# Amtrak Privatization Scenario



## Green Maned Lion (Feb 6, 2008)

It seems to me most people on this forum do not favour the privatization of Amtrak. However, I think it would be interesting to look at it from the position of how it could be positive. Amtrak’s greatest strength is the integrity of its network- that is, you can ride from New York to LA or Seattle or New Orleans, or anywhere else Amtrak serves on one single network. This has had numerous advantages, such as guarenteed connections.

Britain’s privatization plan was, for all intents and purposes, a disaster. So I am not going to advocate that Amtrak go that way. But I think privatization is possible, and I have a fairly distinct plan in my mind, which I will post later.

So lets assume that the Government decides Amtrak should be privatized. But in an unsual move for the US government, they decide to do this in an intelligent, logical, and reasonable way that is clearly aimed at success. They lay out a distinct plan for Amtrak to follow on its route to privatization.

Their first order of business is to elect you as President and CEO of Amtrak. They offer up a legislated plan consisting of the following:

*Budget:* _Amtrak will recieve, in a lump sum, $30 billion for capital spending._

*Funding:* _Amtrak will also recieive federal funds covering all losses in operations for 5 years._

*Funding Options:* _You have the option of increasing that time, at the cost of $2 billion per year from that capital spending budget._ So, for instance, if you want it for 10 years, you only get $20 billion.

*Governance:* _Amtrak can operate as any business would. They can sell whatever they want of their assets, they can close any part of their business, they can expand any part of their business. They no longer have to adhere to the 180-day rule, instead they must carry out all booked fares for 90 days (so if no fares are booked, they don’t have to run the train) and offer refunds beyond that. The government can reccomend whatever options they want, but can not require their implementation._

*Operational Limitations:* _None._ Amtrak can start Amtrak Airlines in competition with the airline industry, they can start Amtrak Trailways to directly compete with Greyhound, they can start Amtrak Departments to compete with Macy’s. They can even start Amtrak Freight to compete with the freight roads, but there are some limitations on that that I’ll outline later. Amtrak can, for instance, sell the Northeast Corridor if they choose to do so.

*Regulatory Aid:* _ Amtrak is still intended primarily as the operator of rail passenger transport. As a result, several aides to them will be implemented, as outlined below._

That more or less sums up the plan the government offers you.

Firstly, that aid. Amtrak will continue to have the right to operate over any freight road they wish to. Amtrak will pay them half of the going rate for moving private freight cars (as opposed to passenger) per car. For example, take BNSF. They charge 1.10 per mile to move a private car, with a minimum charge fo $390. If Amtrak was going to move the _California Zephyr_ with a consist of a baggage, TransSleeper, 2 Sleepers, Diner, Lounge, 3 Coaches then they would be moving 9 cars for a total of $4.95 per mile, a total of $11,622 each way. Thats an average of $2,324 per revenue car, or $36.55 per passenger, assuming capacity (48 people per sleeper, 74 per coach).

Amtrak can decide to use any route on the US rail system. The freight company must agree to a route within 90 days of Amtrak giving notice, or risk a federally-enforced fine of $300,000, payable to Amtrak.

Amtrak also must be given priority over freight traffic, or risk a federally enforced fine of $500 a minute for every minute over 10 minutes each route that a freight road holds up an Amtrak train due to improper track maintnence, prioritizing other trains, equipment failure, or dead-on-the-law trains. (So if Amtrak is 2 hours late at the fault of Union Pacific, then they have delayed them 1 hour, 50 minutes, or 110 minutes, more than legally acceptable and must pay Amtrak $55,000 in reparations.)

In addition, the freight road would be responsible for all of Amtrak’s financial costs resulting from this delay, such as bustitution, hotel stays, putting up crew, and refunds to passengers. These rules do not apply if the cause for the delay is an act of god, or something else the frieght road is truly not responsible for (such as the mudslide for the Coast Starlight). Further, there are no acceptable excuses for not tracking a passenger train on a route the FRA deems safe for operating passenger trains.

However, there is one other thing. Amtrak can compete with the freight roads if they so choose. However, if they do so with anything other than mail or a single express car, these rules do NOT apply to the trains running freight. A freight hauling Amtrak train is subject to the railroads choice to carry that train, and is subject to the rail company’s choice of priority. It would not be fair to force the freight roads to give priority to a train in direct competition with them. Amtrak CAN, if you so choose, attempt to build its own rail network.

*Privatization*

At the end of the time period Amtrak elects for government funding, several things happen. First, the government turns in its stock, as do the railroads. A single class of stock is then issued in an IPO. The railroads have the option to either recieve stock based on 25% of their percentage of ownership of the original common stock, or an amount of money equal to the amount generated from selling that stock to the general public during the IPO.

Amtrak will then stop recieving public funding, although it can continue to opt to offer its services to anyone (including states) at a cost-plus basis. For example, Amtrak California will remain property of the state of California.

As with any other company, board members would now be elected by the shareholders.

*Notes:*

I know this is not likely to happen. I’m not looking for people’s opinion of whether we could get the US government to agree to this scenario. I’m interested in what you, as Amtrak’s President and CEO, would do given these parameters. I’ll post my own solution later.

Lastly, I’d prefer a long, detailed solution, if you are willing to give one. If not, a shorter one would be interesting. And can I suggest we not debate each other’s ideas, and that for debating them, we create a different topic?


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## Green Maned Lion (Feb 6, 2008)

Amtrak Privitization: My answer.

I would not take any extra time initially, but I would put aside 10 billion to be used to purchase it in the event that I needed it. As it became more clear that I didn’t, I’d start tapping into it.

My first step would be to divide the company in several distinct financially independant divisions. All of these divisions would be responsible for the cost of maintaining the rolling stock they use, although I’d still use centralized maintnance. They would be as follows:

*Northeast Corridor:* _ This would be responsible for running Regionals, Keystone and Acela Express trains, as well as maintaining Amtrak’s track._

*Short Distance:* _Running short-distance trains, simple as it sounds. An example would be _Empire Service_ trains._

*State Supported:* _ These are trains that are supported, but not funded in full, by the states they run through. An example would be the _Carolinian_ but __*not*__ the _Piedmont.

*State Funded and Operations:* _ These are trains that are funded almost entirely by the state (e.g. Michigan services) or involve operating someone elses trains (e.g. Amtrak California, Shore Line East or _Piedmot_)_

*Long Distance Day* _ This would be responsible for operating trains that run long distances, primarily off the Corridor, but do not run overnight. Some examples are the _Palmetto_ and _Maple Leaf.

*Overnight Trains:* _These are trains that operate overnight, primarily with sleeper service._

Eventually I would introduce another division:

*Crack Trains* _These would be luxury trains that either ran during the day on a very fast schedule with only one section, or trains that operated between cities overnight, this last being all sleeper._

The reason for this is to determine what makes a profit and what doesn’t. That which is unable to make a profit will either be cut or require state or federal funding for their operation.

I would seriously consider selling the Northeast Corridor. Under the clear understanding that the Northeast Corridor trains would be shut down or heavily cut back if they couldn’t make a profit, I would attempt to sell as much of the NEC as possible to states running commuter rail.

If I couldn’t sell the NEC, I’d do a better job maintaining it. One key point of my plan is to not play with money in the sense of spending less on maintenence, because to do so will end up costing more in the long run.

I’d go through Beach Grove and order sold or scrapped any cars that were not going to realisitically be put back in service within 5 years. I’d be erring towards sale, rather than saving- an unusable hunk of metal on the rails is a wasted asset in scrap metal. I’d make sure that by the end of 5 years, Beach Grove was only working on cars it really intended to fix.

I’d reintroduce the old names on Reigonal trains, and make a few of them all business class. I’d also rebuild some Amfleet IIs into diners and offer full diners on these premium regionals.

I’d place an order for a lot of new equipment. The single-level long distance single level trains would become all Viewliner sets. I’d order an additional 35 Viewliner sleepers, and 30 all-bedroom Deluxe Sleepers. I’d also test out, and if successful, order 60 Viewliner Sectional Sleepers and 35 Viewliner Slumbercoaches.

I’d order 35 Baggage cars, 33 kitchen-dorms and 35 Diners. I’d also design and create Sightseer Lounge cars for Viewliners and implement them for all passengers, another 30 of them. I’d also create a first-class lounge observation, with a Hiawatha-esque rear, and 35 of those, as well. I’d then purchase 100 Viewliner coaches. I’d be intending to have no more than 3 coaches on any given train- I’d plan on selling many would-be coaches in sectionals and Slumbercoaches. In the event of running out of coach space, I could put some coach passengers in sectionals. I’d also purchase 2 all-dorm cars and 2 kitchen cars for a special train. A final set of cars are a baggage-dorm and a dining car with kitchen for the Cardinal.

Lastly, I’d have the P42s upgraded for higher-speed running, rebuild some into B-units shroud them so that they blended into the shape of the all-Viewliner consists. The Amfleet IIs would be distributed around as business class cars on long-distance day trains, business class-only regionals, and rebuilt into diners for premium trains.

The trains in peak would go as follows:

_ Lake Shore Limited: _ 3 trainsets, P42M A, 2 P42M B, Baggage, 3 Coach, 2 Sectionals, 1 Slumbercoach, Lounge, Kitchen-Dorm, Diner, 3 Sleepers, 1 Deluxe Sleeper, Lounge-Obervation

_ Cardinal: _ 1 trainset, P42M A, Baggage-Dorm, 3 Coach, Lounge, Diner, 2 Sleepers

_ Silver Meteor: _ 4 trainset, P42M A, 2 P42M B, Baggage, 3 Coach, 3 Sectionals, 1 Slumbercoach, Lounge, Kitchen-Dorm, Diner, 3 Sleepers, 1 Deluxe Sleeper, Lounge-Obervation

_ Silver Star: _ 4 trainset, P42M A, 2 P42M B, Baggage, 3 Coach, 3 Sectionals, 1 Slumbercoach, Lounge, Kitchen-Dorm, Diner, 3 Sleepers, 1 Deluxe Sleeper, Lounge-Obervation

_ Crescent: _ 3 trainset, P42M A, 2 P42M B, Baggage, 4 Coach, 2 Sectionals, 1 Slumbercoach, Lounge, Kitchen-Dorm, Diner, 3 Sleepers, 1 Deluxe Sleeper, Lounge-Obervation

In Addition to these old Warhorses, I plan to introduce the following trains:

_* Windy City Flyer: *_ This train would take the old _Broadway Limited_ route from New York To Chicago. It would run all night between those to destinations non-stop. This train would be all sleeper.

