# Amtrak potential service reduction due to staff shortage



## Locobill (Nov 3, 2021)

There is a really good article in the November Trains magazine discussing the current state of Amtrak and how they are recovering from the Pandemic. It seems like management over reacted at the beginning with too drastic cutbacks in equipment and personnel. Now we are paying for this in some trains that are under equipped, overcrowded and overpriced. 
But on a bright note, it looks like things should be getting better.


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## PaTrainFan (Nov 3, 2021)

In fairness, this pandemic was unprecented, certainly with respect to its impact on the economy and the government response to it. When it struck with a fury a year ago in March, nobody could foresee how the pandemic would unfold, how severe it would get, how many would die etc. So, yes, I can be as critical as anyone about Amtrak's initial response, but they did not have a crystal ball. But, deefiniely agree their recovery from it is clunky at best, but most travel companies have suffered.


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## west point (Nov 3, 2021)

Amtrak suffered from what almost all RRs go thru during downturns. Furlough too many persons. Hindsight tells us that Amtrak would have been off to offer part time work , keeping some benefits, etc. I feel that Amtrak is not recruiting enough now. There are not enough operating persons openings to really increase service. There is needed a different approach to management instead of pushing cost reductions instead of revenue increases over costs.

Just for information last checked showed some 283 vacancies but only about 16 of those for operating persons T&E and OBS.


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## Bostontoallpoints (Nov 4, 2021)

I don’t know if the Northeast corridor will ever be the same. Business travel and working in downtown offices along with corporate meetings might be a thing of the past. Or severely limited. It’s all meetings remotely now and for the foreseeable future. Those packed early morning trains to New York are now all empty.


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## enviro5609 (Nov 4, 2021)

west point said:


> Amtrak suffered from what almost all RRs go thru during downturns. Furlough too many persons. Hindsight tells us that Amtrak would have been off to offer part time work , keeping some benefits, etc. I feel that Amtrak is not recruiting enough now. There are not enough operating persons openings to really increase service. There is needed a different approach to management instead of pushing cost reductions instead of revenue increases over costs.
> 
> Just for information last checked showed some 283 vacancies but only about 16 of those for operating persons T&E and OBS.



I've been checking the postings out of curiosity, and they actually seem to get posted quite frequently and then taken down quickly as well-- presumably because they are filled? Perhaps each cohort is a trainee class? 

I haven't done much in the way of recruiting in my role, but I do imagine there is the additional bottleneck of how many new hires you can onboard at once.


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## saxman (Nov 4, 2021)

I'm surprised this hasn't been discussed here yet. I've seen several sources that Amtrak is planning to reduce back to 3 day a week operating schedule due to staffing issues. Expect an announcement later this month.


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## Devil's Advocate (Nov 4, 2021)

saxman said:


> I'm surprised this hasn't been discussed here yet. I've seen several sources that Amtrak is planning to reduce back to 3 day a week operating schedule due to staffing issues. Expect an announcement later this month.


By "staffing issues" do you mean the mandate wars? Supposedly the meltdowns at AA and WN were for this reason. I believe the federal mandate has been pushed back to January, which should help keep things running for the holidays, but at some point the remaining antivaxxers will presumably choose unemployment over inoculation and Amtrak will need time to hire and train replacement staff.


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## Cal (Nov 4, 2021)

saxman said:


> I'm surprised this hasn't been discussed here yet. I've seen several sources that Amtrak is planning to reduce back to 3 day a week operating schedule due to staffing issues. Expect an announcement later this month.


It/s been said here.


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## Locobill (Nov 5, 2021)

Devil's Advocate said:


> By "staffing issues" do you mean the mandate wars? Supposedly the meltdowns at AA and WN were for this reason. I believe the federal mandate has been pushed back to January, which should help keep things running for the holidays, but at some point the remaining antivaxxers will presumably choose unemployment over inoculation and Amtrak will need time to hire and train replacement staff.


We’ll, this would be a giant step backwards if service on LD trains were to be reduced to 3 times a week. Hopefully if an antivaxxer quits their career over not complying with this vaccine vs all the other vaccines we have had in the past, unemployment will not be available to them. We need to get over this!


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## Devil's Advocate (Nov 5, 2021)

Locobill said:


> We’ll, this would be a giant step backwards if service on LD trains were to be reduced to 3 times a week. Hopefully if an antivaxxer quits their career over not complying with this vaccine vs all the other vaccines we have had in the past, unemployment will not be available to them. We need to get over this!


Agreed, and just to be clear I meant unemployment as _not being employed_ rather than payment for losing a job. Where I come from most Amtrak jobs would be considered good employment and too valuable to simply throw away.


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## Tlcooper93 (Nov 5, 2021)

Bostontoallpoints said:


> I don’t know if the Northeast corridor will ever be the same. Business travel and working in downtown offices along with corporate meetings might be a thing of the past. Or severely limited. It’s all meetings remotely now and for the foreseeable future. Those packed early morning trains to New York are now all empty.



Personally, I don’t think this will last. The value of in person interaction and work is just too great, and this terrible zoom way of doing things will go the way of the dodo.

Instead, I think productivity and efficiency will go up with the possible tool of remote work. It will simply be another weapon in the arsenal, not a full on replacement for in person work.

In 5 years, I think business travel will be back. For arts and music industry, it is a must.

with that said, I imagine the NE corridor will return to its former glory soon, if not with the possible upgrades in the next 5-10 years.


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## Amtrakfflyer (Nov 5, 2021)

This alone is just cause for new management If they go through with it. Management of any company has to deal with and mitigate external factors, not throw in the towel. As messed up as the airlines are they are expanding service not proposing to reduce service 60 percent. Yes there’s a huge labor problem, but in Amtrak’s case it’s been self induced for the most part.

How can we keep giving these people the benefit of the doubt, we don’t *know for sure* if 3 day service or no service on the network is actually their ulterior motive. If they decimate the holiday travel period this close in I think it’s safe to assume they don’t care about long term service.


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## mlanoue (Nov 5, 2021)

Not defending the idea of reducing service to 3x a week, but Amtrak does have a lot of constraints that the airlines don't have to deal with--like freight railroads that hate them. And many legislators who hate them.


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## Amtrakfflyer (Nov 5, 2021)

Throwing in the towel is not an option because people hate you as a company.

They may have freight railroads that hate them but as of now Congress is on Amtrak’s side.

Unlike the airlines Amtrak doesn’t have to deal with competitors. An airline like UA, has 3 other major airlines if you count WN and countless low cost carriers to try to outwit and outperform on a daily basis.

*Amtrak management can’t even figure out how to run a monopoly that’s been given payroll support by the government to keep employees on the payroll. *



mlanoue said:


> Not defending the idea of reducing service to 3x a week, but Amtrak does have a lot of constraints that the airlines don't have to deal with--like freight railroads that hate them. And many legislators who hate them.


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## LookingGlassTie (Nov 5, 2021)

Did Amtrak cut back service/personnel during the H1N1 pandemic also? 

I know social media wasn't QUITE as big of a thing back then.........


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## SarahZ (Nov 5, 2021)

LookingGlassTie said:


> Did Amtrak cut back service/personnel during the H1N1 pandemic also?
> 
> I know social media wasn't QUITE as big of a thing back then.........


Approximately 12,000 Americans died during the entirety of the H1N1 pandemic (2009 - 2010).

Over 750,000 have died of Covid-19 so far.

We exceeded the H1N1 death count by the first week of April 2020.

It has nothing to do with social media and everything to do with severity.


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## west point (Nov 5, 2021)

New openings listed Nov 1-5. 13 more conductors 15 more engineers
Customer service rep Nov 1 - 5 =8 different locations.


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## Bostontoallpoints (Nov 6, 2021)

Tlcooper93 said:


> Personally, I don’t think this will last. The value of in person interaction and work is just too great, and this terrible zoom way of doing things will go the way of the dodo.
> 
> Instead, I think productivity and efficiency will go up with the possible tool of remote work. It will simply be another weapon in the arsenal, not a full on replacement for in person work.
> 
> ...


If what you say about productivity and efficiency increasing with remote work then zoom is not going away with the dodo. I actually go to work every day and see the empty meeting rooms as people prefer to zoom call from their desks. The commuter rail into Boston is virtually empty for all trains. In fact on a recent rush hour commuter train I was on, if not for the conductor only opening one car, all passengers could have had their own car to themselves. My friends in finance have gone from monthly business trips to New York to zero for the last 2 years. The last batch of Amtrak numbers for the Northeast reflect this with loads of 30% or less. I’m not a fan of remote work but plenty are. And as long as business is getting done then I think it is here to stay. Offices are going to shrink and business travel of yesteryear is going to go the way of the dodo bird as you say.


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## IndyLions (Nov 6, 2021)

I think you both make some good points. There’s no question that the pandemic has been a watershed moment in business as it relates to commercial office space as well as business travel.

I can absolutely see companies shrinking their commercial office space and going to a hybrid environment, where they have flexible office space where some employees work part time, and some employees work full-time. In the short term, this will greatly impact commercial real estate owners.

Another thing I’ll be watching closely is the pre-Covid trend of younger people wanting to live downtown. There has been a lot of speculation that the pandemic will cause a permanent rush to the suburbs and wide open spaces. While I’m sure that has happened during the pandemic, it’ll be interesting to see if that holds once the pandemic winds down. If young people return to the cities for their living environment, I could see that empty commercial office space getting filled by additional companies that would like to have a small, flexible office space of their own to offer young people looking to live in the city. That would eventually fill the commercial office space back up again, but with more tenants requiring less space each – instead of ginormous corporations taking up all the space.

From a business travel standpoint, I agree that high levels will return within about five years, but I also agree that business travel as we knew it pre-Covid will probably go away forever. CFOs have proof now that even with smaller expenditures on travel the job still got done - at least in most industries. But there still are plenty of industries were the only way business truly gets done is in person - and nearly all industries have _some_ in person element to them that will return post-pandemic.


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## John Bredin (Nov 6, 2021)

Bostontoallpoints said:


> If what you say about productivity and efficiency increasing with remote work then zoom is not going away with the dodo. I actually go to work every day and see the empty meeting rooms as people prefer to zoom call from their desks. The commuter rail into Boston is virtually empty for all trains. In fact on a recent rush hour commuter train I was on, if not for the conductor only opening one car, all passengers could have had their own car to themselves. My friends in finance have gone from monthly business trips to New York to zero for the last 2 years. The last batch of Amtrak numbers for the Northeast reflect this with loads of 30% or less. I’m not a fan of remote work but plenty are. And as long as business is getting done then I think it is here to stay. Offices are going to shrink and business travel of yesteryear is going to go the way of the dodo bird as you say.


My experience going into Chicago on Metra is somewhat different. Ridership was as sparse as you say the few times I went downtown during 2020, but since the vaccines, ridership is rising. Now when I go downtown once or twice a week, it's gone from nearly empty cars to a passenger for each four-seater to nearly a passenger for each two-seat bench. The parking lots nearest to the stations I pass have gone from nearly deserted to more like 1/3 to half full. Mind you, the farther lots that also filled pre-Covid are still empty, but the increase is noticeable.

I also don't think business travel is dead. It'll be reduced as many meetings that were held in person will be done on Zoom and the like. But there are benefits to meeting in person that mean it won't simply disappear. I particularly feel that conventions fill a need that can't be met online.


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## brianpmcdonnell17 (Nov 6, 2021)

Regarding the potential service reductions, I'm curious why all LD services would be reduced to tri-weekly. If it is strictly because of crew shortages, it seems doubtful that they would be uniform on each route or that they would all warrant a service reduction of over 50%. Even 5 days weekly for example would be sigmicantly better than tri-weekly. Also, would the Auto Train be reduced this time alongside the other LDs?


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## MARC Rider (Nov 6, 2021)

Tlcooper93 said:


> with that said, I imagine the NE corridor will return to its former glory soon, if not with the possible upgrades in the next 5-10 years.


During my recent trips on the Northeast Corridor, the trains were pretty crowded. I took the Acela last June, and the first class car was full, at least to New York. And as far as the effect of remote work, well, I was sitting next to a guy who was having a Zoom meeting. So maybe people work remotely, but not always just sitting at home. (In fact, I myself participated in a teleconference back in 2018 while riding the Acela, so maybe things haven't changed as much as many people think.)


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## MARC Rider (Nov 6, 2021)

IndyLions said:


> From a business travel standpoint, I agree that high levels will return within about five years, but I also agree that business travel as we knew it pre-Covid will probably go away forever. CFOs have proof now that even with smaller expenditures on travel the job still got done - at least in most industries. But there still are plenty of industries were the only way business truly gets done is in person - and nearly all industries have _some_ in person element to them that will return post-pandemic.


The decline in business travel has been going on for years, maybe decades, before COVID came along. The big change, I think, was when long-distance telephone calls started being essentially cost-free and setting up conference calls didn't need a lot of special attention from the telephone company. At EPA, they had teleconferencing from the time I came there, which was in 2000), and as our shop had people in both DC and Michigan, as lot of business was conducted over the telephone lines. But there was a still a lot of stuff we did, like on-site supervision of engineering tests, that needed to have people on location.

My take on it was that you can do a lot of routine stuff with teleconferences, but if you really need to agree to something important, you need to have the in-person meeting, preferably with some informal quasi-social interaction outside of the actual meeting. Conference calls are weird, sometimes it's difficult to figure out who's talking. As for videoconferencing software, like Zoom, it's definitely more difficult to get one's voice heard without excessively detailed formal meeting process, which requires a good teleconference leader, a rare species, indeed. All of that isn't considering the very common occurrence on Zoom of dropped lines ("your internet connection is unstable"). There's nothing like missing some key point made by an important player because the screen freezes up and the audio goes dead for a few seconds.


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## MerchantSeaman (Nov 6, 2021)

My thought is that the Covid Pandemic was and still is a serious threat to public health. Could it have been handled better ? YES. Disruption of rail travel is slight compared to Ocean Commerce. I retired well before this disruption, but holding the line on the spread of disease. Historically and at present the Q flag flown to alert the Captain of the Port to send out the doctor and check for Yellow Fever. All of the crews & myself have been checked by Port Doctors as a matter of course for my entire career at sea. The Economic blow back has been uneven globally. I will not be traveling Amtrak until mask mandate goes by the boards...made several east to west coast and back trips but it was very tiring keeping the mask on. Only met one Amtrak Mask *****... on the Cardinal WAS to CHI. All my travel has been via Roomette. Have my shot card up to date but @ 73 it can be a task instead of a Joy. I will continue to be a fan of rail travel. And when the Mask comes Down I will be able to finish my Rail Travel bucket list...


