is that if they don’t stand up to him now, their jobs will have no power or value.
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Agree totally. Run because the easy pay day is over. 
At least offer token resisitance like the Institute of Peace until the armed Marshals and FBI show up on the scene. Though I might opine the Institute of Peace was arguably private property in a way as well.
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The first two are in the court system still. Note over 24,000 fired probationary Federal Workers are now reinstated but on administrative lead drawing pay due to a court challenge. They are instructed not to go back to work for their former agency until the court case is settled. A lot of the other DOGE goon tactics are in the court system working their way up.
The whole rename the Gulf of Mexico business was done to circumvent past laws Congress passed concerning the Gulf of Mexico. The legal argument to be made there when they start to break the existing law is that it is no longer the Gulf of Mexico and nobody changed the legislation to reflect the new name.
Keep in mind that legal twists like the above can also be used against you as a private citizen in the future once all three branches of government are subverted. The real question is when they will subvert the Supreme Court which I am sure is going to happen because they are working hard to subvert the Federal Courts.
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Maybe he’s going to spend a few years in the underground punk music scene.
The replies to this thread could apply to over here in the U.K…
How I wish Government/Companies employed people who know and love the job they are given. Instead the people in charge seem to have little idea apart from how to cut jobs instead of improving them.
David
There’s a lot of nonsense here today.
While I’m happy with the new forum, maybe Firecrown needs to add the “No Politics” to their list of rules.
Yes, the CEO is quitting. Yes, he gave no reason. Beyond that, it’s all conjecture, which seems to include a lot of conspiracy theories about Congress, the Courts, etc.
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This is the most action the real side has had since the forum was re-opened. Seems silly to want to neuter it.
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If we want the most action for the real side, let’s open it to everything. Sports? Swimsuit editions? Those are as much related to the Amtrak CEO retiring as some of the other junk brought up today.
In today’s world - politics cannot be separated from virtually any aspect our lives. The is not politics of ‘our’ making but politics that is being FORCED on every occupant of the USA, whether they want it or not.
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