2 trainset, P42M A, P42M B, Baggage, Kitchen-Dorm, Diner, 4 Sleepers, 2 Deluxe Sleeper, Lounge-Obervation

_* Motor City Flyer: *_ This train would follow the _Windy City Flyer_ until it breaks off and heads towards Detroit. It also would be non-stop and all-sleeper.

2 trainset, P42M A, P42M B, Baggage, Kitchen-Dorm, Diner, 4 Sleepers, 2 Deluxe Sleeper, Lounge-Obervation

_* Twilight Shoreliner: *_ This would be a reinstatement of the old train of this name, simply harkening the return of its sleepers, as well as its upgrade to Viewliner equipment.

2 trainset, 2 HHP-8, Baggage, 5 Coach, 2 Sectionals, 2 Slumbercoaches, Lounge, Kitchen-Dorm, Diner, 2 Sleepers, Lounge-Obervation

_* Trans-Capitol Express: *_ This train would depart Washington DC, and follow the North East Corridor to New York City, make a stop there, and proceed on the Maple Leaf’s route non-stop to Toronto, where it would make a stop. The train would then continue on to Ottawa.

4 trainset, P42M A, 1 P42M B, Baggage, 4 Coach, 1 Sectionals, 1 Slumbercoach, Lounge, Kitchen-Dorm, Diner, 2 Sleepers, 1 Deluxe Sleeper, Lounge-Obervation

_* Broadway Limited: *_ A reinstatement of the _Broadway Limited_, but with coaches, sectionals, and slumbercoaches. It would provide the local-service alternative to the _Windy City Flyer_.

4 trainset, P42M A, 2 P42M B, Baggage, 3 Coach, 4 Sectionals, 2 Slumbercoach, Lounge, Kitchen-Dorm, Diner, 2 Sleepers, 1 Deluxe Sleeper, Lounge-Obervation

_* Trans-American: *_ As its name implies, this train runs across America. It would depart in three sections from New York City, Boston, and Washington DC. The Boston and New York sections would meet up in Albany, then meet up with the Washington section in Cleveland and continue westward to Chicago, then head for Salt Lake City. At Salt Lake City, it would once again split into three sections, heading for Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. The Los Angeles section would follow the _Desert Wind’s_ route. This train would run bi-weekly in each direction.

4 trainset, 3 P42M A, 3 P42M B, 3 Baggage, Dorm, 6 Coach, Lounge, 5 Sectionals, Lounge, 3 Slumbercoach, Lounge, Diner, Kitchen, Diner, 4 Sleepers, 2 Deluxe Sleeper, Lounge-Obervation

I’d also purchase enough new Superliners to add some more trains:

Run a second train, the _Western Star_ along the _Empire Builder_’s route.

Restart the _North Coast Hiawatha_

Run the _Sunset Limited_ daily, restore east-of-New-Orleans service.

Revive the _Floridian_ and _City of Miami_

Revive the _Desert Wind_ and run an all sleeper train from Chicago to LA called the “_Gambler’s Special_”

Revive the _Pioneer_

I also would create Superliner Sectional Sleepers, as well as some sort of Superliner Slumbercoach (probably a staggered tri-level design).

I’d only sell tickets if they could be sold for an overall profit, or to reduce loss due to equipment underutilization.

Lastly, with all the equipment freed up from removing the Amfleets from overnight duty, I’d add a second section of all day-time long distance trains.

By increasing frequency, locations served, and comfort offerred, I think that I could make Amtrak much more relevant to the average traveller.


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## WICT106 (Feb 6, 2008)

My suggestion is that all routes have at least twice per day each direction service. No more one frequency per day. Also see about connecting and acting as feeders for the long distance flights - in other words, fund Amtrak (NRPC) and track upgrades to the point where they could act as a replacement for the commuter flights.


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## ThayerATM (Feb 6, 2008)

Green Maned Lion said:


> Amtrak Privitization: My answer.
> I would not take any extra time initially, but I would put aside 10 billion to be used to purchase it in the event that I needed it. As it became more clear that I didn’t, I’d start tapping into it.
> 
> My first step would be to divide the company in several distinct financially independant divisions. All of these divisions would be responsible for the cost of maintaining the rolling stock they use, although I’d still use centralized maintnance. They would be as follows:
> ...


Before we get seriously into exploring forming my private 30B company, don't you think that we should look at some spreadsheets (no paper please --- computer generated only --- EXL preferred) of Amtrak's P & L over the past 10 years? Perhaps also look at the balance sheets. Perhaps examine the past profitability of each of the routes, and each of the stations, and each of the cars. That way, when I'm chosen as the new CEO of the New Amtrak, I'll be on a level playing field with the rest of you guys that obviously have given this a lot of thought.

Al


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## wayman (Feb 6, 2008)

Amtrak pays UP roughly $12,000 to run a nine-car CA Zephyr, but UP pays Amtrak a $10,000 fine if it's only half an hour late regardless of train length? While freight railroads are fined $300,000 for denying Amtrak access to any route it chooses?

The clear strategy to turn Amtrak into a cash cow is to run short three-car (two sleepers and a diner-lite/CCC) trains over freight railroad track which is poorly maintained, virtually guaranteeing every run will lose half an hour for every ten scheduled hours or so. The fines will more than cover all costs. Throw on a single baggage for both baggage and (primarily) express shipping, and profits will soar.

Yes, changing your numbers, fee structures, fine structures, etc, can close that loophole, but as it stands this model is heavily broken in Amtrak's favor.

Also, your Windy City Flyer would be very well served by making a single revenue stop in Philadelphia (westbound receive-only, eastbound detrain-only). As an added bonus, fill half an express car in NYC, run it to PHL on a mid-day regional, fill the rest of it in PHL, and tack it on the end of the WCF in PHL (reverse on return) for more revenue. You've got all morning to fill the car in NYC and all afternoon in PHL, so this shouldn't result in more than an additional ten minute delay in PHL. Passengers will accept that, and Amtrak picks up more revenue.

I would look seriously at changing many routes, and I would probably add second trains to many existing or new long- and medium-distance routes. Overnight "business hotel" trains such as the Twilight Shoreliner, a night train to Montreal, Washington-Atlanta all-sleeper express, Chicago-St.Louis, Chicago-KC, etc, become a large experiment. Start with that, order equipment as needed for the new routes. Prioritize sleepers and diners, hold off on coaches for at least five years, hold off on all "luxury goods" like the observations until things stabilize in at least five years. As new diners come in, consider rotating out the Heritage diners that are still in good working order, giving them the help they need, and repainting them in their original liveries. Advertise them as heritage cars. Run them in normal trains, but use it as a marketing campaign--"20th Century luxury on 21st Century trains" or something.


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## meatpuff (Feb 7, 2008)

Green Maned Lion said:


> Their first order of business is to elect you as President and CEO of Amtrak. They offer up a legislated plan consisting of the following:
> *Budget:* _Amtrak will recieve, in a lump sum, $30 billion for capital spending._


Not to be difficult, but if Amtrak could receive $30B extra this year for capital improvements, its problems would be over; privatization would be a moot point. It could just do whatever it wanted in terms of acquiring equipment, rehabbing track and signals to high speed, or sometimes just laying new track. It wouldn't even have to worry that much about getting operating funds from the feds. If Amtrak would put up the $10M's or $100M's of capital needed to rehab potential state corridors, states would line up to pay them a few million a year to operate the trains.

To look at it one way, $30 billion is approximately the total amount of funding Amtrak has received *since its inception* in 1971, including *capital and operating costs* in nominal dollars. (Source: not 100% reliable - http://replacingamtrak.blogspot.com/ )

To look at it another way, having trouble with OTP on a CSX line? Just buy 'em out! And take over ownership of their 21,000 miles of track for yourself. The market cap of CSX Corp. is only $19.4B.


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## Galls (Feb 7, 2008)

meatpuff said:


> Green Maned Lion said:
> 
> 
> > Their first order of business is to elect you as President and CEO of Amtrak. They offer up a legislated plan consisting of the following:
> ...


But that huge influx of funds would still not solve the managerial problems at Amtrak, it is a very leaky boat.


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## Sam Damon (Feb 7, 2008)

It's not so much a matter of "favoring the privatization of Amtrak", it's more just a matter of financial realities at work here in the USA.

We're now seeing "the chickens coming home to roost" from decisions made in the mid-1950's. The USA essentially scrapped its existing railroad system in favor of interstate highways and air cargo, and let Wall Street decide what to do with the railroads.

That plan seemed to work until Penn Central's bankruptcy took out the northeastern rail network, and government had to get involved. Conrail scrapped a bunch more railroad lines, went private, and the government let Wall Street decide what to do with the railroads.

That plan seemed to work until CSX and NS decided to get into a bidding war for Conrail. Now, a decade after the split, CSX derails hazardous cargo with spectacular results once or twice a year, and NS seems determined to cut things back as much as possible in the northeast. Meanwhile, Amtrak pumps cash into the NEC, and the rolling stock now is older than when Amtrak assumed passenger operations from the private railroads in 1971.

Your whole privatization concept hints at the real problem facing intercity passenger rail in the USA, which is how to re-capitalize the system. The bad debt has to be written off, somehow. New rolling stock has to be purchased, somehow. These are not easy questions to answer, or we would not be discussing them on this forum and elsewhere as we are!


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## yoohoo (Feb 7, 2008)

Hey, this is off-topic but I have a question. I have been to fairs and expos where there are several airline booths that help promote air travel and I was wondering if Amtrak has anything like that and or if they would be looking for someone to do that? I would be great at that as I am very sociable and influencial to get people to rail.


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## TVRM610 (Feb 7, 2008)

Ok... I will put my imaginary Amtrak CEO shoes on now...

Disclaimer- I live in the East, as such most of my ideas are in the east, mostly because I do not know what is possible/ needed in the west. The Dessert Wind and the Pioneer should both be back, especially Vegas, that city needs to be served!

Step 1 - Create Hubs

ATLANTA GA

Create a Hub in Atlanta GA, this includes a day train(s) to Greensboro NC over existing Crescent ROW first. Slowly expand service north to Chattanooga and later Nashville, and East to Augusta and later Savannah.

Cleveland OH

Create a hub in Cleveland OH, this includes a day train(s) to Toledo over existing LSL/CPL trackage with possible expansion to Detroit MI if possible. Eventually create a southern train from Cleveland to Cincinnati by way of Columbus OH.