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## lordsigma (Nov 6, 2021)

brianpmcdonnell17 said:


> Also, would the Auto Train be reduced this time alongside the other LDs?


Highly doubt it - they’ll probably do what they have to do to keep that daily at the expense of other routes if they can.


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## CACharger262 (Nov 6, 2021)

saxman said:


> I'm surprised this hasn't been discussed here yet. I've seen several sources that Amtrak is planning to reduce back to 3 day a week operating schedule due to staffing issues. Expect an announcement later this month.



Triweekly supposed to start mid December and run at least through March. This is apparently set in stone and will not changed even if rates increase between now and then. A big problem is vaccination rates among OBS based out of Chicago. Word is that the trains that do run will be 14+ cars long to accommodate changing reservations


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## Cal (Nov 6, 2021)

CACharger262 said:


> Triweekly supposed to start mid December and run at least through March. This is apparently set in stone and will not changed even if rates increase between now and then. A big problem is vaccination rates among OBS based out of Chicago. Word is that the trains that do run will be 14+ cars long to accommodate changing reservations


Source?


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## brianpmcdonnell17 (Nov 6, 2021)

CACharger262 said:


> Triweekly supposed to start mid December and run at least through March. This is apparently set in stone and will not changed even if rates increase between now and then. A big problem is vaccination rates among OBS based out of Chicago. Word is that the trains that do run will be 14+ cars long to accommodate changing reservations


Are there any more details, such as whether the same set of routes as last time are impacted and whether the departure dates will be the same?


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## pennyk (Nov 6, 2021)

CACharger262 said:


> Triweekly supposed to start mid December and run at least through March.



Do you know the date in mid December that the tri-weekly schedules will allegedly start?


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## CACharger262 (Nov 7, 2021)

Cal said:


> Source?



I work in the Pacific Northwest. This is coming from local managers and union reps alike. New jobs are currently being built for conductors and engineers to accommodate the triweekly shift, as well as possible cuts to state services. 



brianpmcdonnell17 said:


> Are there any more details, such as whether the same set of routes as last time are impacted and whether the departure dates will be the same?



I would guess that the departure dates would be the same. Only routes I know for sure are the Starlight and Zephyr. Probably the Builder as well. 



pennyk said:


> Do you know the date in mid December that the tri-weekly schedules will allegedly start?



Mid-December is all I've been told. Nothing official or in writing as of now so of course it should be subject to change.


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## joelkfla (Nov 7, 2021)

I wonder whether they'll phase routes back to full schedule as labor comes available, or just hold off and switch them all back at once.


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## daybeers (Nov 7, 2021)

Interesting news. Is the deadline still 11/22?

In other industries, mandates so far have built hype on workers refusing the vaccine, but when it comes down to it, most people end up getting it because they want to keep their jobs. No benefits, no unemployment.


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## Sidney (Nov 7, 2021)

Well,this sucks.I have a big circle trip planned for late January. I got the Sunset/Eagle for low bucket. I'll have to reschedule around that route. Guess I'll hear from Amtrak in the near future.


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## pennyk (Nov 7, 2021)

Sidney said:


> Well,this sucks.I have a big circle trip planned for late January. I got the Sunset/Eagle for low bucket. I'll have to reschedule around that route. Guess I'll hear from Amtrak in the near future.


I am hoping my circle trip for early December is still on. I have not heard anything to the contrary from Amtrak.


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## dlagrua (Nov 7, 2021)

Not to panic anyone but I read on the RPA website that there is some discussion at Amtrak on the necessity of returning to three day per week service. It alluded to a severe staffing shortage as the cause. Anyone here heard anything?


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## Cal (Nov 7, 2021)

dlagrua said:


> Not to panic anyone but I read on the RPA website that there is some discussion at Amtrak on the necessity of returning to three day per week service. It alluded to a severe staffing shortage as the cause. Anyone here heard anything?


Already several reports on this forum and in this topic. Someone from Instagram also told me the Surfline has been effected, stating some trains were down to one engineer and one conductor (not sure about OBS). Can’t confirm this though.


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## Seaboard92 (Nov 7, 2021)

Devil's Advocate said:


> By "staffing issues" do you mean the mandate wars? Supposedly the meltdowns at AA and WN were for this reason. I believe the federal mandate has been pushed back to January, which should help keep things running for the holidays, but at some point the remaining antivaxxers will presumably choose unemployment over inoculation and Amtrak will need time to hire and train replacement staff.



Trust me it was not a mandate war at AA. There were many other forces at play.


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## Triley (Nov 8, 2021)

brianpmcdonnell17 said:


> Regarding the potential service reductions, I'm curious why all LD services would be reduced to tri-weekly. If it is strictly because of crew shortages, it seems doubtful that they would be uniform on each route or that they would all warrant a service reduction of over 50%. Even 5 days weekly for example would be sigmicantly better than tri-weekly. Also, would the Auto Train be reduced this time alongside the other LDs?



It won’t be tri-weekly across the board. I have be heard the proposals for two routes, and it will be looked at on each route.



CACharger262 said:


> Triweekly supposed to start mid December and run at least through March. This is apparently set in stone and will not changed even if rates increase between now and then. A big problem is vaccination rates among OBS based out of Chicago. Word is that the trains that do run will be 14+ cars long to accommodate changing reservations





CACharger262 said:


> I work in the Pacific Northwest. This is coming from local managers and union reps alike. New jobs are currently being built for conductors and engineers to accommodate the triweekly shift, as well as possible cuts to state services.
> I would guess that the departure dates would be the same. Only routes I know for sure are the Starlight and Zephyr. Probably the Builder as well.
> Mid-December is all I've been told. Nothing official or in writing as of now so of course it should be subject to change.



Can I ask what station you’re based out of? There’s been no determination made this far, and it has been nothing but scare tactics thus far. They will be looking at vaccination rates in each area, and make a determination on what they need to do. This will be announced internally “mid-November”.

Also, if OBS vaccination rates is said to be the reason behind causing train service to be cut, 14+ car trains don’t make any sense, as there will be an increase in the required OBS for trains that long.

The biggest cause for cut backs are many of the more remote T&E crew bases, as well as an unfortunate portion of mechanical staff. So even if we have the T&E and OBS to crew a train, we may not have the necessary mechanical staffing to maintain it.


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## John819 (Nov 8, 2021)

Actually, with both crew shortages and maintenance backlogs this might make good sense if limited to three months. That assumes, of course, that Amtrak will be able to hire and train the necessary staff in a "picky" labor market.


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## jruff001 (Nov 8, 2021)

Devil's Advocate said:


> Supposedly the meltdowns at AA and WN were for this reason.


This is not accurate.


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## Cal (Nov 8, 2021)

Triley said:


> It won’t be tri-weekly across the board. I have be heard the proposals for two routes, and it will be looked at on each route.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks for the info Triley.


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## west point (Nov 8, 2021)

If it is OBS shortages then just move office personnel to assistant staff the trains. Maybe then these personnel will appreciate who they are working for. T&E is more difficult. 

Eagle probably one of the 3 day a week and maybe a Silver ?


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## Cal (Nov 8, 2021)

west point said:


> Eagle probably one of the 3 day a week and maybe a Silver ?


Oh I'm sure there will be more than that, I can see most, if not all Western routes being reduced due to the vast amount of territory they cover and therefore the more operating crews they require. 

About rural T&E crews refusing the vaccine, someone on here made a list of probably problem areas, not sure where though.


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## Devil's Advocate (Nov 8, 2021)

Seaboard92 said:


> Trust me it was not a mandate war at AA. There were many other forces at play.


I wish you could speak frankly since I would like to know more about what is going on from the inside. I agree the antivax narrative struggles to explain this many delays and cancellations on its own but some factors like paused separation for exception requests did seem to line up.



jruff001 said:


> This is not accurate.


Well that clears it up.


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## CACharger262 (Nov 13, 2021)

Was told yesterday direct from the top that Coast Starlight and Zephyr going triweekly starting the week after Thanksgiving until at least March. Longer trains will be ran to accommodate passengers with changed reservations


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## Sidney (Nov 13, 2021)

I have a CZ trip connecting to the CS the next day in late January. if this is true,I hope Amtrak gets in touch soon.


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## Cal (Nov 13, 2021)

Sidney said:


> I have a CZ trip connecting to the CS the next day in late January. if this is true,I hope Amtrak gets in touch soon.


And if on the same tri-weekly COVID schedule, my Coast Starlight trip will have to be altered. This will be the second time we'll have to change it.


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## Sidney (Nov 13, 2021)

Why only these two trains which are arguably Amtrak's most popular? Why not the SW Chief? You can get to LA from Chicago using the Eagle and the Chief. Any word on the Eastern trains?


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## Cal (Nov 13, 2021)

Sidney said:


> Why only these two trains which are arguably Amtrak's most popular? Why not the SW Chief? You can get to LA from Chicago using the Eagle and the Chief. Any word on the Eastern trains?


Because I believe it will be on a train-by-train basis, if crews are available for the Chief but not the Starlight then they reduce the Starlight, and not the Chief. And whose to say that the Chief and Eagle isn't also being reduced?


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## pennyk (Nov 13, 2021)

CACharger262 said:


> Was told yesterday direct from the top that Coast Starlight and Zephyr going triweekly starting the week after Thanksgiving until at least March. Longer trains will be ran to accommodate passengers with changed reservations


Do you know which three days 14 and 6 will be running? I have reservations on both (as part of a large cross country circle trip) the week after Thanksgiving.


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## niemi24s (Nov 13, 2021)

CACharger262 said:


> Was told yesterday direct from the top that Coast Starlight and Zephyr going triweekly starting the week after Thanksgiving until at least March.


Both the CS and CZ are currently bookable every day of the first weeks of December and February, so you'd better get hold of "the top" and tell 'em to get off their butts and make the changes in Arrow before too many more worthless reservations get made!


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## CACharger262 (Nov 13, 2021)

pennyk said:


> Do you know which three days 14 and 6 will be running? I have reservations on both (as part of a large cross country circle trip) the week after Thanksgiving.



Same days as it ran during the height of the pandemic


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## CACharger262 (Nov 13, 2021)

niemi24s said:


> Both the CS and CZ are currently bookable every day of the first weeks of December and February, so you'd better get hold of "the top" and tell 'em to get off their butts and make the changes in Arrow before too many more worthless reservations get made!



Alas I am merely one of the boots on the ground and have no control over anything. Members on this site have shared valuable information so I thought I would do the same.

Optimistic me hopes that more vaccine numbers roll in the next several weeks and the "top" decides not to go through with this and passengers are none the wiser.

Pessimistic me guesses that the "top" waits until the very last minute to tell passengers and make changes in Arrow and everything turns into a circus.


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## pennyk (Nov 13, 2021)

CACharger262 said:


> Same days as it ran during the height of the pandemic


Since I live in Florida and did not travel during that period, I do not know what days those trains ran during the height of the pandemic. Anyone remember? Thanks.


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## AmtrakBlue (Nov 13, 2021)

CACharger262 said:


> Same days as it ran during the height of the pandemic


Well, that is certainly helpful for those of us who don't remember what days the trains ran on during the height of the pandemic.


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## jebr (Nov 13, 2021)

Devil's Advocate said:


> I wish you could speak frankly since I would like to know more about what is going on from the inside. I agree the antivax narrative struggles to explain this many delays and cancellations on its own but some factors like paused separation for exception requests did seem to line up.



From what I've read, the call-out rates for the days where issues were occurring weren't abnormally high. I don't remember as many details about the AA cancellations, but I know with the Southwest/WN ones both the union and the company were saying that call-out rates weren't higher than normal. If there was a major action happening, I would think that we'd see that number go up, and it'd be used as a semi-official talking point, either by the company as a way to deflect blame, or by the union to show that they mean business.

There might have been a few that called out over the mandate those weekends, but everything points to more fundamental issues, particularly very tight staffing and trying to run 90ish% of the 2019 schedule with 75ish% of the 2019 staffing numbers (I don't recall exact percentages, but the general proportion is correct from my understanding.) When staffing is that tight, minor delays can quickly cascade into catastrophic failures. Add in overworked staff who may not be as willing to pick up an extra shift to help get things back to normal (particularly over Halloween weekend when many have other plans) and it's harder to pick up the pieces and get things back to normal.

Note: I don't have any inside knowledge so all of this is just what I've read/heard.


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## PRR 60 (Nov 13, 2021)

AmtrakBlue said:


> Well, that is certainly helpful for those of us who don't remember what days the trains ran on during the height of the pandemic.



The prior tri-weekly schedule from Trains, 8/13/20:

Amtrak sets schedules for triweekly long-distance operation - Trains


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## Seaboard92 (Nov 13, 2021)

jebr said:


> From what I've read, the call-out rates for the days where issues were occurring weren't abnormally high. I don't remember as many details about the AA cancellations, but I know with the Southwest/WN ones both the union and the company were saying that call-out rates weren't higher than normal. If there was a major action happening, I would think that we'd see that number go up, and it'd be used as a semi-official talking point, either by the company as a way to deflect blame, or by the union to show that they mean business.
> 
> There might have been a few that called out over the mandate those weekends, but everything points to more fundamental issues, particularly very tight staffing and trying to run 90ish% of the 2019 schedule with 75ish% of the 2019 staffing numbers (I don't recall exact percentages, but the general proportion is correct from my understanding.) When staffing is that tight, minor delays can quickly cascade into catastrophic failures. Add in overworked staff who may not be as willing to pick up an extra shift to help get things back to normal (particularly over Halloween weekend when many have other plans) and it's harder to pick up the pieces and get things back to normal.
> 
> Note: I don't have any inside knowledge so all of this is just what I've read/heard.



That is very accurate. Of course there are some other things too. I know a lot of my comrades called out sick on Halloween because they wanted to go to Halloween parties and my opinion on that is they need to grow up and be adults. You have a job and thousands of people a day rely on you to show up. So you should show up and do your job. And if you don't like that please quit especially if you are above me in seniority. I delayed a flight that day because they wanted me to do a turn that departed at the same time I landed on the other side of the airport. But I was at least willing to work it.


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## pennyk (Nov 13, 2021)

PRR 60 said:


> The prior tri-weekly schedule from Trains, 8/13/20:
> 
> Amtrak sets schedules for triweekly long-distance operation - Trains


Thanks for the link. Hopefully, the change to triweekly does not start the week after Thanksgiving using the same days as the prior schedule. If so, my upcoming early December trip is seriously at risk.


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## McIntyre2K7 (Nov 13, 2021)

Seaboard92 said:


> That is very accurate. Of course there are some other things too. I know a lot of my comrades called out sick on Halloween because they wanted to go to Halloween parties and my opinion on that is they need to grow up and be adults. You have a job and thousands of people a day rely on you to show up. So you should show up and do your job. And if you don't like that please quit especially if you are above me in seniority. I delayed a flight that day because they wanted me to do a turn that departed at the same time I landed on the other side of the airport. But I was at least willing to work it.



