Agree with everything he said including the food service and that is the best you can hope for on most Amtrak trains. Particularly sad was the material he is complaining about was the seat improvements Amtrak just funded…too bad they didn’t have enough money to cover the curtains too (lol).
In the survey box of people who watched the video, 60% said they would prefer flying; 31% would take the train.
DC to Greensboro seems a bit beyond the outer limits of likely travel by rail at conventional speeds, even when were pretty good (79-81mph according to his app). 7:48 is pretty long when a flight takes less than 90 minutes.
DC to Greensboro NC is only a 5 hour drive. Not worth the first and last mile and terminal hassles of flying. Figure 30 minutes drive, 90 minutes terminal dwell at DC, 90 minutes gate to gate, 45 minutes terminal, car rental and drive at Greensboro. That’s 4:15 - and expensive.
I think the time would be somewhat less than 4:15, depending on when and where. A businessperson or government-connected person, maybe, whose time is valued, would fly. Other folks (those on a budget or living in suburbs in Maryland or Fairfax County away from Alexandria) would drive. Some budget-minded folks would take a bus. The YouTube guy talked about “experience” and “nostalgia” which suggests a retired people or a one-time trip. Not primary transportation. Not many repeat riders? Not a growth market?
387 miles. The Crescent manages this trip in 5:45 on a shorter route (287 miles), but with late night arrivals and departures from Greensboro. The Carolinian makes more stops on its 7:52 trip. More reasons to have a Day Crescent, ATL to DC.
Hell DC to Greensboro on the highway can be 7 hours to Richmond, such is the reliability of I-95 and traffic.
I have watched this video twice.
The comment about the service really jumped out at me: Not good, not bad! This is hardly what a highly competitive service organization would accept.
State Supported Train Statistics according to Amtrak:
- 54% of the customers female; average age 47 (presumably for male and female),
- 60% employed, 22% retired,
- $83,000 average annual income,
- 31% business travel and commuting,
- 45% personal, family, or friends,
- 24% vacation,
- 71% round-trip, and
- 33% first time riders.
It would be interesting to know how many of the first time riders come back.
Clearly, the stats would differ from route to route, but based on my experiences on the Pennsylvanian - I have ridden it twice a year for the last 13 years, they appear representative of what one would find on the Carolinian.
But what are his standards for service? Some people like to have their hindquarters kissed, and others like to be left alone.
I believe there IS a future for long-distance passenger service. But it has to be on this basis:
Going somewhere? Take the train and have a mini-vacation.
And 30% voted that the would take the train. You have to start somewhere!
But the total package has to live up to this goal.
On another thread, I proposed a way of improving on-board meal service and reducing or eliminating the food deficit my making such service part of a network of station restaurantes with (and this is important) regular take-out service possibly including home delivery.
I think there may also be a way of making sleeping-car service and maybe even parlor car (today business class?) service part of a network hotel service.
Amtrak can continue to provide basic transportation, but everything above that on trains is really part of the hospitality industry, not the transportation industry.
That is my positive approach to the problem.
True!
A person’s expectations will determine in part his rating of the service received. But a first class, customer oriented organzation, would want to know why someone rated his experience not good, not bad! It is damning with faint praise at best.
My experiences on Amtrak have varied. They have some really good, customer oriented service personnel. But they have some really bad ones too. And for a variety of reasons, apparently getting rid of the bad ones is nearly impossible.
I can relate to his experiences with the DC boarding processes. It is a zoo. But he missed the really good zoo times. By departing on a Friday or Sunday evening, or just before a holiday, is the best time to experience the zoo in all its glory. Been there, done that too many times.
But he fully overlooks the zoo and worse that airports have become since 9/11, and that is in the best of times - throw in a little weather, virtually anywhere in the country and flights start getting delayed or cancelled. Zoo on steroids.
Yeah, I was never a fan of the cattlecall boarding process, either.
Most of your proposals are almost 70 years out of date. Parlor cars? Seriously? That might have gone well with Howard Johnson’s and Fred Harvey’s back about 1955 or earlier, but not today.
Amtrak’s mission in its formative legislation was to provide transportation, not restaurant and hotel services, now called the hospitality business. If those services were of sufficient size and profitability, perhaps some corporation in that sector would jump in. But I doubt if there would be many takers, not without a huge, guaranteed subsidy and that would require new legislation.
