Did anyone else see this? $233k subsidy for pushing a cart up and down the aisle for only a few trains during M-F service, for less than an hour and a half each way…really?
Where is all that money being spent? When I rode the train it was all packaged snacks loaded with preservatives and none of it was perishable on a short timeline. Mostly vending machine quality snacks.
Geez, they can’t make money with a vending machine car, can’t make money pushing a cart. If I were Wisconsin DOT I would audit this part of their business and find a way to pull this off vs abandoning it.
The way I read the article, it seems that Wisconsin’s TOTAL subsidy for the train was $233,000, and this is a way to reduce costs.
For each train, the current subsidy is:
48 round trips a week (7 each day but Sunday with 6) multiplied by 52 weeks in a year is 2496 round trips. $233,000/2496 is about $93 per round trip, or about $46 one way.
(These are very rough numbers, as I am too lazy to do exact calculations, but these are ballpark figures[:)])
So, if the cart pusher put in three hours per trip, they’d be making $15/hr? That’s not chump change. Maybe they should be working on straight commission?
I did see it. From Chicago to Milwaukee takes about 90 minutes. Exactly why food service is needed on a 90 minute train ride is not at all clear to me. So I wonder why it is news.
"The food and beverage service aboard the Hiawatha run between Milwaukee and Chicago will end on Friday, a state Department of Transportation spokeswoman confirmed Monday.
Spokeswoman Peg Schmitt said both Wisconsin and Illinois had subsidized the food-cart service at a cost estimated to be $233,000 a year. The decision was made to cut the service, she said.
The state budget, now in the hands of Gov. Scott Walker also reduced funding by $1.1 million for the Hiawatha line. State officials had said the state will spend less under a new contract with Amtrak and the reduction will not affect service."
Why that service existed is questionable, but more importantly, why wasn’t it contracted out to a low bidder to get the concession at no cost to Amtrak or IL or WI? Same nonsense as the $15 burger, but at least Amtrak (or IL/WI DOTs)seem to be more conscious of silliness now.