If we can make Thanksgiving the last Thursday in November then we can make Halloween the last Friday in October. Trick or Treating on a Sunday or even throwing a Halloween party on a Sunday seems weird.


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## me_little_me (Nov 13, 2021)

McIntyre2K7 said:


> If we can make Thanksgiving the last Thursday in November then we can make Halloween the last Friday in October. Trick or Treating on a Sunday or even throwing a Halloween party on a Sunday seems weird.


Halloween is not a holiday. Once, like Christmas and Easter, it had a religious meaning and so meant something to those who wanted to observe it for that purpose. For many in Mexico and of Mexican heritage, it is still celebrated for its religious meaning. But for others in this country not from Mexico or of Mexican culture, that's rarely the case. Other holidays were moved to insure that workers got a day off and were not cheated out of the day when the holiday fell on a Sunday. 
Halloween was once called All Hallows Eve because it was the evening before All Saints Day which was a special religious day, especially to Catholics. I remember those days. Now, any resemblance to religion is purely coincidental, it seems, an any originally religious holy day.


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## Cal (Nov 13, 2021)

AmtrakBlue said:


> Well, that is certainly helpful for those of us who don't remember what days the trains ran on during the height of the pandemic.


You should check the amazing Amtrak Timetable Archives - Home


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## Triley (Nov 14, 2021)

CACharger262 said:


> Was told yesterday direct from the top that Coast Starlight and Zephyr going triweekly starting the week after Thanksgiving until at least March. Longer trains will be ran to accommodate passengers with changed reservations



That’s really interesting….because a few weeks back that the potential plan was 4x weekly for the Starlight…and nothing has been introduced internally yet. No updates to the consist plans or train schedules either.

In a previous post you said you work in the PNW, but you’re in contact with people directly at the top about what’s going on reading the Starlight and Zephyr?


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## AmtrakBlue (Nov 14, 2021)

Cal said:


> You should check the amazing Amtrak Timetable Archives - Home


Why should I have to look it up when the poster obviously already know the days? Why didn’t s/he provide the days in his/her post?


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## Amtrakfflyer (Nov 14, 2021)

It would be unconscionable to change the holiday schedule this close in, people will start heading to see family in 4 weeks or so. If they can’t do the current schedule or have grave concerns about it they need to announce it now. Ive already looked at airline back ups for our trip on 12/23 and they are insanely priced. We’re semi flexible at least.


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## Cal (Nov 14, 2021)

AmtrakBlue said:


> Why should I have to look it up when the poster obviously already know the days? Why didn’t s/he provide the days in his/her post?


 Just providing a resource so you can get the information we all want.


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## AmtrakBlue (Nov 14, 2021)

Cal said:


> Just providing a resource so you can get the information we all want.


If the poster had bothered to tell us … I have doubts about his claim to know anything … we wouldn’t need your resource.
I don’t have any LD plans for at least 7 months, so I don’t have a need to know.


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## jis (Nov 14, 2021)

CACharger262 said:


> Alas I am merely one of the boots on the ground and have no control over anything. Members on this site have shared valuable information so I thought I would do the same.
> 
> Optimistic me hopes that more vaccine numbers roll in the next several weeks and the "top" decides not to go through with this and passengers are none the wiser.
> 
> Pessimistic me guesses that the "top" waits until the very last minute to tell passengers and make changes in Arrow and everything turns into a circus.


Could you at least give us a hint about which "top" you are talking to? As it stands your statement here sounds like a rumor mill kinda thing with reference to some alleged but unknown "top" I am sorry to say.


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## niemi24s (Nov 14, 2021)

CZ's still bookable the whole first weeks in December and February, so I'm calling BS on CACharger262!


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## TheTuck (Nov 14, 2021)

niemi24s said:


> CZ's still bookable the whole first weeks in December and February, so I'm calling BS on CACharger262!



As a front line employee, I can confirm its not BS. Actually its OBS...

Sorry were so vague but until plans are confirmed publicly, we can face discipline if we reveal too much. And there are other employees on here that would rat us out if we say too much.


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## pennyk (Nov 14, 2021)

TheTuck said:


> As a front line employee, I can confirm its not BS. Actually its OBS...
> 
> Sorry were so vague but until plans are confirmed publicly, we can face discipline if we reveal too much. And there are other employees on here that would rat us out if we say too much.


I can honestly say that, as someone who has reservations the week after Thanksgiving, this information is causing me great angst. Because I cannot confirm any of the information or determine the source (other than from the "top"), I am unable to do anything other than get stressed out and lose sleep trying to figure out alternatives.


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## Ziv (Nov 14, 2021)

I am not sure which part of this could be the worst aspect. That Amtrak is going to spring a large reduction in service prior to the holidays or that they are going to reduce service and are silly enough to try to keep it secret for as long as possible, leaving it to a handful of employees to leak the bad news. 
I truly hope that this reduction in service won't happen because it is such a huge own goal, and one that is so painfully ill-timed.


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## brianpmcdonnell17 (Nov 14, 2021)

pennyk said:


> I can honestly say that, as someone who has reservations the week after Thanksgiving, this information is causing me great angst. Because I cannot confirm any of the information or determine the source (other than from the "top"), I am unable to do anything other than get stressed out and lose sleep trying to figure out alternatives.


I also have a trip planned and it is definitely very difficult to make adjustments at this point. It seems certain that the cuts are going to happen, but we still don't know how severe they will be in terms of the routes impacted or much each route be reduced.


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## MikefromCrete (Nov 14, 2021)

It seems like everyone is going nuts over some post from a person with only 19 previous posts who claims to have information from "the top." Unless this person is related to Flynn or Gardner, then I doubt their connection to "the top." Everyone should calm down until we actually hear something official. If Amtrak had serious plans to reduce LD service they wouldn't continue to accept reservations.


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## me_little_me (Nov 14, 2021)

Ziv said:


> I am not sure which part of this could be the worst aspect. That Amtrak is going to spring a large reduction in service prior to the holidays or that they are going to reduce service and are silly enough to try to keep it secret for as long as possible, leaving it to a handful of employees to leak the bad news.
> I truly hope that this reduction in service won't happen because it is such a huge own goal, and one that is so painfully ill-timed.


The worst would be that Amtrak executives once again make themselves out to be the biggest idiots in customer service. So hopefully, it is just a rumor and Amtrak has this wonderful plan to provide maximum customer satisfaction and not continue to be the Grinch they have shown themselves to be.

Anyone offering odds?


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## Cal (Nov 14, 2021)

MikefromCrete said:


> It seems like everyone is going nuts over some post from a person with only 19 previous posts who claims to have information from "the top." Unless this person is related to Flynn or Gardner, then I doubt their connection to "the top." Everyone should calm down until we actually hear something official. If Amtrak had serious plans to reduce LD service they wouldn't continue to accept reservations.


Many other people have also stated trains being reduced. Although most not saying once a week


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## Amtrakfflyer (Nov 15, 2021)

The next question is will traditional dining stay or go with the reduced schedule. That alone would be a deal breaker normally for us but traveling Christmas week we’re left with no choice.

I appreciate everyone’s input here but we also have RPA saying the cutbacks are possibly coming within the past week as well. Whether this happens or not I’m sure there’s truth to the rumors and they come from high up for RPA to respond to them.

Everyone on here knows I don’t like Amtrak management, that being said this could be one of their biggest blatant screw ups if it comes to fruition. Sabotaging people’s holidays is a new low and I hope it doesn’t happen. Honestly I don’t see them canceling 60 percent of the holiday schedule this close in but anything is possible.


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## PaTrainFan (Nov 15, 2021)

Cal said:


> Many other people have also stated trains being reduced. Although most not saying once a week



Like a forest fire that takes only one match to start, so does an out of control rumor. All scenarios mention are possible but it does no one any good to panic before it happens if there is no official word.


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## Amtrakfflyer (Nov 15, 2021)

50/50. 


me_little_me said:


> The worst would be that Amtrak executives once again make themselves out to be the biggest idiots in customer service. So hopefully, it is just a rumor and Amtrak has this wonderful plan to provide maximum customer satisfaction and not continue to be the Grinch they have shown themselves to be.
> 
> Anyone offering odds?


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## Just-Thinking-51 (Nov 15, 2021)

Panic sets in.
Welcome to Amtrak.
Welcome to the wild world of rumors.

Still trying to figure out were all the warm bodies that use to work as T/E, OBS, Flight Crews have gone. This is a wild time in our history. Almost as bad as the recovery after the Black Plague, but back then the plague had a much higher kill rate.


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## McIntyre2K7 (Nov 15, 2021)

Amtrakfflyer said:


> The next question is will traditional dining stay or go with the reduced schedule. That alone would be a deal breaker normally for us but traveling Christmas week we’re left with no choice.
> 
> I appreciate everyone’s input here but we also have RPA saying the cutbacks are possibly coming within the past week as well. Whether this happens or not I’m sure there’s truth to the rumors and they come from high up for RPA to respond to them.
> 
> Everyone on here knows I don’t like Amtrak management, that being said this could be one of their biggest blatant screw ups if it comes to fruition. Sabotaging people’s holidays is a new low and I hope it doesn’t happen. Honestly I don’t see them canceling 60 percent of the holiday schedule this close in but anything is possible.



If I'm management and I had no other choice but to go back to reduced service, I would try my best to make sure passengers had the full experience. Dining cars on all trains and well as both flex and traditional dining. Passengers who book sleepers would get traditional dining. Flex meals would be available for coach passengers. If coach passengers want to order traditional dining, they should be prepared to pay a little more.

Do they have enough of the new viewliner sleeper cars to make sure that all of the eastern LD routes have them?


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## Barb Stout (Nov 15, 2021)

CACharger262 said:


> Triweekly supposed to start mid December and run at least through March. This is apparently set in stone and will not changed even if rates increase between now and then. A big problem is vaccination rates among OBS based out of Chicago. Word is that the trains that do run will be 14+ cars long to accommodate changing reservations


Could the lack of information from Amtrak itself be due to the AFGE (largest federal employee union) asking the White House to harmonize the vaccination deadlines between federal workers (Nov. 22) and federal contractors (Jan 4) in hopes of getting through the busy holiday time before laying unvaccinated people off?


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## niemi24s (Nov 15, 2021)

And, FWIW, the CZ is currently bookable every day from 16 through 22 Jan 2022. 

Does this simply mean CACharger's dire prediction has yet to be implemented? Or, does it mean something else?

Stay tuned boys and girls!


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## jis (Nov 15, 2021)

In general I think it is a reasonable expectation that if you want to share a piece of earthshaking news you should be in a position to cite a credible source, somewhat more specific than "top". If you cannot for fear of losing your job, then it is better not to share your earthshaking insight. Just IMHO of course.

If the alleged earthshaking thing actually happens, it will, regardless of whether you attempted to get a feather in your cap by leaking a bit of it or not, and if it does not, it still won't. I know the urge to share things you are not supposed to share can be strong just to feel a bit more powerful, even I have done so a few times in the past.


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## MikefromCrete (Nov 15, 2021)

Let us not forget the "in the know" types who assured us that the LSL would begin running via Michigan as soon as possible. It never happened.

Now, some reduction in service may happen due to crew shortages. After all, airlines have been canceling hundreds of flights every day, but it sure doesn't seem like it going to happen next week.


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## jis (Nov 15, 2021)

MikefromCrete said:


> Let us not forget the "in the know" types who assured us that the LSL would begin running via Michigan as soon as possible. It never happened.


That time they even proceeded to share a timetable which was provably physically impossible given the physical distances and the prevalent speed limits under which such a train would operate. That was kind of fun to watch unfold. 

All these at the end of the day are "Que Sera Sera",  specially given that Amtrak management does have a penchant of screwing up spectacularly where convenience of customers is concerned, and that too, completely unprovoked.


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## pennyk (Nov 15, 2021)

PRR 60 said:


> The prior tri-weekly schedule from Trains, 8/13/20:
> 
> Amtrak sets schedules for triweekly long-distance operation - Trains



According to that article, the 2020 triweekly schedule was:


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## CACharger262 (Nov 15, 2021)

I understand everyone's skepticism, its more than fair. I only share this information because others on this site have posted useful information over the last several years, and I wished to contribute what I heard. Trust me, if none of this comes to pass I will be cheering right along side you folks because this directly affects myself and the people I work with. I want these things to be wrong. If this does happen, in some way shape or form, for those that had planned LD trips in the next several months, I wished to give them a heads up in case plans needed to be changed. Inducing panic is not my goal, I just wish to warn of the worst case scenarios actively being planned.

Amtrak has a long history of doing things that seemingly lack common sense, don't add up, or are seen as a straight up slap to the face to its paying customers. The money from the Infrastructure bill and verbal commitment to LD service and investment into new equipment/passenger amenities is a great start in the right direction, so I hope they do not take this step backwards, temporary or not.


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## PaTrainFan (Nov 15, 2021)

Here, from Railway Age, is a provision in the infratsruture bill on reductions of service:

Section 22210 is headlined “Protecting Amtrak Routes Through Rural Communities” and essentially reaffirms prior policy. It says: “Discontinuance or Substantial Alteration of Long-distance Routes: Except as provided in subsection (c), in an emergency, or during maintenance or construction outages impacting Amtrak routes, Amtrak may not discontinue, reduce the frequency of, suspend, or substantially alter the route of rail service on any segment of any long-distance route in any fiscal year in which Amtrak receives adequate Federal funding for such route on the National Network.” *This is essentially the established policy, but a new provision, §22210(d), requires 210 days’ notice to members of Congress who represent states or districts where the discontinuance would occur. Presumably this provision was added to prevent another sudden service reduction, like the cut in long-distance service to tri-weekly that began last October and lasted until the beginning of this past summer.*

I suppose they can try to claim maintenance outages due to lack of staffing in their maintenance facilities but I am not sure how they can get away with reducing trains to tri weekly under this law, especially without adequate notice to members of Congress.


