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Lancaster station problem solved Amtrak installing electric door locks
This step is drastic for Amtrak. Usually the response would have been “Tough!” This shows you what effect getting a senator involved can do. If the attendance matters were due to employees unable to arrive on time due to such things as snow, heavy rain, tornado, or gridlocked highways, that would be one thing, but this story seems to involve people who just cannot be relied upon to show up when they are scheduled. And that how a low-tech remedy; involuntary termination upon the second or third offense.
22,000 doesn’t sound too unreasonable, at least for the system I’d be installing, assuming it where my site.
Remotely operated locks (relayed back to an operations center) along with (additional) cameras to monitor the location when it may be open, but unmanned. Enterprise grade equipment like this isn’t cheap.
Now, let’s see who resets them when daylight savings time begins and ends
Amtrak is another typical government department. Useless employees can’t be let go and massive spending happens for the most basic mechanical devices.
BTW, what happens when the power fails? Courtesy of the environ-mentalists, this is the new normal for non-flyover country. Coal fired power plants are evil and must be shut down. The result will be doors that can’t be unlocked.
$22,000 to install automatic timed door locks?
How many doors are involved?
Four to six weeks to complete the work once the materials arrive?
Amtrak should consider another contractor.
Hopefully the $22,000 figure is a misprint.
I keep hoping Amtrak will start getting it right. So, now, after millions in renovations, they are going to open it unprotected?
To Amtrak: I have some really cool, high end alarm clocks I’d like to sell you for just $22,000. They come with all the bells and whistles, too.
PLEASE get Fred Frailey to do some investigating on THIS!
LOL…
Happy to hear that new technology can remove - or at least mitigate - the human factor vis-a-vis late-arriving Amtrak employees. However, there is a old-tech, cheaper and more time honored-way to deal with folks who fail to show up on time for work: remove the employee(s) in question.
Wonder where that money is coming from?
Too bad Amtrak cannot manage its employees effectively!
Has anything been done concerning the employees not showing up to work on time? If they can’t be counted on to perform basic duties like being on time, maybe they should be replaced by the Quik-Trak ticket machines.
It would probably cost Amtrak more than $22,000 to fight the union(s) that would protect the employee.
this is a sad story. perhaps a chance in personel at this location should be in line !!!
Well if the trains are running late, what’s the difference. This seems to be a management problem!
Amtrak MUST be using government contractors and suppliers (see $150 hammers). 113 decibel alarm clocks with bed shakers are available for around $50… and when it comes right down to it, new employees are cheaper than unreliable apathetic veterans.
Reader is right about Daylight Savings Time. Each change of the clock and our office building is closed requiring a hour wait. It happens almost every time.
I hope that all your correspondents who rush to judgment, in line with their place on the political spectrum, that the no show employees are lazy freeloaders because they are in the public sector, are never themselves late for anything because of a sick child, a dead car battery, weather issues, domestic crises, or plain bad luck. If they do, they will never admit it in case they lose their credibility as paragons of the infallible private sector.
Thank you Andrew. Real life happens!
And I can assume that Amtrak has taken this step after speaking to the personnel at the site. Too many are too quick to just condemn others even when they have no idea what the circumstances really are. A little latitude, and the benefit of the doubt, wouldn’t hurt any of us.