San Antonio TX

Create a hub in San Antonio TX, this includes a day train(s) from San Antonio to Houston over existing SL trackage. Eventually an additional train should run to Dallas as well to supplement Texas Eagle if ridership warrants.

First three steps, eventually look at other Hubs to create. The idea is to add day trains to major cities that are currently only served overnight by LD trains, and to add major cities to hubs in order to provide a practical connection. This will also encourage track improvements in these corridors, eventually to 90-110mph service. (Long long term goal).

Step 2- Increase on-board options for LD trains.

For LSL, Crescent and Silver Service:

Create "Business Class" cars on long distance trains which include a personal attendant, reserved seats, and complimentary snacks and non-alcaholic beverages, as well as a complimentary newspaper. 2-1 seating with wide chairs, and on board outlets at every seat. Test the market to see wether to include meals in the dining car or not.

For Capitol, EB, CZ, Chief, and Starlight:

Create a First Class Lounge/Slumber Coach Superliner. This slumbercoach would be the superliners version of "Business Class" featuring Roomettes/Economy Bedrooms on the lower level of the car. The upper level would be a Parlor car type design with complimentary snacks and non-alcaholic beverages. The lounge attendant would also attend to the rooms. This would provide a mid-range ticket, and also increase the value of current sleepers.

Step 3 - Expand LD train service.

Use the expanding hubs to create long-distance trains such as Cleveland OH to Florida by way of Nasvhille TN and the Atlanta hub.

Obviously many more routes are needed/wanted. The above is what I personally would do first.

Fun to think about!


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## George Harris (Feb 7, 2008)

First and foremost, the trains must be RELIABLE. If you cannot get the train to be 70% plus on the REAL posted time, plus or minus nothing, 85% within 15 minutes and 95% plus within 30 minutes of it, whether the length of run is 20 miles or 2000 miles, there is no point in trying to redevelop a large passenger system tnat will appeal to most people.

Second, remember that short to medium haul trains are bottomless money pits and always have been. The California trains run well, carry the most basic of food service cars, and carry decent numbers of people, and for the most part are barely covering 50% of fully allocated costs. From the point of view of reducing fuel consumption as a nation and reducing the perceived need (it is not a real NEED anyway) for short haul air services, these are the types of trains that should be connecting all the medium and larger urban dots in this country several times a day, but their operation will require subsidy.

If you can get the type of reliability I mentioned as the first necessity, then in the northeast in particular the need for multiple medium and short haul trains could be satisfied by overlapping long distance trains. If you know the 4:30 pm train will actually be there and leaving at 4:30, then it really doesn't matter if that is the origin point or a stop 500 miles into a longer trip.

Third, in order to run more trains and run them reliably, there needs to be a lot more track out there. This will also do wonders for the freight train congestion. There needs to be megabucks spent on restroring 2nd mains where they have been removed and adding them where they have never been but the traffic now needs them. In some places, a third main should be added. From the things said about the delays on the Lake Shore Limited it sound like the old New York Central Four Track Main needs to be restored. Even though BNSF does an outstanding job of moving the Southwest Chief, they are really making the difficult look easy. Much of the line west of Albuquerque could probably use a third main because of the multiple long grades. Unfortunately $30 billion would just have you getting started good on this stuff. In order to achieve decent speeds, forget high speed, just highway competitive speed, a lot of alignment work needs to be done in the hillier parts of the country. Most of our railroad alignments still go back to 18 whenever when the copetition was a horse and wagon. Even the 1920's highways for the most part were still only 30 to 40 mph roads in the hilly parts of the country. Lots more money needed here. Again, freight would also be a big beneficiary.

Amtrak could do a lot to improve system capacity if they would re-learn how to switch cars in and out of trains. To take one example: The Crescent south of Atlanta carries only about half or less of the passenger loading it carries north of Atlanta. So, why not stop running empty coaches and sleepers? In Southen Railway days, the train always had more cars between Washington and Atlanta than the rest of the run. It is senseless to have trains where demand exceeds supply on parts of the route to avoid switching out cars that are running empty on long segments. You could probably fill an extra coach between Washington and Lynchburg, as well. There are many other examples that come to mind: City of New Orleans south of Memphis would be another.


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## mercedeslove (Feb 7, 2008)

what is a slumbercoach?


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## TVRM610 (Feb 7, 2008)

mercedeslove said:


> what is a slumbercoach?


A slumbercoach is a budget sleeping car. Amtrak used to run them on trains like the Lake Shore and the Crescent. Basically they were private rooms, but they were very very small. There was also a unique multi-level pattern to fit more rooms in the car, kinda hard to explain, I'm sure someone will be able to link you to pictures and diagrams. The slumbercoach on amtrak was not considered first class (sleeper class now) and did not include meals, nor did it allow acess into the first class lounges.


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## Green Maned Lion (Feb 7, 2008)

TVRM610 said:


> mercedeslove said:
> 
> 
> > what is a slumbercoach?
> ...


Google is a good place to look for this stuff.







The Slumbercoach had a staggered level room setup. This allowed it to fit more rooms into place. Some beds were up high and some lower. They basically made the floor of the upper rooms to the left and right the ceiling of the one between them, but with a space to stand in.


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## TVRM610 (Feb 7, 2008)

George Harris said:


> First and foremost, the trains must be RELIABLE. If you cannot get the train to be 70% plus on the REAL posted time, plus or minus nothing, 85% within 15 minutes and 95% plus within 30 minutes of it, whether the length of run is 20 miles or 2000 miles, there is no point in trying to redevelop a large passenger system tnat will appeal to most people.
> Amtrak could do a lot to improve system capacity if they would re-learn how to switch cars in and out of trains. To take one example: The Crescent south of Atlanta carries only about half or less of the passenger loading it carries north of Atlanta. So, why not stop running empty coaches and sleepers? In Southen Railway days, the train always had more cars between Washington and Atlanta than the rest of the run. It is senseless to have trains where demand exceeds supply on parts of the route to avoid switching out cars that are running empty on long segments. You could probably fill an extra coach between Washington and Lynchburg, as well. There are many other examples that come to mind: City of New Orleans south of Memphis would be another.


Two points two argue...

1. Can you show me significant proof that on-time performance greatly affects ridership on current amtrak trains? The City of New Orleans OTP is way above 70% I'm sure, so why is it not the most heavily used ld amtrak train? While of course the closer to on-time trains run the better, I don't think that they have to run at a certain percentage to be used by most people.

2. Amtrak used to add cars in Atlanta as well (as recently as 8 years ago for sure). Why did they stop? Probably because a: they found out they could use the extra space after all, or b: they found it was no more costly, and saved time to run the car empty for half the trip. I don't think some amtrak official said "Hey, let's stop saving money here and spend more!"


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## jphjaxfl (Feb 8, 2008)

George Harris said:


> [First and foremost, the trains must be RELIABLE. If you cannot get the train to be 70% plus on the REAL posted time, plus or minus nothing, 85% within 15 minutes and 95% plus within 30 minutes of it, whether the length of run is 20 miles or 2000 miles, there is no point in trying to redevelop a large passenger system tnat will appeal to most people.
> Second, remember that short to medium haul trains are bottomless money pits and always have been. The California trains run well, carry the most basic of food service cars, and carry decent numbers of people, and for the most part are barely covering 50% of fully allocated costs. From the point of view of reducing fuel consumption as a nation and reducing the perceived need (it is not a real NEED anyway) for short haul air services, these are the types of trains that should be connecting all the medium and larger urban dots in this country several times a day, but their operation will require subsidy.
> 
> If you can get the type of reliability I mentioned as the first necessity, then in the northeast in particular the need for multiple medium and short haul trains could be satisfied by overlapping long distance trains. If you know the 4:30 pm train will actually be there and leaving at 4:30, then it really doesn't matter if that is the origin point or a stop 500 miles into a longer trip.
> ...


As usual, your post is very well thought out and realistic. Its has taken 50 years or more for the Rail infrastructure to be allowed to deteriorate (as a previous poster also mentioned). The first step would be to restore the infrastructure to close to what it was post WW II. As the infrastructure improves, you would also improve passenger service. Keep in mind that post WWII everyone knew that passengers trains existed. When I was a kid back in the 1950s, when we traveled, it was a given that we would go by train. The decision was what Railroad and then what trains would we take to best serve our needs. My Dad worked for a railroad, but both Mom and Dad had their preference for certain railroads based on experiences so they had to compromise which meant I got to ride different railroads. Today most people in US do not even know passenger train service exists so you have to re-educate the traveling public that passenger train travel is a viable alternative. To do that, you have to do the things that you stated in your post.


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## AlanB (Feb 8, 2008)

TVRM610 said:


> George Harris said:
> 
> 
> > First and foremost, the trains must be RELIABLE. If you cannot get the train to be 70% plus on the REAL posted time, plus or minus nothing, 85% within 15 minutes and 95% plus within 30 minutes of it, whether the length of run is 20 miles or 2000 miles, there is no point in trying to redevelop a large passenger system tnat will appeal to most people.
> ...


Last year the City was on time 86.2% of the time. Granted that was with Amtrak's 30 minute window.



TVRM610 said:


> 2. Amtrak used to add cars in Atlanta as well (as recently as 8 years ago for sure). Why did they stop? Probably because a: they found out they could use the extra space after all, or b: they found it was no more costly, and saved time to run the car empty for half the trip. I don't think some amtrak official said "Hey, let's stop saving money here and spend more!"


There are a few other trains where Amtrak can and does fill the bulk of the cars throughout the trip. The Crescent however is one example where that doesn't happen. As Had8ley will tell you, south/west of Atlanta, two coaches run empty 98% of the time, the few exceptions might be during the Thanksgiving holidays and Christmas. In fact it wouldn't even surprise me if Amtrak doesn't blank out the two cars in Arrow, just to prevent putting people in those cars so as to have them empty for the crowd boarding in ATL.

And while you're probably correct that Amtrak saves money, they certainly save time, by not switching those two coaches on/off in ATL, what is missing from your equation is utilization. Short turning those two coaches would free up a couple of Amfleet II cars, and that might well allow Amtrak to add one more coach on say a sold out LSL and collect still more revenue over there. Revenue that could easily balance out the added costs of switching those two cars off in ATL.