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## Tlcooper93 (Nov 15, 2021)

PaTrainFan said:


> Here, from Railway Age, is a provision in the infratsruture bill on reductions of service:
> 
> Section 22210 is headlined “Protecting Amtrak Routes Through Rural Communities” and essentially reaffirms prior policy. It says: “Discontinuance or Substantial Alteration of Long-distance Routes: Except as provided in subsection (c), in an emergency, or during maintenance or construction outages impacting Amtrak routes, Amtrak may not discontinue, reduce the frequency of, suspend, or substantially alter the route of rail service on any segment of any long-distance route in any fiscal year in which Amtrak receives adequate Federal funding for such route on the National Network.” *This is essentially the established policy, but a new provision, §22210(d), requires 210 days’ notice to members of Congress who represent states or districts where the discontinuance would occur. Presumably this provision was added to prevent another sudden service reduction, like the cut in long-distance service to tri-weekly that began last October and lasted until the beginning of this past summer.*
> 
> I suppose they can try to claim maintenance outages due to lack of staffing in their maintenance facilities but I am not sure how they can get away with reducing trains to tri weekly under this law, especially without adequate notice to members of Congress.



just finished reading the railway age article myself and though this was worth sharing, but you beat me to it!

it will be a real shame if this occurs. My Zephyr trip around the holidays will surely be affected.

That said, I don’t think it is unreasonable to think these people perpetuating these rumors could be right.
Amtrak has done it before, and perhaps the only reason they haven’t announced this yet is because the new language in the bill may be preventing them from doing said desired reductions in service.


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## lordsigma (Nov 15, 2021)

If they have to reduce service due to staff they have to reduce service due to staff. It doesn't matter what the law says. Let's say hypothetically they lose a bunch of people due to vaccine mandates. If they don't have the staff to run the trains they can't run them.


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## John Santos (Nov 15, 2021)

lordsigma said:


> If they have to reduce service due to staff they have to reduce service due to staff. It doesn't matter what the law says. Let's say hypothetically they lose a bunch of people due to vaccine mandates. If they don't have the staff to run the trains they can't run them.



The unstated assumption here is that a significant portion of the onboard staff (like 50%) is NOT vaccinated. What the ????? I certainly would not want to be stuck on a train with ANY unvaccinated staff, let alone 50%!


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## jis (Nov 15, 2021)

John Santos said:


> The unstated assumption here is that a significant portion of the onboard staff (like 50%) is NOT vaccinated. What the ????? I certainly would not want to be stuck on a train with ANY unvaccinated staff, let alone 50%!


This is what I was thinking. In the interest of transparency Amtrak management needs to let its customers know what proportion of its customer facing employees are vaccinated so that potential customers can make an informed decision about whether they wish to continue to be customers.

For example if the number is truly only 50% I guess I will be seriously considering canceling my planned trip(s) and flying instead. It would be nice to know.


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## John Santos (Nov 16, 2021)

jis said:


> This is what I was thinking. In the interest of transparency Amtrak management needs to let its customers know what proportion of its customer facing employees are vaccinated so that potential customers can make an informed decision about whether they wish to continue to be customers.
> 
> For example if the number is truly only 50% I guess I will be seriously considering canceling my planned trip(s) and flying instead. It would be nice to know.


Yes, and if the number is actually 90% or more, that would not justify a 50% cut in service.


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## AmtrakBlue (Nov 16, 2021)

John Santos said:


> Yes, and if the number is actually 90% or more, that would not justify a 50% cut in service.


I don’t think the cuts are aimed at all of the trains. Just the ones that have a high percentage of unvaccinated employees in the crew bases that provide the staff & T&E for those trains.


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## Seaboard92 (Nov 16, 2021)

jis said:


> This is what I was thinking. In the interest of transparency Amtrak management needs to let its customers know what proportion of its customer facing employees are vaccinated so that potential customers can make an informed decision about whether they wish to continue to be customers.
> 
> For example if the number is truly only 50% I guess I will be seriously considering canceling my planned trip(s) and flying instead. It would be nice to know.



You probably don't want to fly either. I can think of a lot of FAs out there that are refusing to get the vaccine. And some of them are really strict on the mask ordinance which makes it quite interesting in of itself. And the pilots are even worse on the vaccine rate.


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## jis (Nov 16, 2021)

Seaboard92 said:


> You probably don't want to fly either. I can think of a lot of FAs out there that are refusing to get the vaccine. And some of them are really strict on the mask ordinance which makes it quite interesting in of itself. And the pilots are even worse on the vaccine rate.


It is possible that there are specific poorly managed airlines that I might wish to avoid. I have not heard of any airline where the vaccination rate is 50%. If your airline is there, and is actually letting such FAs fly in commercial flights, let us know. I will not fly them as you suggest.

So far I can generally get the information on an airlines crew policy from the airline if I ask. All that I am suggesting is Amtrak should do so too.


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## fillyjonk (Nov 16, 2021)

Wait, that news release is from 2020? So the Texas Eagle ISN'T going back to 3 days a week with no warning to passengers with tickets?

I have a trip this week on the TE, and one for Dec. 15. I missed ALL the holidays with relatives (mainly: my 85 year old mother) last year, will be deeply frustrated if that happens again (I am not comfortable with the idea of traveling coach during a pandemic; I have a roommette for both scheduled trips)


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## Chris I (Nov 16, 2021)

Seaboard92 said:


> You probably don't want to fly either. I can think of a lot of FAs out there that are refusing to get the vaccine. And some of them are really strict on the mask ordinance which makes it quite interesting in of itself. And the pilots are even worse on the vaccine rate.



Which airline? Of those that have reported numbers, vaccination rates are 90%+.

United is at 99.5% with 3% exemptions:








Hundreds Of United Airlines Staff Hand In Covid Vaccination Proof After Company Threatens To Fire Them


United Airlines has one of the U.S. air industry’s strictest coronavirus vaccine mandates, requiring all staff to either get vaccinated or apply for a religious or medical exemption.




www.forbes.com





Delta was at 90%+ a month ago:








Delta Air Lines CEO says 90% of employees are vaccinated against Covid without company mandate


Delta in November plans to impose a $200 monthly surcharge for unvaccinated employees' health-care plans.




www.cnbc.com


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## Just-Thinking-51 (Nov 16, 2021)

fillyjonk said:


> Wait, that news release is from 2020? So the Texas Eagle ISN'T going back to 3 days a week with no warning to passengers with tickets?
> 
> I have a trip this week on the TE, and one for Dec. 15. I missed ALL the holidays with relatives (mainly: my 85 year old mother) last year, will be deeply frustrated if that happens again (I am not comfortable with the idea of traveling coach during a pandemic; I have a roommette for both scheduled trips)



It’s a just a railroad rumor. That is getting out of hand like all railroad rumors do.

Enjoy your trip.


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## Devil's Advocate (Nov 16, 2021)

Chris I said:


> Which airline? Of those that have reported numbers, vaccination rates are 90%+.



Do those estimates include regional contractors and subsidiaries? Perhaps both of you are right.









Regional airlines that fly for the major U.S. carriers aren't mandating vaccines for staff — yet


Airlines are increasingly mandating vaccines but regional carriers say they're still reviewing the fine print.




www.cnbc.com





Is lying about vaccination status clouding the numbers? Maybe he's seeing a clearer picture.









More Than Half Of Unvaccinated College Students Admit Lying About Being Vaccinated


A new survey reveals that 55% of unvaccinated students attending colleges that mandate vaccinations admit that they lied about their vaccine status.




www.forbes.com


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## JoeBas (Nov 16, 2021)

Seaboard92 said:


> You probably don't want to fly either. I can think of a lot of FAs out there that are refusing to get the vaccine. And some of them are really strict on the mask ordinance which makes it quite interesting in of itself. And the pilots are even worse on the vaccine rate.



In my office, the few anti-vaxxers are among the most militant around wanting masks and enforcement. They want everyone else to wear masks to protect them from the virus that isn't serious enough for them to get a vaccine for.


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## niemi24s (Nov 16, 2021)

niemi24s said:


> And, FWIW, the CZ is currently bookable every day from 16 through 22 Jan 2022.


Same a moment ago.


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## Bob Dylan (Nov 16, 2021)

JoeBas said:


> In my office, the few anti-vaxxers are among the most militant around wanting masks and enforcement. They want everyone else to wear masks to protect them from the virus that isn't serious enough for them to get a vaccine for.


I'm sure there are lots of these folks, but around here these Idiots don't want Vaccine or Masks, they want FREEDOM!

Cue Bob Dylan singing " License to Kill".


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## pennyk (Nov 16, 2021)

niemi24s said:


> Same a moment ago.


...and my trip the week+ after Thanksgiving is still bookable also.


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## jis (Nov 16, 2021)

If Amtrak announces any service cutback a week after receiving the biggest handout in its history, I think that should present quite an opportunity to tar and feather the management thoroughly at least in the public and media court. I am sure that is keeping many of them quite sleepless as the decision point arrives. That should weigh quite heavily against any cutbacks happening, but then again it *is* Amtrak afterall


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## west point (Nov 16, 2021)

It only takes one T&E district with no other to cover the route to gum up the works. As far as OBS would take quite a few assigned there to cause a 3 day a week service. Some locations would be MIA, NOL, Maybe SEA.


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## neroden (Nov 16, 2021)

west point said:


> It only takes one T&E district with no other to cover the route to gum up the works. As far as OBS would take quite a few assigned there to cause a 3 day a week service. Some locations would be MIA, NOL, Maybe SEA.




After asking around about the rules related to staffing, it does seem like there is no way an OBS or maintenance shortage can cause service cuts given the current amount of lead time; replacements can be hired and trained fast enough. It is probably, but not definitely, the same with conductors; the required training time seems relatively short (although the *desired* training time is longer, the minimum isn't that long).

Engineers are the potential problem, and they're the problem because they require "route familiarization" or "route qualification" (I may be getting the term wrong) on a specific section of route, in addition to a pretty long course of training if they're fresh off the street (shorter if they're being poached from freight). I do think the estimate of "six months training" would be no problem if Amtrak had started in June, when smart people knew vaccine mandates would eventually be coming. But if Amtrak was caught flat-footed and didn't start recruiting new engineers until last month, it could be a problem. Amtrak could either have a total shortage of engineers; or could have a shortage of engineers who were qualified on a specific district; the first might take a bit over six months to fix, while the latter might take over two months to fix.


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## me_little_me (Nov 16, 2021)

Devil's Advocate said:


> Do those estimates include regional contractors and subsidiaries? Perhaps both of your are right.
> 
> Is lying about vaccination status clouding the numbers? Maybe he's seeing a clearer picture.
> 
> ...


And these are our future politicians! Future doctors. Future scientists. Future lawyers. But worst of all, future voters.


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## neroden (Nov 16, 2021)

Triley said:


> That’s really interesting….because a few weeks back that the potential plan was 4x weekly for the Starlight…and nothing has been introduced internally yet. No updates to the consist plans or train schedules either.



Ah, good to hear about 4 days a week being considered. Some time back I managed to pass a message to someone within Amtrak who said that he managed to pass it through to the execs --- explaining *why* even 4 a week is significantly better for the traveller than 3 a week. 

With 4 a week, you may have to move your scheduled travel date by one day in order to take the train. This is a pain, but often doable. With 3 a week, you may have to move it by two days, and that's just much much worse for customer scheduling; it's often too much. This is a large part of why I've never attended a certain convention my friends often go to in Indianaopolis. The convention schedule hits the Cardinal schedule wrong and would require two extra days in Indianapolis on each end (!), which is just not going to work for me (four extra days around a four day convention!). One extra day on each end would have been manageable.

In short, the convenience for the traveller is based on the *worst case scenario* for how far away in the future the next train is from the time they actually want to travel. You want to minimize the gap between trains.

I am glad to hear that this message may have gotten through, so that on routes where cuts may be necessary due to staffing shortages, they will try to pay attention to customer needs.


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## Willbridge (Nov 17, 2021)

neroden said:


> Ah, good to hear about 4 days a week being considered. Some time back I managed to pass a message to someone within Amtrak who said that he managed to pass it through to the execs --- explaining *why* even 4 a week is significantly better for the traveller than 3 a week.
> 
> With 4 a week, you may have to move your scheduled travel date by one day in order to take the train. This is a pain, but often doable. With 3 a week, you may have to move it by two days, and that's just much much worse for customer scheduling; it's often too much. This is a large part of why I've never attended a certain convention my friends often go to in Indianaopolis. The convention schedule hits the Cardinal schedule wrong and would require two extra days in Indianapolis on each end (!), which is just not going to work for me (four extra days around a four day convention!). One extra day on each end would have been manageable.
> 
> ...


I made a business trip between Portland and Bozeman for which the _North Coast Hiawatha _eluded me in both directions with the two-day wait. Four or five days a week likely would have worked for my trip by rail both ways. I ended up eastbound on a NWA 727 and westbound on Greyhound. (It was my first flight using the Airstair and first Greyhound with an automatic transmission.) Here is the photographic evidence of what can happen with tri-weekly trains:


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## OBS (Nov 17, 2021)

neroden said:


> After asking around about the rules related to staffing, it does seem like there is no way an OBS or maintenance shortage can cause service cuts given the current amount of lead time; replacements can be hired and trained fast enough. It is probably, but not definitely, the same with conductors; the required training time seems relatively short (although the *desired* training time is longer, the minimum isn't that long).
> 
> Engineers are the potential problem, and they're the problem because they require "route familiarization" or "route qualification" (I may be getting the term wrong) on a specific section of route, in addition to a pretty long course of training if they're fresh off the street (shorter if they're being poached from freight). I do think the estimate of "six months training" would be no problem if Amtrak had started in June, when smart people knew vaccine mandates would eventually be coming. But if Amtrak was caught flat-footed and didn't start recruiting new engineers until last month, it could be a problem. Amtrak could either have a total shortage of engineers; or could have a shortage of engineers who were qualified on a specific district; the first might take a bit over six months to fix, while the latter might take over two months to fix.


You are getting closer.... but, Conductors (not assistant Conductors) must pass the same route qualification tests as the Engineers, so they will need a comparable amount of time.


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## Trogdor (Nov 17, 2021)

neroden said:


> I do think the estimate of "six months training" would be no problem if Amtrak had started in June, when smart people knew vaccine mandates would eventually be coming. But if Amtrak was caught flat-footed and didn't start recruiting new engineers until last month, it could be a problem. Amtrak could either have a total shortage of engineers; or could have a shortage of engineers who were qualified on a specific district; the first might take a bit over six months to fix, while the latter might take over two months to fix.



And exactly how was Amtrak to know six months ago that 1) there would be so many people who would rather lose their jobs instead of getting a vaccine, and 2) exactly which crew bases would need to have these crew members hired into in order to avoid such a shortage? With your perfect retroactive crystal ball, you should have been able to tell everyone far in advance exactly how this would play out.


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## pennyk (Nov 17, 2021)

According to Jim Mathews' presentation during the RPA webinar this afternoon, Amtrak is doing everything it can to avoid service cuts. My interpretation was that Jim appeared to state that Amtrak will not know to what extent service cuts may or may not be needed until December 8th. Jim did not respond to the question regarding how much lead time Amtrak will give passengers prior to service cuts.

