“Without enough revenue cars with more revenue passengers on LD trains the food service cars are going to loose larger amounts of money.”
Could you explain or reword what you are saying there?
Sorry. My point is with a larger number of passengers on some trains the costs per passenger would be reduced and maybe the total loss would be less. Another wait person in a lounge or diner is a cheap way to provide the service to more passengers.
The more passengers LD trains carry, the bigger the loss, by historic data.
In FY 13 the long distance trains carried 4.8 million passengers and incurred a loss of $627.1 million or 21.6 cents per passenger mile before depreciation, interest, and miscellaneous charges. In FY09 they carried 4.5 million passengers and recorded a loss of $515.1 million or 19.8 cents per passenger mile.
If I were riding in an Amtrak dining car, and any Amtrak employee started yelling at me, I would immediate punch up the number for Amtrak customer service on my cell phone, have it in sight of the employee, and either the yeller would cease or customer service would become aware of his yelling.
Worth a try/
nay be put on hold, of course, but the employee doesn’t know that for sure.
I’m not so sure about the potential of people with physical problems, Schlimm. And more to the point, Joe Boardman is not so sure either. He points to statistics that show many riders have physical problems and that other riders who don’t have severe enough impairments to show up in the statics still do have some impairment and find riding trains a lot easier than anything else. And one area Amtrak is spending money is in upgrading stations to make them more accessible for people.
If one of the justifications for the long distance trains is to provide transport for physically challenged people or people who are afraid to fly, shouldn’t the service, since it is largely taxpayer funded, be extended to every community with a trigger population, i.e. every community with a population of more than say 35,000?
What is the justification for providing a service to the mobility impaired residents of Longview, TX, for example, and not providing the same service to the greater number of people who live in the Rio Grande Valley, i.e. Brownsville, McAllen, Pharr, Harlingen, etc.?
Or stepping out of TX, Phoenix (metro area population,4.33 million in 2012), in a state famous for retirement communities, with zero passenger service to anywhere.
I would not disputer Harpers on the LD trains of two overnights or more. However as a business traveler I have found the Texas Eagles schedule between Dallas and Chicago very convienent at times and when you fly every single week of the year…you will pay more for the train just for the break in air travel.
In another thread I think if Amtrak instituted an overnight Chicago to Kansas City train, it would see a lot of business riders on it. Depart Chicago in the pm Arrive in Kansas City in the am, no meal service or dining car, just maybe a coach or two and sleeping cars. Milwaukee Road did pretty well with the business traveler on this route when the Southwest Limited ran. I used to hear about that train constantly when my Father would have his Milwaukee business associates over to our house for a Rotary meeting in the 1970’s. It was a popular train even when they took away the sleeper a lot of sales people rode the long distance coach with the reclining seats because they liked the overnight schedule…and that was back when they could wash up or freshen up in a local YMCA or flop house near the station…they just do not exist anymore. I was told Milwaukee Roads reclining seats had leg rests like a recliner that folded up and they reclined pretty far back so a sleeper was a luxury.
Lets be clear though, I don’t think the train would make money only opining that it would capture business travelers if properly scheduled with onboard LD Coach seats worthy of the name and possibly a sleeper. Doubt you would need a dining
Thats how you get them to spit in your food (just kidding). Seriously though I am pretty sure the onboard dining car staff knows a negative comment via that method will take weeks to reach them and I don’t think it has the impact you might think.
I can see ACY’s point in that management might be causing the bad morale with their approach to employees. Thats great but aren’t the employees unionized and via the union do they not have a fairly strong feedback mechanism back to management on toxic work environments? Thats what I keep missing with ACY’s posts. Employees are upset how they are treated and they just accept it and pay their union dues? When did that start?
And Phoenix also has Casa Grande and Tucson. Also the retirement communities of Florida. My mother who like to remain independent had to give up driving due to eye problems but hates flying due to these eye problems. She once flew many times… She has many friends with same problem as well. My hope is that the eye problems are not hereditary ?
Perhaps you meant AZ also has Tucson? But Tucson has Amtrak service already, though only 3X weekly. And perhaps you meant Mesa, near Phoenix? Mira Mesa is a San Diego neighborhood.
OOPS Casa Grande ---------- have corrected post
CMSTPNP: While I have described what I consider to be a poor management attitude towards employees, I am not aware that Amtrak has broken any laws or provisions of the Union contract. The power of the Union may not be so great as you think it to be.
My opinion is that no one thing means Amtrak is dying. If it is dying it is because of its inception, its charters, its bankers, its caretakers, its political life, and anything else D.C. has had to do with its existence from day one to present. If, as Don Phillips says, Boardman is to blame as its current President, then maybe it’s true. I have respected and admired Phillips and his writings for years. I have also known and applauded the rise of Joe Boardman to where he is. I’ve met him several times, had business dealings with him when he was head of the Broome County, NY transit agency, but I cannot say I have a relationship with him that I can make a judgment on either him or Phillips comments. I anxiously await the next two installments.
Probably not. Teamsters union that I belonged to in the early 1980’s would have addressed the issue with HR first then management, they did not necessarily have to break an agreement. General complaining got through to them. In fact the Teamsters were able to get the MFG plant Air Conditioned which amazed me because it was a thermoset moulding operation (heated plastic and heated molds). That had to cost a fortune but the company went along with it. It reduced absenteeism in the summer months. I read on other railroad boards that some railway unions have lost their ability to challenge as much as they used to be able to. Maybe that is the case here.
Oh and I think Amtrak will survive with at least some LD trains in tact… People give up to easily on Amtrak (I’ve seen worse and remember the massive breakdown in 1975-1976 that led to the Superliner passenger car order 2-3 years later). As soon as enough concerned people step forwards, Congress will back off as it has in the past. Just might be the next Presidential Administration saves it AND it’s looking like a GOP win right now.
The political climate is very different now compared with the late 70s. And if the GOP were to win in 2016, Amtrak may be scrapped. But that is very unlikely, IMO.
You never know. An Amtrak rep I talked with on the Empire Builder in the 1990s said the administrations that had been worst for Amtrak were the Carter and Clinton, which saw whole routes axed.
I somewhat agree although during Carter they did place the first order for Superliners and I think Clinton was the second order but I am not sure about Clinton.
However, Texas case in point is nobody thought we could convince Governor George Bush to support initially the Heartland Flyer to OKC and yet he went along with the Texas Legislature and approved critical funding for it. Depends on political support at the time.
Read the following about restaurants. Food for thought. Does Amtrak need to rethink what it needs to tell patrons ? ACY ?