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## jphjaxfl (Feb 8, 2008)

When the Crescent ran only 3 days a week from Atlanta to New Orleans, Amtrak maintained a small crew in Atlanta to service the train on the days that it terminated in Atlanta. I believe Amtrak determined that running the train to New Orleans daily and eliminating the Atlanta crew that maintained the train was more cost effective.


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## AlanB (Feb 8, 2008)

jphjaxfl said:


> When the Crescent ran only 3 days a week from Atlanta to New Orleans, Amtrak maintained a small crew in Atlanta to service the train on the days that it terminated in Atlanta. I believe Amtrak determined that running the train to New Orleans daily and eliminating the Atlanta crew that maintained the train was more cost effective.


Yes, in this case it would definitely be most cost effective to just keep running the train. You eliminate the costs of a commissary, the costs of a crew base and associated staffing, and maintenance work.

Just switching two coaches off however doesn't incur all those expenses again. You'll need a switching crew, an engine on standby, a couple of car cleaners and you're pretty much done.


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## Kramerica (Feb 8, 2008)

Step 1 - Unions

Bust the unions. I don't mind compensating employees well, but the work rules have to change, big time. Amtrak needs more flexibility in how to use the available employees.

Step 2 - Discounts

If a train isn't at 90% capacity, marketing and sales have failed. For coach, a full seat costs next to nothing, since the seat is there anyway. The coach attendant is there anyway. The bathrooms needed to be cleaned anyway. Plus, the more people on board, the more food they may buy.

Give steep discounts on light trains or during slow times of the year.

Step 3 - Frequency

Increase LD train frequency to at least 4 trains a day, spaced about 6 hours apart. That way every station will have a few sane boarding times. (e.g. Spokane won't only have 1 AM) And having three daytime arrivals/departures sure gives people a reason to choose Amtrak. (e.g. in Milwaukee on the EB, mid-afternoon is a terrible time for me. I'd either want to leave in the evening or leave right away in the morning.) This setup will also make short stops at various cities more appealing. I would not want to stay in Havre MT for 24 hours, but I'd definitely consider stopping 6 hours for a meal and to see their downtown shops. It also opens the option for people to just go coach during the day, get off in the evening and stay at a hotel, then re-board the next morning for more scenery. And vice-versa, some people may opt to sleep on the train and then spend the next day "doing something" in a different city.

As a part of this, more equipment would need to be purchased. Make it so.

Having more frequent trains would make each crew base more efficient. It would make missed connections easier to fix. (essentially no more bussing or hotel stays, with the next train leaving within 6 hours) It would increase the customer base because of flexibility and availability.

Step 4 - Track

Create a program for improving the tracks. 1000-2000 miles a year. They need to be doubled-tracked, so each direction can flow unimpeded. Also upgrade the tracks to allow 110 mph service. Start with the easy areas (the plains!) or with areas where the impact will be great. This program will make the trains more reliable and the transit times faster. Both will in turn drive up customer satisfaction and patronage.

Since this will help the freight trains too, strike a deal with the RR companies. Either do a cost-share for the upgraded tracks, or reduce the fee per car-mile for a set number of years, or make better agreements for giving passenger trains priority.

Step 5 - Add routes

Bring back some of the old routes - Desert Wind, Pioneer, Floridian, Sunset Ltd, KC to Pittsburg.

Oklahoma City to KC to Des Moines to MSP.

Bridge some small gaps - Bakersfield to Victorville.

Slight re-routes - Must go to downtown Phoenix.

Add spurs - Green Bay to MKE, CHI to Dubuque, MKE to Madison (I'm sure there are plenty like this throughout the nation)

Connect airports - Rail can and should be a direct compeitor on time and price with regional jets. Amtrak must stop at all major airports or have fast shuttles to them. Enter into agreements with airlines to have "codeshares" or combined tickets.

This will increase the reach of Amtrak to provide a bigger customer base and improve travel options for existing customers.

Step 6 - Amenities

Full service diners. Open from 6 AM to 10 PM, with reservations only when demand is high.

Lounge cafe is now a vending machine area. That will provide 24 hour service and cut out a worker.

Walk-up grill so you can get burgers, pizza, chicken strips, fries, etc. I'm not sure where this could go. Perhaps it would be half of a diner, or perhaps it would be in lower level of the second lounge. Or maybe it'll be a new car type with a full bar. (Lounge 1: no staff, vending machines down below. Lounge 2: grill on one end, full bar on the other, with seating downstairs and in the middle)

Section sleeper - not private, no meals, no perks. Pay-per-use shower.

Slumbercoach - private, no meals, no perks. Pay-per-use shower.

Other ideas for cheap ways to sleep horizontally?

Wi-fi on board. Cell coverage too.

Small "conference" rooms that can be rented by the hour. For business travellers who need a little privacy or quiet to make some phone calls. Each room could hold two people, or two rooms open for four people. This could be a lower level of a lounge or section sleeper.

Public computers. A few computers, that can be rented for a period of time. Internet access.

Can track individual trains on Amtrak.com. Displays area map, current speed, special information, arrival times. Each lounge or business center has a screen that shows this for the train.

(Sample consist: Engines, baggage, transition, sleeper, sleeper, diner, bar/grill, lounge, section sleeper w/ business center, slumbercoach, coach, coach, coach)

Step 7 - Planning for Disaster

Things like the Oregon landslide are not uncommon. Have a plan ready on the shelf for each section of track, in case it is not useable. Either alternate tracks to use or ways to bus people.


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## WICT106 (Feb 8, 2008)

Some good ideas here, but we have to figure out how to finance the whole thing.



Kramerica said:


> Step 1 - Unions
> Bust the unions. I don't mind compensating employees well, but the work rules have to change, big time. Amtrak needs more flexibility in how to use the available employees.
> 
> Step 2 - Discounts
> ...


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## GG-1 (Feb 8, 2008)

Kramerica said:


> Step 1 - Unions
> Bust the unions. I don't mind compensating employees well, but the work rules have to change, big time. Amtrak needs more flexibility in how to use the available employees.


Aloha

Before deciding to "Bust the Unions" how about defining the job of unions, and exploring the reasons they exist. With very few exceptions, Companies with Good Labor/Management do not have unions, Why? Companies with Difficult union relations probably result from management/labor relations with little honesty or respect.

You mentioned "work rule changes", What would you like to see changed, would you consider a similar change in your work rule?

Before deciding on success the Management/Union process, one must understand the goals and needs of both sides of an issue.


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## George Harris (Feb 8, 2008)

TVRM610 said:


> 1. Can you show me significant proof that on-time performance greatly affects ridership on current amtrak trains? The City of New Orleans OTP is way above 70% I'm sure, so why is it not the most heavily used ld amtrak train? While of course the closer to on-time trains run the better, I don't think that they have to run at a certain percentage to be used by most people.
> 2. Amtrak used to add cars in Atlanta as well (as recently as 8 years ago for sure). Why did they stop? Probably because a: they found out they could use the extra space after all, or b: they found it was no more costly, and saved time to run the car empty for half the trip. I don't think some amtrak official said "Hey, let's stop saving money here and spend more!"


1. somewhat hard to do. However, the Empire Builder, which has consistently over its lifetime maintained relatively good on time performance has ridership far out of proportion to the population of the area it serves. As to the City of New Orleans, the good OTP is a relatively recent development. For about the first 15 plus years of Amtrak it had miserable OTP, loss of sleepers for a while, multiple schedule shifts, and finally a route shift between Memphis and Jackson, Mississippi from a line with several stops that had fairly high passenger loadings for their size to an area that had lost passenger service nearly 20 years before Amtrak start up. And, for a goodly bit of this time all of it on a railroad notorious for rough track. By the time something approaching reliable timekeeping returned, the schedule was slowed by a few hours, and those people interested in something approaching on time performance had gone elsewhere and not looked back.

2. Not sure the fact that Amtrak chose to do something meant it made good economic sense. It is entirely likely that they looked at the switching cost in a vacuum without considering wear and tear and fuel consumption due to hauling the cars empty for 450 miles a day. That is not even mentioning the failure to have the seats available where there could be bodies to fill them. This last is called lost opportunity cost, is hard to quantify, but can sink your boat as a business if you don't try to quantify it.


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## nr272 (Feb 8, 2008)

Green Maned Lion said:


> The Slumbercoach had a staggered level room setup. This allowed it to fit more rooms into place. Some beds were up high and some lower. They basically made the floor of the upper rooms to the left and right the ceiling of the one between them, but with a space to stand in.


Interesting. Would the Viewliner be the modern day equivalent to this car?


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## wayman (Feb 8, 2008)

nr272 said:


> Green Maned Lion said:
> 
> 
> > The Slumbercoach had a staggered level room setup. This allowed it to fit more rooms into place. Some beds were up high and some lower. They basically made the floor of the upper rooms to the left and right the ceiling of the one between them, but with a space to stand in.
> ...


No, not at all. The Viewliner roomette accommodates two people and occupies the full height of the car.

Each Slumbercoach compartment accommodated one person. It didn't go floor-to-ceiling of the car: some were "low" (accessed from hallway level) and some were "high" (accessed by climbing a few stairs, I think). And the high compartments weren't directly over the low compartments: they were offset (staggered) and overlapping. So walking down the corridor, you'd see doors for low, hi, low, hi, etc. The exterior of the car shows this, with the zig-zag pattern of windows. I gather it was hard to take interior pictures of the Slumbercoaches which gave a good feel for the overall layout, because the space was so tight?... I've seen a few photos from within a compartment, but I don't recall seeing one of the corridor, or looking into compartments from the corridor, which I think would help make the layout clearer.


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## Green Maned Lion (Feb 8, 2008)

The only problem is that while some of us RailFan types would definitely be fine with them, I don't know if someone would want the equivalent of an airlines ideas on coach seats applied to a private room accommodation. I mean these things were miniaturized to the absolute minimum on size they could take up.


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## nr272 (Feb 9, 2008)

wayman said:


> nr272 said:
> 
> 
> > Green Maned Lion said:
> ...


Ok, thanks for the info. It's too bad these cars aren't still around, because I'd love to ride in one. After sleeping in a coach seat for 3 nights, I'm not going to be too picky about the room size and it's amentities!


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## ~guest~ (Feb 10, 2008)

I think there is a question that needs to be addressed here, as it sounds like everyone is just talking about bringing back the past.

For rail to be viable, the average person has to accept that the time spent in transit is reasonable. For example, courtesy of air travel, passengers accept that Baltimore to Miami is 2.5 hours. That same trip on Amtrak is 24+ hours, over a day. The majority of the money spent on transportation comes from business. When comparing the two, times and costs, air is going to win in the business travelers mind.