I think I feel a little better after Jim's presentation, but I still feel my trip is in jeopardy. (If my trip is not canceled before I depart, I will be in the middle of the trip on December 8th - on the other coast - and I do not fly  )


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## chubbycat (Nov 17, 2021)

pennyk said:


> According to Jim Mathews' presentation during the RPA webinar this afternoon, Amtrak is doing everything it can to avoid service cuts. My interpretation was that Jim appeared to state that Amtrak will not know to what extent service cuts may or may not be needed until December 8th. Jim did not respond to the question regarding how much lead time Amtrak will give passengers prior to service cuts.
> 
> I think I feel a little better after Jim's presentation, but I still feel my trip is in jeopardy. (If my trip is not canceled before I depart, I will be in the middle of the trip on December 8th - on the other coast - and I do not fly  )


Thank you for sharing the info! I am nervous too as I am travelling between 12/5 and 12/13 (SEA to SBA)


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## Palmland (Nov 17, 2021)

I guess I missed it in the discussion but why is the Dec. 8 date significant? Isn’t the federal mandate for vaccination Jan. 4?


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## jis (Nov 17, 2021)

The sense that I got from listening to Jim's presentation and Q&A is the now the Amtrak passengers are in the same boat as airline passengers, except that at least in the LD network with a once a day service, alternatives would be non-existent unless they go into a massive bustitution business, which I suspect they won't.

Airlines have been doing a massive amount of IRROPS and rerouting, but they have the network to do so, which Amtrak unfortunately does not. But I am sure they will try to do their best to re-accommodate, though I would not expect to get to my destination for a while if I depended only on Amtrak, and unfortunately the particular train I was on gets canned due to lack of staff. It did sound like cancellations might come very late in the game.

It was mentioned that so far cancellations seem unlikely for the Thanksgiving weekend.


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## jebr (Nov 17, 2021)

jis said:


> unless they go into a massive bustitution business, which I suspect they won't.



Even if they could, finding buses and drivers to bustitute people would be an incredible challenge, particularly lately. Transit agencies are having a difficult time getting people to drive buses throughout the city, and the intercity landscape isn't any better from what I've heard. Amtrak trying to get even more drivers is probably impossible to do quickly even if they wanted to.


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## fillyjonk (Nov 17, 2021)

Ugh, I have a trip planned on Dec. 15 and while I have a fair amount of wiggle room if that particular day gets dropped from a schedule, I suspect I'd have a hard time getting a roommette on a 'reschedule' day

(many many curse words at the whole pandemic and how it's dragging on forever and it's made so many small things in life harder and less pleasant)


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## flitcraft (Nov 17, 2021)

Devil's Advocate said:


> Is lying about vaccination status clouding the numbers? Maybe he's seeing a clearer picture.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That is why my university requires students, staff and faculty to submit medical documentation of their vaccination status. And that requirement is probably why our positive test rate is so low. 10% of students, faculty and staff every week are selected for random COVID testing. So far the positive rate is .3%--that is three out of every one thousand tests. Of course, we also have strict masking requirements, indoor and outdoors on campus. Overkill? Maybe. But we have a COVID rate closer to Japan or Taiwan's rather than, say, Idaho's. I'm fine with overkill myself...


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## OBS (Nov 17, 2021)

Palmland said:


> I guess I missed it in the discussion but why is the Dec. 8 date significant? Isn’t the federal mandate for vaccination Jan. 4?


This is the date Amtrak set as deadline for employee vaccination....


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## Palmland (Nov 17, 2021)

Thanks, OBS. Perhaps Amtrak should change it to Jan 4 to be in line with the government and avoid massive disruption to holiday travelers.


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## AmtrakBlue (Nov 17, 2021)

Palmland said:


> Thanks, OBS. Perhaps Amtrak should change it to Jan 4 to be in line with the government and avoid massive disruption to holiday travelers.


Maybe the hold outs should get vaccinated....


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## pennyk (Nov 17, 2021)

Worrying about being stranded on 12/8, or after, was causing me too much stress. I just "modified" my December trip to a Gathering trip next October (after canceling my paid reservations). The new trip is fewer points than the previous points so I will get some points back less a 10% penalty. I was on the phone with AGR, then CR, then AGR (and a lot of time on hold) for more than an hour and a half. Time for


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## Sidney (Nov 17, 2021)

I have the CZ booked to Davis and the CS to LA the next day in January and the SL/TE to Chicago after an overnight in LA. If 3X a week is back my only change will be the San Juauquin and bus to LA instead of the CS.


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## amtrakhopeful (Nov 17, 2021)

OBS said:


> This is the date Amtrak set as deadline for employee vaccination....



What happens to the workers who are refusing? Current employer puts them on leave. I assume this is the same for most union work places. I have never seen so many people call out sick before.


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## neroden (Nov 17, 2021)

OBS said:


> You are getting closer.... but, Conductors (not assistant Conductors) must pass the same route qualification tests as the Engineers, so they will need a comparable amount of time.


Thanks for the clarification. 

Assistant conductors with some experience (and there certainly are enough) can take the job of conductors if there aren't enough conductors, according to everything I've read. I suppose they would need route qualification, but that's 2 months or whatever for an *existing* employee, which honestly shouldn't be a huge issue if Amtrak started preparing a month ago. Meanwhile, new assistant conductors can be hired and trained... probably in less than 6 months.

The 6 months for training entirely new engineers seems like the longest lead time problem.


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## neroden (Nov 17, 2021)

Trogdor said:


> And exactly how was Amtrak to know six months ago that 1) there would be so many people who would rather lose their jobs instead of getting a vaccine,


ASK THEM. The fact is that the number of people who claimed they would quit their jobs rather than get vaccinated... has been larger than the number who actually do quit. So if Amtrak had ASKED the employees, they would have a very solid upper limit on the number of employees they'd need to replace, and could start hiring. Worst case? They hire too many people and have an overly large extra board.



> and 2) exactly which crew bases would need to have these crew members hired into in order to avoid such a shortage?


Repeat: ASK.

Many employers, in fact, did survey their employees, saying "We may be mandating Covid-19 vaccines as a condition of employment in the future. If we did this, would you continue to work for us or not?"


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## flitcraft (Nov 17, 2021)

neroden said:


> ASK THEM. The fact is that the number of people who claimed they would quit their jobs rather than get vaccinated... has been larger than the number who actually do quit


Indeed. In every case that I am aware of, the number of employees that, when asked, said they wouldn't get vaccinated has exceeded the number that, in the end, did get vaccinated. At my place of employment, about 10% of our workforce said that they wouldn't get vaccinated if it were required. In the end, the number who filed for medical or religious exemptions was much less than half that number, and the number whose exemptions were refused and who quit rather than be vaccinated was almost zero.


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## Bob Dylan (Nov 17, 2021)

flitcraft said:


> Indeed. In every case that I am aware of, the number of employees that, when asked, said they wouldn't get vaccinated has exceeded the number that, in the end, did get vaccinated. At my place of employment, about 10% of our workforce said that they wouldn't get vaccinated if it were required. In the end, the number who filed for medical or religious exemptions was much less than half that number, and the number whose exemptions were refused and who quit rather than be vaccinated was almost zero.


This used to be called "Put your Money where your Mouth is!"


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## west point (Nov 18, 2021)

I like the Delta air way. Charge them extra medical insurance and require tests that employees have to pay for as well. They are higher risk just like over weight and smokers. 
As for bus drivers . Our school systems around here are very short bus drivers and are having to change hours for certain grades so buses can make more trips. One working drive told me she like the overtime. Each system different. a


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## me_little_me (Nov 18, 2021)

Palmland said:


> Thanks, OBS. Perhaps Amtrak should change it to Jan 4 to be in line with the government and avoid massive disruption to holiday travelers.


Sensible Amtrak planning? An oxymoron. That's why there are shortages of cars and people.


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## Just-Thinking-51 (Nov 18, 2021)

I was at the office today, found a another driver facing employee that was not vaccinated. He was under the weather with a low grade temperature. He has not test for Covid, as he still has his smell, and of course no mask.

His position required me to interact with him.

Yeah Amtrak could of plan better, but there not the only ones having issues.


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## pennyk (Nov 19, 2021)

Moderator Note: please keep your comments on the topic of Amtrak's overcoming the pandemic and whether it will return to triweekly service. Thank you for your cooperation.


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## neroden (Nov 19, 2021)

So, an anonymous source from inside Amtrak says that sure enough, as every other business discovered, as the mandate gets closer and closer to going into effect the vaccination rates are going higher and higher. They may not have to cut any service at all, and if they do it'll likely just be one or two routes, but they still don't know for sure.

It appears that Amtrak is subject to the federal contractor mandate, for which the deadline was extended to January 18th, so there won't be any cuts until after Christmas.


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## CACharger262 (Nov 22, 2021)

neroden said:


> It appears that Amtrak is subject to the federal contractor mandate, for which the deadline was extended to January 18th, so there won't be any cuts until after Christmas.



Received official word today that no employees will be removed from service until January 4th, due to the change in the federal contractor mandate. This will presumably push back whatever planned, rumored or otherwise triweekly or state service cuts since now train, engine, and OBS employees that were going to be removed from service on December 8th will now be allowed to work regardless of vaccination status at least until January. 

Of course this will all probably change again next Monday, but this is the latest news for you all. Hopefully any of your planned holiday travel is unaffected. Amtrak supposedly will release a revised service schedule in mid December based on the vaccination rates at the time. Whether or not this will be retconned just like post Thanksgiving week triweeklys just was, remains to be seen.


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## neroden (Nov 22, 2021)

Well, if anyone is inside Amtrak and knows holdouts, do tell 'em to get vaccinated. Some people have now caught Covid 3 times; infection-induced immunity is not good. Covid has been leaving lasting, permanent damage throughout the body and brain in a lot of people. It's just not worth risking -- even with some real risks, the vaccine is much less risky than the disease for anyone who isn't in a bubble (and nobody on a train is in a bubble).

Hopefully Amtrak is successfully hiring new staff at the same time. Amtrak will be expanding service next year (if nothing else, the Ethan Allen extension), and needs to restaff dining on all the Eastern trains, so they'll need more staff anyway!


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## jis (Nov 29, 2021)

Some very useful and more or less verified information of relevance to the subject matter of the thread here....









Amtrak limits 'Track Friday' sale; service reductions possible in January as unions file suit - Trains


WASHINGTON — In a departure from the post-Thanksgiving “Track Friday” sale that Amtrak has staged since 2016, this year’s version is only available from Maine to Virginia in the Northeast instead of on most routes nationwide. Through today (Monday, Nov. 29) the company is offering “Buy One, Get...




www.trains.com


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## AmtrakBlue (Nov 29, 2021)

jis said:


> Some very useful and more or less verified information of relevance to the subject matter of the thread here....
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You should post this on the “announcement “ thread for those who complained that the sale is only good for the NEC


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## enviro5609 (Nov 29, 2021)

jis said:


> Some very useful and more or less verified information of relevance to the subject matter of the thread here....
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Seems pretty clear to me from the article that the service reduction is a scare tactic. They will go through with it if they have to, and are preparing to do so, but I doubt it will come to that. Every other employer mandate has also gone down to the wire, with most of the holdouts waiting till the last minute before getting vaccinated/exhausting their accommodation requests.

NYC municipal employees are the latest example. There was a whole lot of noise made about police, fire and sanitation services being cut, but it ended up being just that— noise.


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## west point (Nov 30, 2021)

Omicron ---- do not panic yet but be cautious.
What Experts Do and Don't Know About the Omicron Covid-19 Variant | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine


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## neroden (Nov 30, 2021)

As I've been telling everyone, well-fitting masks work against every variant. If everyone wears them all the time. 

The problem is that they work best if infected people wear them -- they're better at stopping outgoing viruses than incoming viruses, though they do help with both.

And a lot of infected people don't know they're infected. And too many of those people are acting like Typhoid Mary, who continued to insist that she wasn't infected even after she was proven to be a carrier. There are just too many maskless people, and the pandemic is going to keep going until enough people start wearing their masks in public. No pandemic has ever been stopped by vaccination alone; public health precautions are necessary too.

From what I've been reading, Amtrak has been getting better and better about enforcing the mask rules, which makes me more comfortable on Amtrak than I am in most public spaces right now. But IMO they still shouldn't be having people eat outside private rooms, frankly, IMO, because you have to take your mask off to eat. Amtrak also has much better ventilation than most buildings and better than many airplanes, which also helps.

But again, one unmasked carrier, who's infected but doesn't realize it, can infect a lot of people very quickly, even with good ventilation and with other people wearing masks.

If everyone wears masks, they can be spectacularly effective; the South Korean study on masks on public transport, which looked at cases where masks were worn correctly and consistently, showed that they reduced transmission by 93%.


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## jis (Nov 30, 2021)

I suspect many people in Florida might wear a mask only if the virus visibly sat on their nose like a famous Florida Mosquito. Otherwise they apparently won't.

Yesterday at a Walgreen's a man who was not wearing a mask was filling up paperwork to get a dose of the Pneumovax 4 years ahead of schedule because he claimed he was immunocompromised due to undergoing Chemotherapy for some sort of Cancer. I just stood there shaking my head. I suppose vaccine is better than none, but what does he suppose his compromised immune system is going to do with a COVID attack which he was inviting by his behavior.

Then there was a lady at Publix, again not wearing a mask who meticulous;y wiped down the cart, every part of it down to the wheel mounts, with some half a dozen or so disinfectant wipes. It is good to know she won't catch COVID through an unlikely vector. Closing the dog door for the pet poodle while keeping the barn door open comes to mind.  Possibly partly the continuing result of the early poor communication from the CDC, which is what people remember while having shut off everything else?


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## west point (Nov 30, 2021)

We know that there are a few normal persons vaccinated who get what is called crossover cases. Although crossovers are almost always mild there is still possibility of them spreading C-19 to non Vaxed especially infants.


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## jis (Nov 30, 2021)

west point said:


> We know that there are a few normal persons vaccinated who get what is called crossover cases. Although crossovers are almost always mild there is still possibility of them spreading to non Vaxed especially infants.


Did you mean "breakthrough cases"? I thought "crossovers" were a kind of a car


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## MARC Rider (Nov 30, 2021)

west point said:


> We know that there are a few normal persons vaccinated who get what is called crossover cases. Although crossovers are almost always mild there is still possibility of them spreading C-19 to non Vaxed especially infants.


In order to assess the risk from the breakthrough cases, we'd need to know stuff that the ratio of breakthrough cases to total cases, and the ratio of breakthrough cases to the number of people vaccinated vs. the rate of cases in unvaccinated people. Have medical researchers done anything to assess these risks? I haven't seen these sorts of data anywhere I've looked. Also, I'd like to see if someone has any quantitative information about the prevalence of asymptomatic carriers, which I think would be one of the most important things to know if we're going to get a handle on controlling the pandemic.