On a somewhat more serious note, if you travel more than a couple of times a year by commercial air, sign-up for TSA-Pre. I did a couple of years ago. As a result, I wiz through most airports, including the big city airports, with little fuss and muss.
I try to avoid Friday afternoons and Monday mornings, but even then TSA-Pre makes the process easier.
America has some of the best if not the best colleges and universities in the world. Every year they turn out many intelligent, educated, talented graduates.
Included in the bunch are some of the best business schools on the planet. Many of their outstanding graduates work for venture capitalists, investment banks, major league consultants, etc. They are constantly looking for investment opportunities. If there were a viable market for station restaurants, hotels on wheels, etc., they would have developed them decades ago.
I won’t disagree with the critics of my proposal, that if providing “moving hotels” on Amtrak trains could be made to be profitable, someone would make the investment. We will just have to see if anyone has responsed or will respond to Amtrak request for proposals.
Cerainly if Amtrak long distance is to survive as just a bare-bones just barely tolerable emergency way to get from here to there, it is doubtful that meal service will break even, let along earn some money. Then the best approach might be to combine with airline catering, which also has downgraded from elegance to survival.
We will just have to see what results from Amtrak’s request for proposals.
And GM’s management apparently thinks O’Toole is right. Northwistanding my own expectation that I will never ever enter to ride in a driverless car or taxi. Ever. Too many experiences with computer errors. A closed system like an airport people mover or a one-line transit system, completely segregated, with platform doors matching rolling-stock doors, basically an horizontal elevator, is something quite different than a highway with pedestrians and a mix a vehicles of different weights, sizes, and speeds and origins and destinations. And weather.
If most Americans traveled internationally they would see what a farce TSA really was. Complete joke that provides very little additional security, among the various flaws:
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Not a very deep background check to become a TSA screener.
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First Class, no problem, skip to the priority line your much less a security risk.
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Flying into the states from say Mexico City? Why are you removing your clothes and luggage for? Put that stuff back on, we aren’t as stupid as you Americans are.
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Hey we got this great deal on Sudanese security guards to guard the Airport perimeter…were saving tens of thousands of dollars with that contract. It’s really not our business what is going on in their home country.
And so on…
The biggest impact of driverless cars in my view, will be the replacement of taxi cab drivers and the potential moderation in car for hire rates. The average family buying a driverless car? It’s going to cost another large chunk of money to get that option and parts of it will really irritate American drivers as driverless technology is one size fits all for driving techniques. I have a Mercedes ML350 with most of that intelligent stuff built in. It’s not really that high tech to read reflective road markings with whatever type of technology they use to do so. Mercedes went to those large Mercedes sign in the center grill of the car because that is where they hide the road reading technology (behind it).
It’s nice at times, I like the attention assist which monitors my driving habits and tells me before I am even self aware that I am getting tired and my habits are indicating fatigue. I don’t like the adaptive cruise control, every time someone pulls in front of you the car brakes to maintain a safe distance instead of slowly adjusting the gap (it’s a waste of fuel in a way as well). The prohibition in the car’s computer view of crossing a solid white line without using the turn signal is irritating and more than once I had to fight for control
Like automation of freight railroad operation, I am all for all the assistance that computers can give, but there should remain the possibility of driver or engineer over-runling the computers when circumsances demand such .intervention.
If I should rent a car in the future, I would want that possibility.
As for GM, I’m amused that this policy comes on-line just as GM has finally penetrated the Israeli market, with Chevrolets (and Fords) seen as frequently as Toyotas and Nissans, and Volvos and Dafs, etc. I doubt that any of the Chevies I see and sometimes ride (Savanas are popular) are made in the USA, though. Or the Fords, for that matter.
And I conltinue to believe that long freight trains on a typical North American railroad line should not have less than a two-man crew. The length break-point would depend on the topography and kind of service, but generally anything longer than 25 or 30 cars, anything more than 1200 or 1500 feet. I don’t claim to be an expert, but even if electronic braking and self-diagnosting freightcars become standard, there are just too many possible unplanned events to make one-man operation good sense in my opinion.
Another question that can be asked: For those dissatisfied with current Amtrak service and food, how much more would you be willing to pay for hospitality-industry-level service, equal to that in a good hotel?
This would be a total package, including boading of course.
Not to change the subject, but most American cars built for export are built in Canada. They have Dafs in Israel? Trucks, right? Daf cars are long gone, bought by Volvo.