Cross country trips on air are 4-5 hours, and 3 1/2 days on rail. To the average person today, that is simply too slow.

In order for Amtrak to succeed, 79 mph is not going to cut it. Yes, I know the capital costs of going faster are phenomenal, but if no one wants to use it, because it is too slow, you get what we have today.

Maybe with the coming energy crunch, people will change, and begin to accept a slower paced lifestyle... but I'm not seeing any signs of it yet.


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## Green Maned Lion (Feb 10, 2008)

The _Windy City Flyer_ concept was actually a train I was thinking of creating and operating myself as a private venture. It took about 15 minutes researching the cost of running a train like that to nix the idea of doing it, as I could never capitalize such a project, and I'd have a hard time making a profit for it.

The route, however, eliminates a lot of your arguments. The route would run 945 miles. It could maintain a speed of close to 100 mph for the first 195 miles to Harrisburg, which it would accomplish in two hours. For the remaining 750 miles, it can run a speed of 70 mph on average. If doing so, it could make the trip in about 11 hours. Now, assuming we add another hour in there for a crew/engine change at Harrisburg as well as delays, the train could reach Chicago in 14 hours.

If the train leaves New York Penn at 6:00 (giving the average business man the chance to leave work and spend an hour getting to the station) it would arrive in Chicago the next morning at 8AM, giving the average business man an hour to get to a business meeting. The businessman enjoys a meal, a night cap, and goes to bed. He wakes up the next morning at 6:30, eats breakfast, and departs the train.

To one perspective, he's used up 14 hours of his life as opposed to two and a half. But lets modify that, because its inaccurate. First of all, that businessman would have to take 30 to 60 minutes to get to one of the New York airports, from his office. He needs to arrive there perhaps 2 hours before the flight leaves.

With the stricter baggage policy of airlines, it is more likely he will need to check baggage. If he does so, he can expect to wait another hour getting his bag. Now he needs to spend another 30-60 minutes getting from the airport to the meeting. So in reality, the flight takes between five and a half and seven and a half hours out of the man's life.

Second, the time taken out of his life on that plane, assuming he leaves the morning of the meeting, is from the hours of 4 in the morning (who wants to get up that early? O_O) and 8:30, assuming best times. If he leaves the night before, the hours taken out of his life are between 5:00 and 9:30 at best, 5:00 and 11:30 at worst. He then gets to spend money on a hotel room in Chicago, sleeps the night there, and is back where we started. He is not going to do anything useful between 9:30 and going to bed, he is not going to do anything useful between the time he wakes up and the meeting.

After the meeting, he can take the plane again. It will take him at least an hour to get from downtown Chicago to O'Hare in traffic. He can then fly home on an 8:30 flight, arriving in New York at about 11:00. He then has to once again get his bags, and travel home. He will arrive home at best at 1:00 in the morning and fall straight asleep. He most likely won't be up before 9:00. Alternatively, he decides not to get home at that ungodly hour, and sleeps over again. He can fly out really early to get home by 9:00, again, but it means he will need get up at 4:00 AM once again. A more reasonable time gets him home around noon.

Alternatively, he can take the Windy City Flyer. He once again leaves his office at 5:00. He boards the train at 6:00, checks into his room, and heads to the dining car. He eats a meal, has a night cap, and goes to bed. He wakes up again at 6:30 and eats breakfast, disembarking at 8:00. He gets to the meeting, and goes about his business. He leaves again at 5:00, boards the 6:00 train, and leaves. Eats dinner, has his night cap, sleeps, eats breakfast, gets off the train, and is home around 9:00.

He can do it in less time on a plane, sure. It means he has to get up at 4:00 in the morning, or earlier, and it means he has to get home at 1:00 in the morning. It is inconvenient, uncomfortable, and a lot of people wouldn't do it. He can do it in a similar time on a plane, with less of the getting up at 4 in the morning. To do so with comfort and convenience of not getting up at ridiculous hours, nor getting home at them, it will take him about 3 hours more, and he is still arriving in Chicago late at night.

In sum, the train is not as time inefficient as it at first seems.


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## jphjaxfl (Feb 10, 2008)

wayman said:


> Each Slumbercoach compartment accommodated one person. It didn't go floor-to-ceiling of the car: some were "low" (accessed from hallway level) and some were "high" (accessed by climbing a few stairs, I think). And the high compartments weren't directly over the low compartments: they were offset (staggered) and overlapping. So walking down the corridor, you'd see doors for low, hi, low, hi, etc. The exterior of the car shows this, with the zig-zag pattern of windows. I gather it was hard to take interior pictures of the Slumbercoaches which gave a good feel for the overall layout, because the space was so tight?... I've seen a few photos from within a compartment, but I don't recall seeing one of the corridor, or looking into compartments from the corridor, which I think would help make the layout clearer.]


Most of the Slumbercoaches had 24 Single rooms and 8 double room. They had a capacity of 40 almost twice the normal standard sleeping car like a 10/6 which had a capacity of 22. All the Slumbercoaches there built as Slumbercoaches were built by Budd. The NYC had some Slumbercoaches that had 16 Single Rooms and 10 Double rooms which were converted from 22 roomette Sleeping Cars. Seaboard Coast Line's Slumbercoaches were 16 Duplex roomettes and 4 Double Rooms which were converted from B&O Sleeping cars with the same layout.


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## TVRM610 (Feb 11, 2008)

~guest~ said:


> I think there is a question that needs to be addressed here, as it sounds like everyone is just talking about bringing back the past.
> For rail to be viable, the average person has to accept that the time spent in transit is reasonable. For example, courtesy of air travel, passengers accept that Baltimore to Miami is 2.5 hours. That same trip on Amtrak is 24+ hours, over a day. The majority of the money spent on transportation comes from business. When comparing the two, times and costs, air is going to win in the business travelers mind.
> 
> Cross country trips on air are 4-5 hours, and 3 1/2 days on rail. To the average person today, that is simply too slow.
> ...


I don't think the average person is going to want to travel from Chicago to Seattle by train vs. air in the nearby future. Sure some people like to do it for the relaxation, and experience, and we all like to do it because we enjoy amtrak. But the average person will fly every time.

Which is why in my proposal, Amtrak should continue creating corridors linking major cities. As an example Atlanta GA - Charlotte NC. Atlanta to Charlotte takes 4 hours to drive by car, currently the crescent takes 4.5 hours to make that same journey. If the track was in such a condition as to run an average speed of 90 mph (110 max speed) then you could make the entire journey in 3 hours or so. (Realistically in this country, your never gonna get better than 3.5 hours probably though).

Now, not only is that saving time vs. driving, but flying too! By the time you get to the airport 2 hours early, and ride your 1 hour flight, you have spent 3 hours on your travel. (Not including waiting for your luggage after the flight, riding trams to your gate/car etc. etc.)

Many more corridors like the NEC could be quite sucessful in my opinion. As these corridors expanded, long distance service could also gain, as people get used to taking the train, and realize the comfort.

In this scenario, the Carolinian and the Atlanta-Charlotte Corridor could be combined and take the place all together of the crescent. (One through train running NYP-ATL), then one daily train could run from Atlanta to New Orleans with Atlanta being a change point, or a thru coach.

I'm sure many more examples like this could be found in the amtrak system.


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## Green Maned Lion (Feb 11, 2008)

If we create these corridors, sleeper service will be history. No way.


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## TVRM610 (Feb 11, 2008)

Green Maned Lion said:


> If we create these corridors, sleeper service will be history. No way.


Haha... I know where your coming from!

The good news is amtrak won't listen to me anyways! The sleepers are safe!

I'm not saying eliminate all sleepers. Perhaps under this theory the Crescent would still run as the crescent, but in more high speed territory, so in less time (but still overnight).

In my mind, the corridors enhance the long distance trains, not completely replace them.


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## Galls (Feb 11, 2008)

Green Maned Lion said:


> If we create these corridors, sleeper service will be history. No way.



That is a rather selfish outlook on amtrak if you consider to be a public service.

I say that good heartedly by the way.


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## Green Maned Lion (Feb 11, 2008)

Sleeper service trains are essential to their making sense over airplanes. The concept of sleeping while moving is what allows a train to work better than faster planes.


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## Galls (Feb 11, 2008)

Green Maned Lion said:


> Sleeper service trains are essential to their making sense over airplanes. The concept of sleeping while moving is what allows a train to work better than faster planes.



This is a sound theory, and on overnight trips, not multi night trips but clearly there is a market. But if amtrak is a public service, then does it have a right to compete with private industry in what I personally consider a luxury market?


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## George Harris (Feb 11, 2008)

Galls said:


> Green Maned Lion said:
> 
> 
> > Sleeper service trains are essential to their making sense over airplanes. The concept of sleeping while moving is what allows a train to work better than faster planes.
> ...


This question was actually answered about 80 years ago with the shoe on the other foot with the beginning of the huge public expenditure for airports, air mail subsidies and other goodies to encourage the airline industry. It has been non-stop ever since. Now that we are talking about essentially nickel and dime assistance for railroad passenger service the descendants of same people that benefited from the air subsidies are howling. Sorry, no sympathy.


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## Galls (Feb 11, 2008)

George Harris said:


> Galls said:
> 
> 
> > Green Maned Lion said:
> ...


Well that seems to be a different argument about nationalized rail infrastructure. While amtrak running a luxury service, in its current funding state and a de facto monopoly, is the conflict I was hinting at.


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## AlanB (Feb 11, 2008)

Galls said:


> George Harris said:
> 
> 
> > Galls said:
> ...


Well that luxury service is not only paying for itself, it's actually helping to reduce the subsidies needed for coach service.


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## Green Maned Lion (Feb 11, 2008)

Amtrak has not stopped people from competing with it if they felt a desire to do so.


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## Amtrak OBS Gone Freight (Feb 11, 2008)

GG-1 said:


> Kramerica said:
> 
> 
> > Step 1 - Unions
> ...



Hey GG-1.... very well said!

OBS gone freight...


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## Kramerica (Feb 12, 2008)

GG-1 said:


> Kramerica said:
> 
> 
> > Step 1 - Unions
> ...


I'm not backing down from my statement, but you're right in that I should have included "Bust the Management" as well. Management problems have been well-documented on this forum too. Both in terms of too many layers, and in terms of being ineffective. They cost money and reduce customer satisfaction.