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## neroden (Nov 30, 2021)

MARC Rider said:


> In order to assess the risk from the breakthrough cases, we'd need to know stuff that the ratio of breakthrough cases to total cases, and the ratio of breakthrough cases to the number of people vaccinated vs. the rate of cases in unvaccinated people. Have medical researchers done anything to assess these risks? I haven't seen these sorts of data anywhere I've looked.


Yes, I've seen it. Mostly from the countries or localities where nearly everyone is vaccinated though, which makes the math easier. I haven't seen the data disentangled in a reasonable way from a poorly-vaccinated country like the US.

Breakthrough cases are getting significant in the nearly-fully-vaccinated countries like Israel. They are still much less likely than cases among the unvaccinated -- some estimates were saying 1/10 as likely, and I believe that.

But unfortunately the new variants are VERY contagious. Delta far more contagious than the Baseline strain, Omicron possibly up to 50 times more contagious than the baseline strain. And the baseline strain was pretty contagious! So even if we forcibly vaccinated everyone, that by itself is just not good enough to prevent transmission. We need at least one extra layer of public health defense to get this shut down, and masks are the best candidate for that layer.

Because if everyone wears masks they seem to also reduce transmission to 1/10 what it would be otherwise, or better, from the South Korean studies. If vaccines reduce transmission by a factor of 10 and masks reduce transmission by a factor of 10 then both together is a factor of 100 -- reducing transmission to 1/100 what it was among the unvaccinated-unmasked population -- and now we're actually getting somewhere.

(Also, Omicron is vaccine-resistant, though it's not clear exactly how much. So far it looks like, against Omicron, everyone wearing masks but not being vaccinated would be somewhat *more* effective than everyone being vaccinated but not wearing masks. Of course both vaccinated and masked is better.)



> Also, I'd like to see if someone has any quantitative information about the prevalence of asymptomatic carriers, which I think would be one of the most important things to know if we're going to get a handle on controlling the pandemic.



This has been quite hard to measure because most countries don't have surveillance testing. A few results from universities and other such places which do do surveillance testing was suggesting that at least HALF of all cases were asymptomatic. Possibly more.

Specific case tracing from South Korea IIRC (or maybe it was Singapore? Or Hong Kong? I'm getting a few of the studies mixed up at this time) was showing that asymptomatic carriers were the source of huge superspreader events in multiple cases, so the asymptomatic carriers are actually key to stopping the pandemic.

The asymptomatic carriers need to wear their masks, and any of us could be one of them -- unless you're taking two rapid tests per day you just don't know.


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## neroden (Nov 30, 2021)

jis said:


> Possibly partly the continuing result of the early poor communication from the CDC, which is what people remember while having shut off everything else?



There have been some massive communications failures. #1 was the incorrect messaging from WHO and the CDC repeating the "ballistic droplet dogma". Aerosol scientists had to mount a large campaign to convince WHO of the facts, which is that Covid is an aerosol -- there have been some articles about this and about how the "droplet dogma" originally got created by people who misread and misunderstood scientific papers. This took several months in 2020, and the first few months had *worldwide* misinformation coming from WHO in the form of the "droplet dogma".

I was first alerted to the real facts by this article in July 2020: Arguments Against Aerosol Transmission Don't Hold Water

The scientific and medical community conceded the facts in response to the papers and studies of the aerosol scientists in roughly September 2020. Unfortunately, a lot of people still don't know that Covid is primarily spread by aerosols. Biggest communications disaster of the pandemic and it was worldwide.

#2 communications failure is probably the CDC saying that vaccinated people could stop wearing masks, a disastrous error which was just this summer. No, that's never been how it worked. They backed off and said "in areas with low community transmission" a bit later, but the damage was done. All of the US is in high community transmission, or worse, but people didn't absorb the second message and only absorbed the inaccurate first message.


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## MARC Rider (Dec 2, 2021)

neroden said:


> There have been some massive communications failures. #1 was the incorrect messaging from WHO and the CDC repeating the "ballistic droplet dogma". Aerosol scientists had to mount a large campaign to convince WHO of the facts, which is that Covid is an aerosol -- there have been some articles about this and about how the "droplet dogma" originally got created by people who misread and misunderstood scientific papers. This took several months in 2020, and the first few months had *worldwide* misinformation coming from WHO in the form of the "droplet dogma".


Considering that the "droplet dogma" was pretty much the accepted medical consensus in February 2020, changing the medical establishment's mind in a few months isn't really that bad. According to the article (below), it took a good bit of time-consuming historical digging to figure out the error that led to the droplet dogma. It just shows that there's no such thing as "The Science," and scientists are human like the rest of us. As for myself, I will listen to maverick scientists who might be right (as they were in this case), but I won't always immediately take their suggestions until the evidence start stacking up. And it's very commonly hard to distinguish between mavericks, who buck the consensus and are right, and charlatans who would lead us to do really stupid things, like, say, take certain veterinary medicines in hope they will cure Covid.

The 60-Year-Old Scientific Screwup That Helped Covid Kill | WIRED

In any event, CDC was telling us to mask up by the end of March 2020, and the subsequent mess isn't just the fault of "bad messaging" by the public health establishment, it's also due to seemingly willful misunderstanding of the facts by the public, the media, and people in political authority who should have known better. As to why they were so reluctant to mask up and social distance, that's something that only a psychologist can answer.


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## pennyk (Dec 3, 2021)

Article from the Washington Post: Amtrak prepares for possible service cuts 



https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2021/12/03/amtrak-vaccine-service-cuts/


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## chrsjrcj (Dec 3, 2021)

Can Amtrak ask/force conductors and engineers in the Northeast Corridor to relocate to areas where rosters may be deficient? 

Most of us here have no knowledge of Amtrak’s staffing requirements, but I hope Congress is prepared to ask Amtrak to justify why a route has reduced service with quantifiable data.


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## AmtrakBlue (Dec 3, 2021)

chrsjrcj said:


> Can Amtrak ask/force conductors and engineers in the Northeast Corridor to relocate to areas where rosters may be deficient?
> 
> Most of us here have no knowledge of Amtrak’s staffing requirements, but I hope Congress is prepared to ask Amtrak to justify why a route has reduced service with quantifiable data.


As has been mentioned before, conductors and engineers need to be qualified on routes. It takes time to do that. We don't know if they've asked any to move off the NEC.


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## chrsjrcj (Dec 3, 2021)

You’d at least save some time on the recruitment process. I wonder if Amtrak is having any difficulty finding qualified candidates.


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## west point (Dec 3, 2021)

Amtrak may be able to use Engineers that previously qualified on a route(s) that they transferred from.


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## AmtrakBlue (Dec 4, 2021)

From an engineer on FB.


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## Amtrakfflyer (Dec 4, 2021)

*“The company said in the memo that 88.2 percent of its roughly 17,000 workers had been vaccinated late last month, and projected another 6 percent were on track to comply this month. Amtrak said Friday it expects the number “to be slightly higher” by the January deadline.”*



It will be telling if management is surgical with the cuts or just another blanket 3x weekly for the long distance routes. I know it’s mostly obs and operating crews but overall Amtrak admits it’s on course to have 97% of employees vaccinated by the deadline. Possibly 3% of employees to be terminated can’t equal 60% cuts in long distance service, even by Amtrak’s warped reasoning.

Management handled furloughs and retirements horribly and now we are in the situation we are in now. The schedule is being run daily now and since most 97%+ employees will be vaccinated by the deadline, is it really as bad as they are making it, are there ways to mitigate it? I don’t see any airline threatening 60 percent schedule reductions, the CEO’s would be fired if they did. Airlines that are lean on crews are offering 2x pay to keep the schedule going. Is Amtrak offering any incentives to employees, or just handing out threats? Has there been any talk of contracting with the freights for front end crews a few days a week to operate the most impacted routes. Would BNSF be willing to help fill a gap in the SWC route? My guess depends on how much Amtrak is willing to pay? Are the freights facing the same cutbacks due to lack of crews as Amtrak is?


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## AmtrakBlue (Dec 4, 2021)

Amtrakfflyer said:


> Has there been any talk of contracting with the freights for front end crews a few days a week to operate the most impacted routes. Would BNSF be willing to help fill a gap in the SWC route? My guess depends on how much Amtrak is willing to pay? Are the freights facing the same cutbacks due to lack of crews as Amtrak is?


Do the freights have enough T&E's to run their own trains? I suspect they have shortages, too.


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## west point (Dec 4, 2021)

Passenger locos on Amtrak have several features not on freight locos. Blended braking and HEP are just two.


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## HammerJack (Dec 4, 2021)

Percentages without numbers are useless. Losing 6% of the workforce can be fatal if the system is already strained to the max using its existing workforce. There comes a point when losing one person has to result in some cut to service. You can’t force someone beyond hours of service


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## neroden (Dec 5, 2021)

Amtrakfflyer said:


> *“The company said in the memo that 88.2 percent of its roughly 17,000 workers had been vaccinated late last month, and projected another 6 percent were on track to comply this month. Amtrak said Friday it expects the number “to be slightly higher” by the January deadline.”*
> 
> 
> 
> It will be telling if management is surgical with the cuts



Every leak I've had from the inside has said they will be surgical, and will not cut any route where they have enough staff. Period. At this point, I believe that. The last I heard they thought it might affect some of the trains but definitely less than half of them.


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## jis (Dec 5, 2021)

Moderator Note: please keep your comments on the topic of Amtrak's overcoming the pandemic and whether it will return to triweekly service. Thank you for your cooperation.


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## TinCan782 (Dec 8, 2021)

Perhaps a reprieve from service cuts.








Rail News - Judge blocks vaccine mandate for federal contractors. For Railroad Career Professionals







www.progressiverailroading.com


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## pennyk (Dec 8, 2021)

jis said:


> Moderator Note: please keep your comments on the topic of Amtrak's overcoming the pandemic and whether it will return to triweekly service. Thank you for your cooperation.



Reminder! Please keep your entire comment on topic. Thank you.


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## MARC Rider (Dec 8, 2021)

The real important statistic that's relevant for whether train personnel should get vaccinated is one that I'm not seeing -- that is the rate of asymptomatic carriers. While it's often stated in these arguments that the vaccines don't prevent infections 100%, I do believe that they prevent infections far better than not being vaccinated at all. This is also true for wearing masks, even basic cloth masks. They don't prevent people from breathing in aerosols or spewing them out 100%, but they do it far better than wearing no mask at all. Doing both (getting vaccinated and wearing a mask) may well reduce the spread of the virus to an insignificant amount. But we'll never know that, will we, as too many people are willing to play Russian Roulette with their health and don't seem to care at all about the other people with whom they may come in contact.

OK, so free citizens might have the right to play such Russian Roulette with their health, but if they want to work on a train or similar conveyance and breathe all over the passengers who are the reason for their jobs, I think they should do everything in their power to protect those passengers, and that would mean getting vaccinated and wearing a mask. Anyway, it seems that over 90% of Amtrak employees are going to be vaccinated, so maybe there won't be any service cutbacks. And if there are, well, that, too will help slow the spread of the virus.


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## desertflyer (Dec 8, 2021)

Here's my attempt to really stay razer-focused on topic and within the bounds of what we are allowed to say regarding Amtrak's emergence from the pandemic in this thread.

First of all, we're still within the pandemic and things aren't back to normal. I think it's tough to say when things will full be "normal" again. Regardless, almost every airline and railroad around the US seems to be struggling to maintain their schedules currently. I don't think it's just related to vaccines. In fact, vaccines could help keep staff healthy to maintain schedules, in theory at least.

Although I'm sure running a reduced, 3x weekly schedule would give a lot of breathing room for Amtrak staffing the trains themselves, surely it would help also give time for more equipment to be brought back into service. The reality is that it would likely also be devastating to revenue and long-distance Amtrak service long-term.


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## Devil's Advocate (Dec 8, 2021)

> In recent months, UP, NS, BNSF and Amtrak have been embroiled in lawsuits filed by rail labor unions, which argue the mandates have to be considered part of the collective bargaining process.


Imagine having to negotiate time sensitive issues like national pandemic response through thousands of multi-year labor contracts. If logic like this had prevailed during the polio outbreak would we still be wearing leg braces and resting in iron lungs? Will those days return if medical mandates are further invalidated? How does this judge envision a meaningful solution getting past his handcuff rulings?


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## Amtrakfflyer (Dec 9, 2021)

For the common good means nothing to 25 percent of us. It’s all ME, ME, ME. As far as Amtrak and it’s passengers it’s a catch 22. If the mandates are all shot down maybe daily service continues, that is until something far worse than losing a few days of train service happens.


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## TinCan782 (Dec 9, 2021)

*Railway Age: *_*Congress, Unions Can Cure Rail Worker Shortage*
"With favorable congressional legislation and rail labor union cooperation, Amtrak—and freight railroads—could coax out of retirement recent retirees still in good health who might leap at an opportunity to return to work temporarily while efforts continue to find and train new hires."_

If this could be put into place, would enough "recent retirees" return to make a difference?









Congress, Unions Can Cure Rail Worker Shortage - Railway Age


Railroads, including Amtrak, are hiring, but applicants are scarce. The Washington Post reports Amtrak is short 1,500 workers, and may be forced to eliminate some service, trim some daily long-distance trains to three times weekly, and delay inauguration of new routes. Already, Amtrak is...




www.railwayage.com


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## Amtrakfflyer (Dec 9, 2021)

Amtrak to temporarily cut some service over U.S. COVID-19 vaccine rules


U.S. passenger railroad Amtrak told a U.S. House of Representatives panel on Thursday it expects to be forced to temporarily cut some service in January because of a COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Amtrak President Stephen Gardner told a House Transportation subcommittee that roughly 95% of its...




www.yahoo.com


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## Bob Dylan (Dec 9, 2021)

Amtrakfflyer said:


> Amtrak to temporarily cut some service over U.S. COVID-19 vaccine rules
> 
> 
> U.S. passenger railroad Amtrak told a U.S. House of Representatives panel on Thursday it expects to be forced to temporarily cut some service in January because of a COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Amtrak President Stephen Gardner told a House Transportation subcommittee that roughly 95% of its...
> ...


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## Exvalley (Dec 9, 2021)

Another article:








Amtrak to Cut Service as Workforce Shrinks on Shot Refusals (2) | Bloomberg Government


Amtrak expects it won’t have enough employees to operate all its trains next month when it plans to enforce Covid-19 vaccine requirements.




about.bgov.com





I am a little confused. Amtrak says that the reason for the cuts is the vaccine mandate for federal contractors. But the courts have issued a nationwide suspension of the vaccine mandate. Is Amtrak going ahead with the mandate even if they are not (as of now) legally required to do so? Not taking a position on any of this... I am just trying to understand what is actually happening - or not happening.


