The AMTRAK web site has openings for:
10 new engineers BOS - 1, NH - 5, Springfield - 1, WASH - 1.
conductors WASH - 5.
And most curious
a. Block operators NY City - 5
b. PHL - 10
Any way does this mean more personell to operate additional trips or not? I do not have an answer.
Don’t have have an “official” answer but one possibility is the recruitment is to replace retiring personnel. Your suggest additional NE corridor runs but most openings are based in the northern end and the new runs are from Virginia to Washington.
I’m not sure what block operators are.
Hope the more knowledgable guys will chime in to answer the question.
Tony
Up on “The D & H Bridge Line”
Oh, come on guys! Railfans that don’t know what block operators are?
From what I hear in the cafe cars there is a horrible attrition rate at Amtrak in practically all positions.
$20.85 an hour? Is that all Amtrak pays it’s engineers?
A 2008 posting on Railroad.net claims that Amtrak’s engineers earn approximately $28 per hour, with the starting pay being 75 per cent of the maximum pay. If this is true, then $20.85 per hour may be the starting pay. It is 74.5 per cent of $28.
The posting also claims that either the person making the post or someone he knew, who had been an engineer for a Class I road, took a net pay cut of approximately $800 a month to work as an engineer for Amtrak. I don’t know whether he knows what he is talking about, but it seems reasonable.
In addition to the hourly pay, Amtrak employees have a good benefit package. I don’t know exactly what it is worth, but using my industry (electric utilities) as a benchmark, the add-on could be as much as 35 per cent, i.e. health insurance premiums, retirement program funding, thrift plan, etc. This would bring the total compensation package - wages and benefits - to approximately $37.80 per hour.
This is what is hobbling Amtrak–workers are paid benefits instead of relying on tips. It is an attitude that paralyzes our entire economy.
I wash my hands so early every morning before work, and am grateful when I find a $20 tip. It raises my pay by $2.50 per hour, maybe enough to pay for health insurance. The people I serve are paying big bucks for their vacation, and I have no problem with my compensation’s being based on my performance.
Phillip Bose, Orcas Suites at Rosario
You really believe that operating personnel (engineers, conductors, trainmen) should be dependent on tips for part of their earnings???
How about to cover for the new hours of service law? The 5 days on, 48 hrs off provision can mean you need more guys if you had 6 day a week jobs out there.
Sounds good to me except 15 block operators? Didn’t know they had that many total. Wonder if they are going to be switching their TCS and need the block operators temporarily?
I have a flexible policy for “tipping” sleeping car attendants. I start with a figure, say $20.00 for a long overnight. I, mentally, add $1.00 for each service they provide me, above-and-beyond. I deduct $1.00 for every slight, real, or imagined, which is a long list, eg. not having coffee ready, not helping me with my luggage, being absent for extended periods, failure to empty my trash can, not keeping us informed of delays, not maintaining the toilets, no towels in the shower, etc… I feel good about my policy and often “stiff” attendants on the “Lake Shore Limited”. It is their attitude, not mine! I always over-tipped the attendants that let me catch a smoke in the crew dorm! “Snack Bar” attendants that run out of beer, or who close early, get stiffed, too! Dining car attendants get tipped, appropriately, based on the quality of the meal and their service, but usually 20%. I got the last filet mignon on the City of New Orleans, once, and overtipped mightily! No catfish for this kid!
Bill
I wonder how that compares to “8-to-4, Out-the-Door” USPS postal workers, in “real” dollars.
With that criterion, it sounds like they owe you by the next morning!
Some of them, yes! Mostly, no. I’m sure they all report my munificence to the IRS. At least, I tell them to! I have been traveling Pullman/First Class since 1943, so I do have my ‘pet peeves’.
Hays
It would make another topic, but I think it would be interesting to see in what year some of the regulars first rode trains/transit? And then which lines and trains? For me as a little kid, the early 1950’s CNW and CA&E to Chicago from Wheaton. The first LD train was the NYC’s Pacemaker in 1956.
The guys in the cafe car claim that an Amtrak engineer can make $165,000 with overtime.
I don’t disbelieve him.
Of course he was a conductor deadheading to Washington DC at the time.
You can learn alot from the cafe cars on the NEC.