A century ago, unions were needed because of the awful working conditions and hours. But now we have government regulations over workplace conditions, and there are so many more job options for people now, that if you don't like the hours, you can get a different job.

I would consider any change in my "work rules". That's because I don't have work rules. I'm an engineer (not of the train type, sorry!) and I've been hired to do engineering and I've got a set amount of pay. But in reality I do whatever my boss tells me I should do. For the most part I do engineering, but my duties include other stuff, like spare parts sales. And if I don't like it, I'm free to find another job.

So that's where I'm coming from about Amtrak employees. They've agreed to work certain shifts for a certain amount of pay with general expectations of what they'll be doing. But if their boss on the train tells them they need to do something different (as long as it is safe and within their skill set), they should do it. And if they don't like it, find another job.

In a perfect workplace, labor needs to be flexible to serve customers in an efficient manner, and management need to balance the needs of the workers and the customers. It appears that at Amtrak we have neither.

Here are some ideas for work rules changes, courtesy of AlanB:



> There are many different work rule changes that Amtrak is seeking and quite honestly I'm not sure what they all are. However, one example is that currently Amtrak cannot call a sleeping car attendant in to work for example in the dining car as a waiter/waitress. That's considered a different craft. This hurts flexibility in scheduling and forces Amtrak to hire more people just to cover the schedules.
> Oddly enough, the Autotrain operates under a different contract and there they can and do regularly swap jobs between coach attendant, dining car attendant, sleeping car attendant, and cafe attendant. This is one reason, although not the only reason that the AT does rather well financially. It still doesn't turn a profit, but it does come much closer than most of the other LD's.


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## Amtrak OBS Gone Freight (Feb 12, 2008)

Kramerica said:


> GG-1 said:
> 
> 
> > Kramerica said:
> ...


Well I have stayed quiet on this, but I am getting in on you now! Allow me to educate you on a few things. This example Alan points out is only partially true! It is true in the sense that Amtrak can't pull someone out of their current job to do another job! An employee holding a regular bulletined position has the right to hold that job and perform the duties within in it without worry of reassignment! And that is the way it should be everywhere! Now on the extra board, every effort is already made to have each employee qualified in the other crafts so they may be used with more flexibilty. So it is possible an employee can be called as a waiter/waitress for this trip, and on the next trip be called for the sleepers! If they are not qualified in that craft then they cannot be used. Amtrak knows this, and instructs each new employee in the OBS dept in all the crafts it can to qualify them. The employee also gets paid for the highest craft they work even if they work a lower wage craft unless they were hired after 2004. "Auto Train" on the other hand as Alan states, has a provison in their contract where even regular posted positions are swapped around depending on their rotation in the job cycle. And all that is fine and dandy because it has been agreed upon by Amtrak and the Union.

So this business you state of "busting the unions" as well as "busting the management" is a load crap (though there is room for some reform on both sides)! If it weren't for the unions, Amtrak would be paying close to minimum wage or around eight dollars per hour for the same if not more work placed on the employees! And in case you don't realize it, Amtrak employees (actually all agreement covered railroad employees) know they signed the agreement as outlined between the union and Amtrak (or another employer) pertaining to their employment. And I find most employees and management will follow the provisions in each contract in good faith with a few exceptions. And we cannot rely solely on the government to enforce their regulations!

So in closing I am sure your mind is set, but it is always easier for someone who is on the outside to make a judgment call or come up with all the answers! I'd like to see how you would handle it if you were one of us! If you really didn't like your current job, would you then do what it takes to find that new job you so freely say you can go find? I did. Amtrak furloughed me and I crossed over to the freight sector. It took a while, but it happened and I couldn't be happier. But I don't want to work in a non-unionized situation again unless I am working for myself! I see too much where the benefits help all parties involved in the long run (union, employees, and management). Even though I left Amtrak for better opportunity, I would still go back to them before I would ever take a different job which was non-unionized or which the conditions weren't stregnthen due to a past union's involvement!

OBS gone freight...


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## Galls (Feb 12, 2008)

I am assuming that OBS means on board services?


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## Kramerica (Feb 12, 2008)

WICT106 said:


> Some good ideas here, but we have to figure out how to finance the whole thing.


I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on my ideas, or expanding upon them.

Financing - a 1 penny/gallon gas tax should do the trick. I'm a highway proponent too (actually I'm a transportation proponent - air, rail, sea, road), and I think improved Amtrak would be a boon for motorists as well. Less wear on our roads, fewer cars on the roads, less congestion. We cannot rely on one mode of transport. The more modes we have, the better our chance of having and using the right one for the particular situation.


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## George Harris (Feb 12, 2008)

Concerning our "Bust the Union" guys: While I am not a big fan of Unions as they normally operate, they are a necessity in a lot of businesses. Otherwise conditions would approach slavery in the situation where they guy does not care whether the slave lives or not.

In most businesses and industires with strong unions, the strong unions were developed due to one primary factor: Bad Management.

I am sure that there are a lot of us here that could come up with numerous examples of bad, stupid, uncaring, and underhanded management without much effort. Dilbert management is all too real in many places. Sometimes inept and ignorant is much easier to deal with than the malicious character who is trying to prop up his buddies and deflect blame for his screw-ups on someone else.

Kramerica: You need to realize that, even ignoring "global warming" which I regard as more politics and a power grab than anything else, we are not going to keep being able to find and burn oil forever. Therefore, we have got to figure out methods that where ever people are moving in significant numbers to provide very low energy consuming methods of hauling them, and that means rail. In freight it is even more critical. We should in this country be doing our utmost to find methods of generating electricity that do not involve burning oil, gas, or coal and stringing wires over railroads. Both short haul flights and long haul trucking should be discouraged with an eye toward their ultimate elimination.


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## AlanB (Feb 12, 2008)

Galls said:


> I am assuming that OBS means on board services?


Correct.


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## Green Maned Lion (Feb 12, 2008)

Both OBS gone Freight and Kramerica are right and wrong for different reasons. Unions make a lot of sense, assuming the employer is of the mind to justify the need for one. Unions are, however, also massive buearucratic monoliths, and as such are inherently inefficient. They cost money, time, and effort that has no effect, although they do have an effect. A good deal of the time, money, and effort spent on them accomplishes nothing more than cutting through red tape. A more efficient system ALWAYS runs without red tape, although efficiency is not always possible due to the selfish nature of human beings.


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## George Harris (Feb 12, 2008)

Green Maned Lion said:


> Both OBS gone Freight and Kramerica are right and wrong for different reasons. Unions make a lot of sense, assuming the employer is of the mind to justify the need for one. Unions are, however, also massive buearucratic monoliths, and as such are inherently inefficient. They cost money, time, and effort that has no effect, although they do have an effect. A good deal of the time, money, and effort spent on them accomplishes nothing more than cutting through red tape. A more efficient system ALWAYS runs without red tape, although efficiency is not always possible due to the selfish nature of human beings.


Exactly. Too many times you find that you have changed from dealing with the boss's incompetent friends and relatives to dealing with the union official's incometent friends and relatives, and the second class of no-counts seem to be harder to get rid of.


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## Galls (Feb 12, 2008)

AlanB said:


> Galls said:
> 
> 
> > I am assuming that OBS means on board services?
> ...


So besides the unpredictable schedule on the less than prompt long distance trains, how do the staff requirements for on board services differ from other hospitality jobs?

If there is no major difference and amtrak were allowed to hire at market rates, not union rates then their operating costs would be much, much lower.


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## AlanB (Feb 12, 2008)

Galls said:


> AlanB said:
> 
> 
> > Galls said:
> ...


This forum has dozens of topics comparing OBS jobs vs other jobs. Bottom line is that there is no fair comparision. Hotel maids are not required to provide meals to people occupying roooms. Most resturant workers don't have to work 17 hour days, much less contend with the bouncing train. When was the last time the cook in your local resturant had to cook while someone was shaking both the floor under him and the stove he was cooking on?

Are there similarities, sure. Making a bed is making a bed. But making a bed in a room the size of two phone booths can be an art in and of itself. Perhaps however the greatest difference between any OBS worker vs and worker in the hospitality industry, is that those workers go home each night to their families and their own beds.


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## Green Maned Lion (Feb 12, 2008)

I almost took a job with Conrail as a trainman. I really liked the work, and the pay (a lot more than I could have gotten elsewhere at the time) but the fact is, they can make you work 16 hours a day. (12 hours on, 8 hours off) I'd only be home to sleep and be out to work again. I have great respect for rail workers. Its a very hard job, and I don't think they are over paid by any means.

But there are probably millions of dollars of unneeded costs being spent on the Union's officials, their lawyers, Amtrak's unions liaisons, and Amtrak's union-related legal expenses that really would be a pretty nice savings. Given Amtrak's history, though, I don't know if they are responsible enough with their employees to be operating without a Union.


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## jackal (Feb 12, 2008)

AlanB said:


> Galls said:
> 
> 
> > AlanB said:
> ...


Having worked in a union as a brakeman on a railroad, I have to agree with Kramerica and Green Maned Lion. There were many stipulations in our union agreement that were very beneficial for the employees but, truthfully, weren't necessary.

One that came to mind was the penalty the railroad had to pay a yard crew if the yard crew was used outside of their terminal. We got an 8-hour straight time pay bonus if we set one foot south of a certain crossing about 45 miles south of the terminal. When dogcatching dead crews past this crossing, it was great for us, and I understand why it was negotiated (to keep the railroad from using lower-paid yard jobs on the normally higher-paying road jobs, although the difference was all of a couple bucks an hour), but was it really necessary?

Another that comes to mind would be the minimum crew requirements (brakeman required on freights longer than 5,280', brakeman _and_ fireman on most passenger trains, fireman on passenger charters, etc.). These are good rules of thumb, but what is it about a magic number that makes an extra person necessary? What it resulted in is all freights being kept to under 5,280' to keep crew costs down but resulting in inefficiencies because of the need to run more trains or to delay shipments to customers until the next train.

I don't buy the argument that without the unions, work conditions would approach slavery. In today's world, there's too much freedom to leave. Yes, it might hurt a bit if you've got a lot of time invested in a career, but there are tons of blue-collar (and other) jobs that pay just as well as working on the railroad (and many offer better hours). If you don't like the working conditions, go work on construction or in the oilfields or in forestry or anything else.