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## jis (Dec 9, 2021)

It is a good question. Maybe some Amtrak insider knows more. It is possible that Amtrak considers itself a federal entity for purposes of this, who knows? Amtrak has in the past acted as if it is this, that or the other, but I doubt that being a federal contractor has been one of their major roles in those cases.

But please, to continue the general discussion of what Amtrak is, let us start a new thread if we must discuss that one more time.


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## Exvalley (Dec 9, 2021)

From the article I linked to, above:
_Amtrak said it will need to comply with the Jan. 4 mandate that requires employees of government contractors to be fully vaccinated. _

So it appears that, as of now, there may be a stay of execution - at least if Amtrak wants.

It's pretty amazing how just 5% of a workforce can cause such a disruption in service - but 5% equates to quite a few people.

It would not surprise me if they are doing everything they can to get employees vaccinated, but then back off of service reductions at the last minute.


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## HammerJack (Dec 9, 2021)

Im booked on the Empire Builder out of Seattle on 1/12 (Wednesday), which is one of the “off” days when it ran on tri-weekly schedules. What do you all think: am I safe or at risk of a cancellation?


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## jis (Dec 9, 2021)

Exvalley said:


> From the article I linked to, above:
> _Amtrak said it will need to comply with the Jan. 4 mandate that requires employees of government contractors to be fully vaccinated. _
> 
> So it appears that, as of now, there may be a stay of execution - at least if Amtrak wants.
> ...


Good catch. I missed that.

I suspect Amtrak is covering its bases should the challenge fail and informing Congress what is within the realm of possibilities then. Afterall because there is a hold today does not mean there will be one in January at least in principle.

Of relevance to this thread is that if the challenge to the mandate stands and if Amtrak chooses not to require its employees to be vaccinated anyway, then there is a reprieve. The suit as far as I understand is about whether the President has the authority to make such a mandate, and not about whether an individual corporation can require vaccination as a condition for continued employment. That is a different set of cases. Amtrak also has a case filed by its Unions on this matter, but similar cases filed against airlines have failed in the past.

It is also possible that there are very few cancellations because staffing can be squeezed out from among those who have vaccinated. As it stands it appears that the greatest danger of cancellations are for trains that depend on staffing points with small boards, i.e. Western LD trains, if it comes to that.



HammerJack said:


> Im booked on the Empire Builder out of Seattle on 1/12 (Wednesday), which is one of the “off” days when it ran on tri-weekly schedules. What do you all think: am I safe or at risk of a cancellation?


Since all indications are that any cancellations should they take place will be surgical and not across the board tri-weekly there is better than even chance that you will be fine. But only time will tell.

Again, let us please move any general vaccine mandate law suits discussion to a thread dedicated to such. I think we have pretty much covered most service reduction related aspects of it here already.

Let us focus this thread on what specifics we learn about actual service reductions as they develop, and any reliable rumors (heh heh) about staffing issues at the smaller crew bases, such as any insiders may know of and be willing to share.


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## AmtrakBlue (Dec 9, 2021)

Denver has cancelled checked baggage service due to most of their staff having COVID19.


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## joelkfla (Dec 9, 2021)

Exvalley said:


> Another article:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I think it's prudent to proceed with planning just in case that injunction is reversed.


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## jis (Dec 9, 2021)

AmtrakBlue said:


> Denver has cancelled checked baggage service due to most of their staff having COVID19.


It is conceivable that something like that could hit a crew base even in the total absence of any vaccine mandate and the net result would be same cancellations as for people quitting rather than getting vaccinated I suppose.

Airlines have faced such spot cancellations already due to unavailability of crew that are not actively COVID infected at a station at a given time.

There are way too many moving parts to all this and it is hard to make a cogent prediction I am afraid.


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## amtrakpass (Dec 9, 2021)

I didn't read through all the threads if it has already been mentioned but in case Amtrak proceeds to cut only some routes and not others, remember they do have national seniority and if you are already a qualified conductor or Engineer, at the most would take about a month to qualify on new territory even in the most strict sense. Sometimes I think Amtrak likes to leave how long qualifying actually takes vague so they aren't held into account. And I don't know the exact Amtrak agreement but a standard railroad industry thing if you are on the list in one crew base and that gets cut where you can't hold a job(assignment) you have only so many days to place yourself at a different one. Amtrak can also pay a temporary transfer bonus and lodging costs to cover a short staff crew base too, which has been a standard railroad industry practice for generations. Anyway, I know the larger issue of vaccine mandates is subject to differences of opinion which I understand but I do think it would be unfortunate if Amtrak does not equally spread any service cuts across the board to all services so the impact will not be too severe on one route or the other when the moving around of train service employees to different locations around the country is historically common in the railroad industry


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## Amtrak25 (Dec 9, 2021)

How granular would they be ? Say hypothetically they are short T&E crews between Grand Jct and Salt Lake. Would they run the Zephyr daily as far as Denver or Grand Jct, tri-weekly beyond ? 

If they are short only OBS crews, could they relocate and rotate some from the east coast to Chicago if they could spare them ?


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## jis (Dec 9, 2021)

Amtrak25 said:


> How granular would they be ? Say hypothetically they are short T&E crews between Grand Jct and Salt Lake. Would they run the Zephyr daily as far as Denver or Grand Jct, tri-weekly beyond ?
> 
> If they are short only OBS crews, could they relocate and rotate some from the east coast to Chicago if they could spare them ?


Naturally, no one outside the haloed halls of Amtrak knows what will happen, and I doubt things are fully worked out even within, beyond a bunch of contingency plans.

I think T&E outage is much harder to mitigate than OBS outage, since OBS do not require route familiarization. I suspect they do require equipment familiarization though.


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## west point (Dec 9, 2021)

I have not seen the figures lately. At a period in the past about 5 - 10% of T & E persons transferred location every year. If that is still so then those routes that cannot support running a train might have some previously qualified T&E transfer to their previous location.


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## dlagrua (Dec 9, 2021)

Bostontoallpoints said:


> I don’t know if the Northeast corridor will ever be the same. Business travel and working in downtown offices along with corporate meetings might be a thing of the past. Or severely limited. It’s all meetings remotely now and for the foreseeable future. Those packed early morning trains to New York are now all empty.


IMO, the current Amtrak management is over focused on corridor trains. There is a big opportunity here to expand LD service but it rarely gets a mention and all we have seen are cutbacks. If management looks at Amtrak more as a National Network Railroad and less as a corridor operation, then they should be able to increase ridership but they will need to start marketing and advertising the service. As for the three day a week cutback; it is not conducive to our schedule. Prices have been out of reach for a while and availability was not there. As a result we did not take any trips on Amtrak in 2021 and this will probably continue in 2022. Hopefully by 2023 things will normalize and we will be riding the rails again.


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## lordsigma (Dec 10, 2021)

HammerJack said:


> Im booked on the Empire Builder out of Seattle on 1/12 (Wednesday), which is one of the “off” days when it ran on tri-weekly schedules. What do you all think: am I safe or at risk of a cancellation?



Even if you are affected - they’ll try to re-accommodate you if you have the flexibility to do so as they’ll run a longer consist on the days they do run to try to accommodate people. If you choose that route they’ll rebook what you had on the closest date that works for you for no charge. They won’t just blast away and automatically cancel everyone who is booked on the off days. I think last time they sent out automatic phone calls and emails to those affected asking you to contact them - you can then either call or go to a station agent to assist you - either in fixing the trip or a refund. I think last time they even reserved space in the extra cars for re-accommodation and didn’t open all rooms and seats for sales until everyone was given a chance to either change their date or cancel. I might start thinking about the possibility and consider if you can flex your trip around the schedule and have a plan in place if your going to try to still make the trip regardless - probably safe to assume they’ll use the same schedule as before if it comes to pass so wouldn’t be a total waste to use that as a template for now but of course wait for official news to confirm your route is affected.


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## Amtrakfflyer (Dec 10, 2021)

The fox is in the hen house or whatever the euphemism is. Im not denying we have a huge issue as a country and I don’t have the answers but it’s real hard to take anything Gardner says for fact when he’s lied and exaggerated to Congress concerning the viability of the long distance network in the past. The new Board and hopefully new management can’t come soon enough.



dlagrua said:


> IMO, the current Amtrak management is over focused on corridor trains. There is a big opportunity here to expand LD service but it rarely gets a mention and all we have seen are cutbacks. If management looks at Amtrak more as a National Network Railroad and less as a corridor operation, then they should be able to increase ridership but they will need to start marketing and advertising the service. As for the three day a week cutback; it is not conducive to our schedule. Prices have been out of reach for a while and availability was not there. As a result we did not take any trips on Amtrak in 2021 and this will probably continue in 2022. Hopefully by 2023 things will normalize and we will be riding the rails again.


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## pennyk (Dec 10, 2021)

MODERATOR NOTE: the title of this thread has been changed to more closely reflect the content of the discussion.


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## PVD (Dec 10, 2021)

Many of the things necessary to provide service are delivered by contractors and if their ability to do that is diminished can seriously impact service. Something as simple as fuel. Food would be the same.... Repair parts and supplies....So even if Amtrak itself is not in the category, their ability to function could be seriously affected.


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## west point (Dec 10, 2021)

Two points.
1. Gardner was lucky as he was able to avoid answering any question why no openings for T&E have been posted for any LD crew locations.
2. Railway age has come up with a proposed temporary solution by allowing some retired T&E employees to come back to work. Would require legislation by congress.

This proposal could work easily for Amtrak as engineers and conductors sped most of their time inside of the trains. However, I see problems as many very older conductors could not take the long periods of outside the loco running drop and pickup with the brake checks. Also, the broken into train examinations. 

Amtrak could benefit quickly from retired freight engineers on various routes. Retired freight conductors maybe not so much but they certainly could be used as assistant conductors and learn the ropes with on-the-job experience.

Congress, Unions Can Cure Rail Worker Shortage - Railway Age


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## neroden (Dec 10, 2021)

jis said:


> I think T&E outage is much harder to mitigate than OBS outage, since OBS do not require route familiarization.



The situation with assistant conductors and conductors means that ACs can be promoted to conductor and new hires with relatively little route familiarization can become ACs. So really the biggest practical problem given a little lead time is the engineers. (Which is a big problem.)


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## neroden (Dec 10, 2021)

west point said:


> Two points.
> 1. Gardner was lucky as he was able to avoid answering any question why no openings for T&E have been posted for any LD crew locations.


People definitely have seen some openings posted at such locations, but not at all the locations I would have expected if there are "shortages"


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## neroden (Dec 10, 2021)

jis said:


> It is also possible that there are very few cancellations because staffing can be squeezed out from among those who have vaccinated. As it stands it appears that the greatest danger of cancellations are for trains that depend on staffing points with small boards, i.e. Western LD trains, if it comes to that.



I was poking through the list of staffing points, and it looked like the Crescent had some pretty small-board "just the Crescent" staffing points too. And in areas with very low vaccination rates.


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## west point (Dec 10, 2021)

neroden said:


> I was poking through the list of staffing points, and it looked like the Crescent had some pretty small-board "just the Crescent" staffing points too. And in areas with very low vaccination rates.



The big problem with the Crescent IMO is the Meridian crew base. It covers both MEI <> NOL and MEI <> ATL. Too late into NOL then NOL departure delayed. That is the reason Crescent had to be scheduled later than the previous 0700 departure. That delay has caused the ATL departure of #20 to become very inconvenient at a scheduled 2359, Then if #20 is very late then #19 of the next day can be late leaving ATL at its scheduled 0900 departure. IMO time to change back to maybe a 0600 departure from NOL.

That means Crescent moving crews to NOL and ATL. Another Gardener solution that just became bad.?


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## Willbridge (Dec 10, 2021)

A couple of problems with hiring experienced T&E employees from freight backgrounds:

When the Denver commuter rail lines opened some of the hires came from freight railways. They had difficulty keeping on schedule as compared to those who had been light rail operators. I don't know the number but some went back to freight employment.
When I was volunteering on Denver's Platte Valley [diesel-electric] streetcar we had a couple of freight railway operating employees who volunteered. One of them was so foul-mouthed that he had to be asked to un-volunteer.
These problems can be worked out but that takes time.


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## WWW (Dec 11, 2021)

WSPA Spartanburg
*Amtrak says it could cut service over vaccination mandate*
The Associated Press - 8h ago

Article copyrighted could not copy - - -

The gist of the article -
Unless crews get vaccinated - routes and crew staffing MAY be reduced - until perhaps March 2022


Link to more on this (FOX):
Amtrak likely to cut services over federal vaccine mandate, executive says | Fox Business


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## jis (Dec 11, 2021)

Amtrak gave some more details of the possible service reduction timelines









House Hearing on Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill Reveals Details on Amtrak Service Disruptions, Opportunities for Rail Corridor Expansion | Rail Passengers Association | Washington, DC


At a hearing held today by the House Transportation & Infrastructure Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials, rail operators from across the nation spoke of the opportunities and challenges they face in leveraging $66 billion in guaranteed federal funding from the...




railpassengers.org


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## fillyjonk (Dec 11, 2021)

it WOULD be helpful if those of us traveling in January could like be NOTIFIED so we could PLAN if we are affected. I get that they might not know yet but I have a job I have to get back to and I am not wanting to reticket to return EARLIER than planned just in case. (I would be traveling on the 4th through the 5th)

Really hoping this doesn't wind up as bustitutions for people. Not sure they could find enough vaccinated drivers but who knows. I hate all of this so much. I hate that we are heading into Year 3 of large life disruptions for a lot of people


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## HammerJack (Dec 11, 2021)

There is still a lot of “if we” or “may” verbiage in these statements, so it may end up that nothing gets cut.
Still, it’s not a great look for Amtrak considering the bill that just passed. Here’s a bunch of taypayer money, and the first thing that happens are service cuts.


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## jis (Dec 11, 2021)

According to the RPA article, we may know quite a bit more specifics within a week.


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## joelkfla (Dec 11, 2021)

Willbridge said:


> When the Denver commuter rail lines opened some of the hires came from freight railways. They had difficulty keeping on schedule as compared to those who had been light rail operators. I don't know the number but some went back to freight employment.


I'm curious as to why. 

Did they just like to run below the speed limit? Were they overly cautious about curves & switches? Chronically late for work?


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## BigRedEO (Dec 11, 2021)

I would like to know as well. I'm on the Zephyr and LSL Jan 7th - 10th. Taking my nephew, who has never been on a train before. And if they change that when we both need to be back to work by a certain date...