And in the OBS world, yes, some of the jobs may be made more difficult by the tight quarters and movement, but in a market economy, Amtrak would be forced to pay more than the going rate for housecleaning, cooks, and waitstaff simply because of the working conditions--if they didn't, they'd lose their employees to hotels and restaurants that allow their staff to go home every night. And as far as AlanB's question of whether hotel maids were required to provide meals to people in their rooms--true, it's usually not the case at a normal hotel, but if a hotel owner wanted to make it a job requirement, he'd have every right to do so, and if the maid didn't like it, she'd be free to quit and go work at a hotel where it wasn't a job requirement.

Here's a real-world example. After dealing with a high turnover rate, my current employer in the service industry has finally learned that incentivizing the employees for their performance and providing them a decent pay has actually _increased_ their profits, as we now have a solid team of reliable workers who are capable salespeople. It's much better than training new employees every few months. So, yes, some employers don't have the smartest and best management and it likely takes awhile to learn this lesson (and some employers do feel that the cost of hiring and training new employees is lower than keeping current ones--but that's a business owner's prerogative), but it can and does happen. And I much prefer the working environment here, where while we do have our share of complaints about the management, we're at least on the same team as them and don't have an us-versus-the-company mentality. (That was the mindset on the railroad: do whatever you can to *#$% the company out of its money.)

The only argument I've heard that might pass some muster is that unions are there to ensure the safety of the operation. They give the employees the ability to stand up and say that the working conditions are unsafe without fear of retribution. But in today's world, the company has just as much of an incentive to make working conditions safe (lower worker's comp costs, lower employee turnover costs, and reduced risk of lawsuits) as the employees do. And truthfully, most of the safety directives where I worked came from the railroad management, not the union contract, and the management did pride themselves on having a lower-than-industry-average rate of incidents. If you find the working conditions unsafe and don't feel you can speak up, well, there are other jobs out there. Maybe there weren't in the days of the Industrial Revolution when unions came to power, but in today's world, employers no longer have a stranglehold on the market. I've known too many people who were fed up with their jobs, or who had a dream to do something, and worked their butts off to attend night school or otherwise work their way through college--I myself have worked full-time and gone to school full-time, and it hasn't been easy--to support the victim mentality that you're stuck in your current job and your only hope for survival is a strong union to back you up.

I'm sorry to come off so harshly on this (I know I'm new to this board). I don't usually take such a strong stand on things. Let me soften it up a bit: I'm not saying that unions are bad. Unions _can_ do good work, and I would agree that it makes for a happier society when people can stand up for what's right (especially in the face of bad or greedy management). And of course it's more pleasant when someone can stay in a job and build it into a well-paying career without being forced to constantly fear being out of work or having to look for other jobs, especially when the economy's in a bit of a downturn. But is that worth the high cost and low efficiency factor that unions generally create? Some of the negotiated terms are valid, but some of the other stipulations, such as not allowing an OBS worker to work a different craft, are ludicrous and obviously designed to protect jobs from being cut. Again, it's nice when someone knows that their job is secure, but honestly, if a train _can_ run with three fewer workers (or whatever) and save a huge amount in staffing, why is that a bad idea? And if the train truly _cannot_ run with three fewer employees without service going to heck in a handbasket, the company would be forced to put more on or risk upsetting the customers to the point they won't come back. (If Amtrak were a free-market enterprise, they'd be forced to do something or risk going out of business, at which point a competitor could take over their route structure or open up a new operation. I'm not an economist or even a business major, so I won't pretend to understand the economics of what could/would happen.)

All right, enough on this--I have a research paper to write. I'm sure there are lots of holes in my arguments that folks will be happy to point out...


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## Galls (Feb 12, 2008)

AlanB said:


> Galls said:
> 
> 
> > AlanB said:
> ...


Yes but even that probably does not counter the internal and external equity that OBS actually has. I mean when I glanced over the 2007 audit it seems that amtrak is almost in as bad a situation as Detroit is. They are offering blue collar workers, what are now benefits only seen in white collar jobs.


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## Green Maned Lion (Feb 12, 2008)

You know, I'm college educated. I graduated close to the top of my major (entrepreneurship), and more than one professor has told me I am the brightest student they have ever had. I could go for a white collar job, probably make six figures a year, and accomplish absolutely nothing with my life. I have more respect for one good blue collar worker than I have for an office full of white collar workers.

Maybe its because my best friend's dad was a private venture type who would take over companies and turn them around. And he showed me how much of people who are sitting in white collar jobs do almost nothing. I mean, there were people who were writing important reports for another department, who promptly would place them in file folders and file them diligently away in file drawers. Nobody knew what was in them in the department who got them because they never read them. My friend's dad fixed some of the problems of that company by canning and scrapping both departments. They had managers who did no work because the only thing they did was delegate work to the people they hired to do the work for them. Work that one person could easily do, and did do once the company was restructured.

Amtrak's OBS crew provides actual services to Amtrak passengers. Yeah, some are surly little jerks but most of them aren't. You just remember the bad ones more clearly. Freight workers do important jobs that are essential to the continued working of our economy, actually moving things other than sheets of paper from A to B. Carpenters build actual things. Autoworkers build cars.

Are there heavily overpaid people in the blue collar industry? No crap. But I have yet to see a blue collar worker half as overpaid as most so-called "middle management". They are so overpaid they are getting a paycheck for an actual productivity value of zero. The essential concept, belief, and sentiment that a blue collar worker making the same as a white collar worker is wrong pisses me off to no end.


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## AlanB (Feb 12, 2008)

Galls said:


> AlanB said:
> 
> 
> > Galls said:
> ...


Well remember that only now, 8 years later, are Amtrak and the unions close to a new contract. That means that things haven't kept pace with the current trends in the market place. And in fact more than one person has suggested that the Amtrak workers may actually have been better off without real raises (they've only received cost of living raises), since they all still get fully paid medical benefits and other things that most other workers and unions no longer get.

But again, that doesn't change the fact that most (although not all) OBS workers do work harder and far longer hours than the average worker in a semi-comparable job. Union or not, Amtrak would have no choice but to pay these workers a higher salary than they could get elsewhere working in a semi-related job off the rails. If Amtrak didn't, then they wouldn't have any workers, as no one would subject themselves to the harder job if the rewards (salary or otherwise) weren't there.


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## Galls (Feb 12, 2008)

AlanB said:


> Well remember that only now, 8 years later, are Amtrak and the unions close to a new contract. That means that things haven't kept pace with the current trends in the market place. And in fact more than one person has suggested that the Amtrak workers may actually have been better off without real raises (they've only received cost of living raises), since they all still get fully paid medical benefits and other things that most other workers and unions no longer get.
> But again, that doesn't change the fact that most (although not all) OBS workers do work harder and far longer hours than the average worker in a semi-comparable job. *Union or not, Amtrak would have no choice but to pay these workers a higher salary than they could get elsewhere working in a semi-related job off the rails.* If Amtrak didn't, then they wouldn't have any workers, as no one would subject themselves to the harder job if the rewards (salary or otherwise) weren't there.


While

Besides on corridor operations, where 4 hours out and 4 hours back is possible, I do agree with you just not to the extent which they are currently compensated.

If an ideal intercity rail in this country ever came into existence, frequency and reliability began to exist on mid and long distance trains it would be wise of amtrak to use a trains mobility to their advantage. Instead of operating crews out of high living cost areas they could base their crew out of the cheaper living locations along a route. If franchising where to ever happen you can bet this would be a principle cost cutter.


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## AlanB (Feb 12, 2008)

Galls said:


> AlanB said:
> 
> 
> > Well remember that only now, 8 years later, are Amtrak and the unions close to a new contract. That means that things haven't kept pace with the current trends in the market place. And in fact more than one person has suggested that the Amtrak workers may actually have been better off without real raises (they've only received cost of living raises), since they all still get fully paid medical benefits and other things that most other workers and unions no longer get.
> ...


First, I had always believed that we were talking about long distance obs and that is what I've been basing my statements on, not corridor obs.

Second, corridor obs are vastly different than LD obs.

Three, OBS references On Board Service people. They are the workers who run cafe cars, dining cars, and the sleepers. OBS does not include conductors or engineers.

Fourth, with some exceptions (namly Acela), corridor obs typically see only one OBS worker. So the cost is considerably less than the OBS costs of a LD train.

Fifth, staffing a train from mid-point will never work since you'd have to transport the people from their "living location" to the start of their work location. Airlines don't change flight attendants halfway through the flight, cruise ships don't pick up new workers off the various islands/ports that they stop at. Travelers expect that the service crew remains constant through out the journey.

Sixth, franchising will never happen since running trains was never profitable, still isn't profitable, and never will be profitable. The only way someone other than Amtrak will run passenger service, is if they are guaranteed not to loose money doing so. And that means subsidies.


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## Guest (Feb 13, 2008)

Alan,

"running trains was never profitable"

I'm not trying to be picky here, but don't you think that passenger trains have made money at some point in their history?


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## jackal (Feb 13, 2008)

AlanB said:


> Three, OBS references On Board Service people. They are the workers who run cafe cars, dining cars, and the sleepers. OBS does not include conductors or engineers.


Don't know if this was directed at me or GML or someone else, but I was referring to operating crews specifically because that's where my experience in a union was. There is a difference between blue-collar train crews and service-industry OBS staff, but my points should be transferable between them.



AlanB said:


> Fifth, staffing a train from mid-point will never work since you'd have to transport the people from their "living location" to the start of their work location. Airlines don't change flight attendants halfway through the flight, cruise ships don't pick up new workers off the various islands/ports that they stop at. Travelers expect that the service crew remains constant through out the journey.


True, except that trains change their operating crews several times on each LD route and have no problem doing that. I wouldn't expect the service crew to remain constant: if I got a new car attendant or cafe attendant, I'd be just fine with that, as long as any concerns or requests I'd made were passed on in a crew briefing (like a relacement train crew does a briefing with the outgoing one and/or with the dispatcher).