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## Willbridge (Dec 11, 2021)

joelkfla said:


> I'm curious as to why.
> 
> Did they just like to run below the speed limit? Were they overly cautious about curves & switches? Chronically late for work?


I don't have a scientific answer but after I started hearing about it and made some excursions out to DIA it was mostly losing time at stops by forgetting to make announcements, overly long stops, misjudging their speed into the phase break outside of Union Station, and yes, underspeed perhaps as a way of avoiding PTC violations. There is lots of single track in the system and the schedule adherence of everyone is critical.

When the schedules were being worked out with the contractor, they initially tried to have adherence measured like the bogus method used by Eastern commuter railroads (logging the time at terminals). Perhaps they thought we'd be impressed. Our light rail and buses are measured at every time point by German technology. The non-CBD riders transferring with bus or other rail lines deserve reliable service, not just the passengers going in and out of Union Station.

Subsequently things have gotten better, but I do know that some of their operators went back to freight railroading in spite of its unpredictable, weird hours and other burdens.


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## Cal (Dec 12, 2021)

jis said:


> since OBS do not require route familiarization. I suspect they do require equipment familiarization though.


Based on some reports I've read on here about the Night Owl service, I will disagree with this.


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## OBS (Dec 12, 2021)

Cal said:


> Based on some reports I've read on here about the Night Owl service, I will disagree with this.


They do require it, they just don't receive it.....


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## Billvasili (Dec 13, 2021)

l am seeing reports that the long distance trains may have service problems due to the mandate. Would this result in late trains or fewer car attendants? l am trying to see lf l should go to Florida with a friend but returning after Jan 5? What are your opinions.


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## Sidney (Dec 13, 2021)

Billvasili said:


> l am seeing reports that the long distance trains may have service problems due to the mandate. Would this result in late trains or fewer car attendants? l am trying to see lf l should go to Florida with a friend but returning after Jan 5? What are your opinions.


I have a trip booked on the Zephyr from Chi to Sac,the Starlight to LA and the Sunset/Eagle to Chi in late January. The SL only runs three x a week,so I know that won't be changed. If the Starlight isnt running on my travel day I can take the San Joaquin and bus. My only concern is the Capitol Ltd to get to and from Chicago. Worst case scenario is an overnight in Chicago.


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## TinCan782 (Dec 13, 2021)

Speaking of staff shortages: *Amtrak HR department too understaffed to handle planned hiring, report says.*
_Amtrak’s Human Resources department does not have sufficient staff to handle the company’s plans to add up to 3,500 employees this fiscal year, the Amtrak Office of the Inspector General says in a report issued Thursday._









Amtrak HR department too understaffed to handle planned hiring, report says - Trains


WASHINGTON — Amtrak’s Human Resources department does not have sufficient staff to handle the company’s plans to add up to 3,500 employees this fiscal year, the Amtrak Office of the Inspector General says in a report issued Thursday. In another report, the Office of Inspector General said Amtrak...




www.trains.com


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## chrsjrcj (Dec 13, 2021)

Sidney said:


> I have a trip booked on the Zephyr from Chi to Sac,the Starlight to LA and the Sunset/Eagle to Chi in late January. The SL only runs three x a week,so I know that won't be changed. If the Starlight isnt running on my travel day I can take the San Joaquin and bus. My only concern is the Capitol Ltd to get to and from Chicago. Worst case scenario is an overnight in Chicago.



Are we sure the already tri-weekly trains will be unaffected? I imagine their crew bases could be even more skeletal.


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## jis (Dec 13, 2021)

chrsjrcj said:


> Are we sure the already tri-weekly trains will be unaffected? I imagine their crew bases could be even more skeletal.


They could certainly be affected. If they don't have the staff available to run the train it is unlikely it will run. On the flip side, according to RPA, what they have learned from Amtrak management is that across the board service reduction to tri-weekly is unlikely. Cutbacks will be more surgical based on actual availability or lack thereof of staff.

If the 95% number is accurate and what RPA is saying is accurate then it would be highly unlikely that there would be a large amount of cut. But of course we will see.


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## Amtrak25 (Dec 13, 2021)

Reading on Trainorders that they have yanked the 2nd LSA off the Crescent's dinette car. On 19's Dec 12th trip, the cash register was broken and could not serve coach passengers either. Some OBS people on the Silver trains are saying to expect Crescent and Cardinal to both be suspended entirely. But I don't consider rumor mongering among them as terribly reliable.


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## jis (Dec 13, 2021)

Amtrak25 said:


> Reading on Trainorders that they have yanked the 2nd LSA off the Crescent's dinette car. On 19's Dec 12th trip, the cash register was broken and could not serve coach passengers either. Some OBS people on the Silver trains are saying to expect Crescent and Cardinal to both be suspended entirely. But I don't consider rumor mongering among them as terribly reliable.


Indeed! If Amtrak lives upto its promise, we should have a pretty clear indication as to what is actually going to happen real soon now, since middle of this month happens to fall in this week.

I am actually more concerned about T&E crew situation in the smaller crew bases in the sticks, or ones that serve a single train pair or less each day, since those will be the most vulnerable. It is easier to shuffle OBS from one route to another than to shuffle T&E due to route familiarization and certification requirements for T&E.


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## AmtrakBlue (Dec 13, 2021)

AmtrakBlue said:


> Denver has cancelled checked baggage service due to most of their staff having COVID19.


As of today, 12/13/21, checked baggage service at Denver has been restored.


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## tricia (Dec 14, 2021)

Email at 6AM today from Amtrak asking me to call them about my CZ trip eastbound arriving Denver 1/17. I'd previously received email (without request to call) about suspension of checked baggage into Denver, so I'm guessing this call request means they've cancelled this train--will try to call later today and will post here then, no time right now.

I'd pretty much decided to cancel this trip anyway, so not a problem for me. I'm posting this as a heads-up for others traveling in January.


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## AmtrakBlue (Dec 14, 2021)

tricia said:


> Email at 6AM today from Amtrak asking me to call them about my CZ trip eastbound arriving Denver 1/17. I'd previously received email (without request to call) about suspension of checked baggage into Denver, so I'm guessing this call request means they've cancelled this train--will try to call later today and will post here then, no time right now.
> 
> I'd pretty much decided to cancel this trip anyway, so not a problem for me. I'm posting this as a heads-up for others traveling in January.


I doubt it's a cancellation. I know someone posted on FB about the same email, but I don't recall their travel date.


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## willem (Dec 14, 2021)

tricia said:


> Email at 6AM today from Amtrak asking me to call them about my CZ trip eastbound arriving Denver 1/17. I'd previously received email (without request to call) about suspension of checked baggage into Denver, so I'm guessing this call request means they've cancelled this train--will try to call later today and will post here then, no time right now.


Same here (except for email timestamp and travel date). After you call, please do post what you learn. (I'll wait for your report.)


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## chrsjrcj (Dec 14, 2021)

AmtrakBlue said:


> I doubt it's a cancellation. I know someone posted on FB about the same email, but I don't recall their travel date.



I saw a similar post and it was about checked baggage service being RESTORED at Denver.


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## TinCan782 (Dec 14, 2021)

_*Amtrak shifts vaccination policy, will avoid service reductions*
Company will offer testing option in lieu of vaccination while executive order is blocked_








Amtrak shifts vaccination policy, will avoid service reductions - Trains


WASHINGTON — Amtrak will revert to its original COVID-19 vaccination policy, which allows testing as an alternative to vaccination, in light of a court ruling halting a federal executive order blocking enforcement of a vaccination mandate. As a result, the passenger railroad does not anticipate...




www.trains.com


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## 87YJ (Dec 14, 2021)

Coming full circle.


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## HammerJack (Dec 14, 2021)

TinCan782 said:


> _*Amtrak shifts vaccination policy, will avoid service reductions*
> Company will offer testing option in lieu of vaccination while executive order is blocked_
> 
> 
> ...



Great news!


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## JayPea (Dec 14, 2021)

HammerJack said:


> Great news!


This is indeed great news! I was hoping it wouldn't come to service reductions but one never knows with Amtrak these days.


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## Devil's Advocate (Dec 14, 2021)

Hopefully Amtrak will keep hiring to ensure they have enough staff if the mandate survives this challenge. So far the Supreme Court has been supportive of most mandates, including those without spiritual exceptions for a biological process, and this particular judge seems to be ignoring the path of prior rulings.


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## Exvalley (Dec 14, 2021)

Since an injunction was issued against the mandate, I predicted this. 

Glad to hear that service will not be impacted in the near term.


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## Devil's Advocate (Dec 14, 2021)

> Flynn’s memo says 95.7% of employees are either in full compliance with the vaccination mandate or have received an accommodation, and 97.3% have received at least one shot. “Currently, fewer than 500 active Amtrak employees are not in compliance with the company mandate,” Flynn writes. “This is remarkable progress — and we anticipate that between now and Jan. 4, we will get even closer to a 100% vaccination rate, which remains our goal and our policy.”


This does not sound that bad for a company of Amtrak's size. Presumably the last 500 are over-represented by operations and maintenance personnel. Hopefully a few more weeks of flexibility will make a meaningful difference and any accommodations granted will exclude customer facing positions.


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## Amtrak25 (Dec 14, 2021)

Exvalley said:


> Since an injunction was issued against the mandate, I predicted this.
> 
> Glad to hear that service will not be impacted in the near term.



I wasn't sure if they would take advantage of the original mandate situation or not.


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## OlympianHiawatha (Dec 14, 2021)

It is great to see Amtrak applying some common sense and supporting freedom of decision at the same time. WELL DONE!


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## west point (Dec 15, 2021)

Latest job opening in operations. Notice all the supervisory positions open.

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*Job Matches:*
Red Cap - 90104779 - Newark - Newark, NJ, US, 07102
Yard Master General - 90040540 - Washington - Washington, DC, US, 20018
PASSENGER CONDUCTOR TRAINEE - Washington - Washington
GEB BRIDGE OPERATOR - 90243641 - New London - New London, CT, US, 06320
Trainmaster I/II - 90236153 - Rensselaer - Rensselaer, NY, US, 12144
Yard Master - 90037724 - New York - New York, NY, US, 10001
Trainmaster II - 90117581 - Los Angeles - Los Angeles, CA, US, 90065
PASSENGER CONDUCTOR TRAINEE - 90301962 - Oakland - Oakland, CA, US, 94607


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## willem (Dec 24, 2021)

willem said:


> Same here (except for email timestamp and travel date).





chrsjrcj said:


> I saw a similar post and it was about checked baggage service being RESTORED at Denver.


And that's what it was in this case. Why Amtrak thought I should call to be told what could have been included in an email is a mystery to me. Also, Julie asked me to confirm my reservation number (which was in the email that told me to call), and then read it back to me and asked if it was correct, and then asked me if I was calling about the itinerary associated with that reservation number. Then, Julie could have said, "Oh, I see we are now offering checked baggage again." But no, Julie said to hold for an agent. All-in-all, it was rather customer-unfriendly.

On the plus side, the wait-noise all music (albeit poor quality); there were no advertisements or assurances that my call was very important. And when an agent did come on the line, she spoke English well and had a sense of humor.

Contrary to the reports in The awful experience of being on hold with Amtrak, I was not offered a call-back option. Maybe that's a package deal with announcements, advertisements, and assurances that a call is very important.


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## Ziv (Dec 24, 2021)

“This is remarkable progress — and we anticipate that between now and Jan. 4, we will get even closer to a 100% vaccination rate, which remains our goal and our policy.”
Flynn

This sort of corporate BS still makes me laugh. How do you quantify "closer to a 100% vaccination rate"? 0.001% more than the current rate? Technically, it would satisfy his quote.


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## west point (Dec 24, 2021)

Even is every operating person is fully vaccinated & masked do not expect all trains to run. With Omocron and less Delta there are too many changes of break through infections. They or another variant may get at least a few bases to not having enough operating personnel.


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## Devil's Advocate (Dec 25, 2021)

Ziv said:


> “This is remarkable progress — and we anticipate that between now and Jan. 4, we will get even closer to a 100% vaccination rate, which remains our goal and our policy.”
> Flynn
> 
> This sort of corporate BS still makes me laugh. How do you quantify "closer to a 100% vaccination rate"? 0.001% more than the current rate? Technically, it would satisfy his quote.


I looked up the quote and the "remarkable progress" he's talking about is in reference to 97.3% of the workforce having at least one vaccine dose and 95.7% being fully vaccinated. He also anticipated more employees being vaccinated between December 14th and January 4th. So which part is "BS" and how does your own employer compare to this?


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## Ziv (Dec 25, 2021)

So what is his team anticipating? Going from 95.7% fully vaccinated to 95.725% by January 4th? It is "even closer" to 100%, no? I am just tired of the entire response at this point. 
And when a leader of any sort stands up and says nothing but does so with an air of authority it just irritates me. A simple statement that "we expect 98% of the employees that have received one dose as of today will be able to follow through and be fully immunized by Jan 4, bringing us very close to 97.3% fully immunized by that time." would at least show you what the Amtrak team is aiming to achieve.
I was an independent contractor (Realtor) until I retired early this year and our vaccination status was our own business, though we were encouraged to get vaccinated. I seldom had a client ask, but I generally told them I had been vaccinated early in the process. Some told me their status, some didn't. Every Realtor had their own "policy" and every client was free to make their own as well. 
The days when Realtors got in the car with clients are pretty much over. We meet to see homes but we each drive our own cars to the house in most cases. And even home showings are done by video fairly frequently now, though I think that it is hard to really get a good feel for the condition of the home that way. 


Devil's Advocate said:


> I looked up the quote and the "remarkable progress" he's talking about is in reference to 97.3% of the workforce having at least one vaccine dose and 95.7% being fully vaccinated. He also anticipated more employees being vaccinated between December 14th and January 4th. So which part is "BS" and how does your own employer compare to this?


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## west point (Dec 25, 2021)

Here is a possibility that deserves thought. Imagine somewhere on all the LD routes. Several T&E persons are out sick or in quarantine reducing that crew base with no spare persons. Would you send a train thru that base on the off chance that one more person might have to call in marked off? What happens to the train and its passengers?


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## pennyk (Jan 17, 2022)

This thread has run its course. Comments relating to the current cancellations/staff shortages should be posted in the current "cancellation" thread. Thank you.





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Amtrak long term service cancellations and restorations (2022)


I just looked at weather.gov (US Weather Service), and the winter storm warning and advisories seem to be restricted to the Carolina coastal plain, the Virginia Tidewater and the southern Delmarva Peninsula. It's perfectly clear and calm, if cold, here in Baltimore. I could see them...




www.amtraktrains.com


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