This is not directed at GML specifically, as I do agree that it's wrong to insinuate that blue-collar workers are somehow less than white-collar middle-management, but I did want to make one comment:

I know it doesn't seem fair to most people that a hard-working janitor or hotel maid can be paid so little while white-collar, college-educated management is paid so much, and I don't necessarily believe that Fortune 500 CEOs are often worth the millions they pay themselves, but the truth is that anyone who's desperate for a job can go to these entry-level, minimum-wage jobs while it takes special talent to cast a vision to run a company effectively. I've been a janitor, a blue-collar laborer, and a middle manager (in a very small company in the service industry--honestly, my job would likely fall into the category your dad would can, but hey, the job was handed to me), and I know several visionary executive-types personally, and I have to say that they're worth their salt (though none of the ones I know makes millions). Although I don't know him, Jim Sinegal of Costco is a great example of a visionary guy and an effective leader who has the humility to draw a fairly small (for a company his size) salary but one that provides a perfectly fine standard of living. But it's precisely those qualities that make him such a good leader and Costco such a well-run company--the greedy executives of the Enrons and Tycos will eventually fall. Just knowing how screwed up government bureaucracy can be, I just can't support government regulating what people are paid. Unions aren't much better. But if a union could negotiate contracts fairly for both the employes and the company and without creating a employee-versus-company mentality, I might have less of a problem with unions. Unfortunately, they're selfish and only look out for their own, to the downfall of the company itself, which ends up hurting the employees by putting them out of work (union contracts with defunct companies do no good). _That's_ the problem I have with unions, not that the workers themselves are not worth it.


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## AlanB (Feb 13, 2008)

Guest said:


> Alan,
> "running trains was never profitable"
> 
> I'm not trying to be picky here, but don't you think that passenger trains have made money at some point in their history?


I'm suspect that were one to look at one specific moment in time, one could indeed find a brief point(s) where passenger trains made a small profit. But as a whole over the course of time, and pre-Amtrak, moving passengers by train (or any other mode for that matter) has not been profitable. The airlines collectively have barely broken even over the course of time, bus companies come and go and those that remain probably wouldn't remain without help, even if that help is only not having to pay the true value of their passage over our streets and highways.

But freight companies for years funded passenger ops out of their freight profits. Passenger service continued initially because it was a source of pride and advertisement, and then mainly because government forced the freight Co's to continue running passenger service.


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## AlanB (Feb 13, 2008)

jackal said:


> AlanB said:
> 
> 
> > Three, OBS references On Board Service people. They are the workers who run cafe cars, dining cars, and the sleepers. OBS does not include conductors or engineers.
> ...


It wasn't directed at you. Based upon a comment by Galls, I just wanted to make sure that we were talking about the same jobs.



jackal said:


> AlanB said:
> 
> 
> > Fifth, staffing a train from mid-point will never work since you'd have to transport the people from their "living location" to the start of their work location. Airlines don't change flight attendants halfway through the flight, cruise ships don't pick up new workers off the various islands/ports that they stop at. Travelers expect that the service crew remains constant through out the journey.
> ...


And I have no problem with the operating crew changing multiple times and in fact I'm quite comforted by that idea. Personally though, I rather like waking up in the morning knowing that I'm looking for the same attendant to put my beds up. And that he/she isn't staring at me, wondering if I actually belong in the sleeper or if I'm a coach pax who snuck back to the sleeper.

It also makes things easier in the diner, as the crews tend to remember whose a sleeping car pax vs. a coach pax. And in the case of the diner, stops aren't always conviently located in the right place at the right time for meals, so as to be able to swap the crews without hurting service. And what happens if the train is running late now. Does the current crew go off duty and say "Sorry, no meals my shift is over?" Then we pax sit there waiting for Amtrak to bus the new crew in, along with the operating crew.

Personally I'm not sure that it can be done differently, much less better than it already is being done.


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## wayman (Feb 13, 2008)

TVRM610 said:


> In this scenario, the Carolinian and the Atlanta-Charlotte Corridor could be combined and take the place all together of the crescent. (One through train running NYP-ATL), then one daily train could run from Atlanta to New Orleans with Atlanta being a change point, or a thru coach.


The Carolinian and the Crescent don't take the same route through Virginia and North Carolinia--not at all!


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## GG-1 (Feb 13, 2008)

jackal said:


> Unions aren't much better. But if a union could negotiate contracts fairly for both the employes and the company and without creating a employee-versus-company mentality, I might have less of a problem with unions. Unfortunately, they're selfish and only look out for their own, to the downfall of the company itself, which ends up hurting the employees by putting them out of work (union contracts with defunct companies do no good). _That's_ the problem I have with unions, not that the workers themselves are not worth it.


That is the statement that bothers me. MOST union leaders truly understand the COMPANY needs to survive. But what happens all to often is misrepresentation. The misrepresentation created the hard nose attitude, whether it is from the members or Union officials or management.

Some times bad choices occur, In my industry bad Choices can kill, some of the same choices can and have killed in the Rail/transportation industry.

I remember my first contract committee session very clearly even today. We wanted only 15 cents per hour, to go from 3.85 to 4.00 per hour. The employer showed up at the session driving the car that was written up in the local newspapers as the most expensive car ever sold in the Islands, This car was a gift to his wife. Is main car use to be the most expensive car car sold in the Islands. about 12 years ago this same employer was in the newspaper as finally some one else could claim the record for the most expensive car, this was after about 20 years, The settlement way back then 1972 was 4.25 per hour I think we stayed reasonable.

This does not mean either side is good or bad, we can just hope that BALANCE can be found.

Mahalo


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## meatpuff (Feb 13, 2008)

jackal said:


> I know it doesn't seem fair to most people that a hard-working janitor or hotel maid can be paid so little while white-collar, college-educated management is paid so much, and I don't necessarily believe that Fortune 500 CEOs are often worth the millions they pay themselves, but the truth is that anyone who's desperate for a job can go to these entry-level, minimum-wage jobs while it takes special talent to cast a vision to run a company effectively. ...
> 
> I know several visionary executive-types personally, and I have to say that they're worth their salt (though none of the ones I know makes millions). Although I don't know him, Jim Sinegal of Costco is a great example of a visionary guy and an effective leader who has the humility to draw a fairly small (for a company his size) salary but one that provides a perfectly fine standard of living. But it's precisely those qualities that make him such a good leader and Costco such a well-run company--the greedy executives of the Enrons and Tycos will eventually fall.


People are generally paid by what value they add. So if you are an assembly line worker at an auto plant, you will be paid along the lines of what percentage of work you did in transforming a pile of raw materials into a much more valuable automobile. Talented white-collar managers and CEOs can add quite a bit of value. If a CEO of a large-ish corporation can see how to eliminate waste to help the company's bottom line to the tune of $15M per year, then what a bargain to pay him a one million dollar salary! CEOs having the vision, knowledge and iron will to make these kind of changes are rare, and are paid accordingly.


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## meatpuff (Feb 13, 2008)

Kramerica said:


> A century ago, unions were needed because of the awful working conditions and hours. But now we have government regulations over workplace conditions, and there are so many more job options for people now, that if you don't like the hours, you can get a different job.
> I would consider any change in my "work rules". That's because I don't have work rules. I'm an engineer (not of the train type, sorry!) and I've been hired to do engineering and I've got a set amount of pay. But in reality I do whatever my boss tells me I should do. For the most part I do engineering, but my duties include other stuff, like spare parts sales. And if I don't like it, I'm free to find another job.


I'm sorry if this gets a little off-topic, but I find your lack of respect for the labor movement and its history a little short-sighted.

The labor movement and unions are the people who brought you such novelties as the ten- and then eight-hour day, the weekend, and the end of child labor. Many people were fired and indeed killed to reach these achievements, and this was only recently: the eight-hour day being written into law arrived within the lifetimes of our grandparents (1938).

It was the attitudes that had to be changed first before the laws. In the early 20th century if you would have preferred your job digging ditches to have shifts shorter than twelve hours, you would have just been considered lazy. This is in analogy to the civil rights movement, where before the 1960s the place of women and blacks in society were just considered to be where they belonged. It took years of organizing, sacrificing and being shot at by the US National Guard in both cases for these attitudes to change. Whether your job is digging ditches or digging through lines of C, you today have benefitted from these brave activists.

Your statement about there being lots of job options misses the point. As wages and benefits to workers decrease, there will be more job options - supply and demand. For example, every fast food restaurant in my town is hiring. This was also true after the Industrial Revolution and before the Labor Movement; indeed, there were enough jobs even for every ten-year old to find one!

Your being part of the class of knowledge workers as an engineer does protect you for right now, but this might change. Right now, the market for knowledge workers is better than that for manual labor. This is because not everyone has certain training while everyone has a pair of arms. But it may not always be this way in many knowledge jobs. Indeed, recently the TV and movie industry decided they would give less and less of the pie to their writers going forward, and only vigorous opposition and a strike from the Writer's Guild was able to prevent that. And TV writers _are_ talented, white-collar, college-educated knowledge workers!

We will probably see more of this in the coming years in more fields. The job market will swamped over the next decades by millions or billions or Chinese, Indians and others with the equivalent of a US bachelor's degree. This may make a college education, even in engineering, more akin to a pair of arms than to something special in more and more fields.

There are certain bad apples in every arena. For example, though I personally find Al Sharpton to be irritating, I still honor the past and future goals of the civil rights movement to make sure _every_ American is allowed to contribute to society. Similarly, I personally find the work rules of some Amtrak workers to be anachronistic (more appropriate to the Steam Age) and there is no question that certain unions have killed their employer to preserve their benefits. I am happy to ciriticize these "bad apples" over their selfishness. But I still honor the past accomplishments and future of the labor movement, and the role of unions.

I myself am leaving school next year with a graduate degree in electrical engineering. There's no way I'll end up being in a union. But I respect their role in the past in giving me decent working conditions, and their probable role in protecting the middle class moving forward, and keeping the American Dream alive for the non-Learjet set (who don't take Amtrak and aren't on this board anyway  ). We must make sure that the hard-won attitudes of today about labor don't regress, so that the labor movement won't have to go through all that again if they end up being truly needed in the coming decades!


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## Kramerica (Feb 13, 2008)

George Harris said:


> Kramerica: You need to realize that, even ignoring "global warming" which I regard as more politics and a power grab than anything else, we are not going to keep being able to find and burn oil forever. Therefore, we have got to figure out methods that where ever people are moving in significant numbers to provide very low energy consuming methods of hauling them, and that means rail. In freight it is even more critical. We should in this country be doing our utmost to find methods of generating electricity that do not involve burning oil, gas, or coal and stringing wires over railroads. Both short haul flights and long haul trucking should be discouraged with an eye toward their ultimate elimination.


I'm confused. Where did I ever post anything about finding and burning oil forever? Also, I am in favor of improved rail infrastructure, contrary to what you seem to be saying about me in the paragraph above.


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## Green Maned Lion (Feb 13, 2008)

jackal said:


> True, except that trains change their operating crews several times on each LD route and have no problem doing that. I wouldn't expect the service crew to remain constant: if I got a new car attendant or cafe attendant, I'd be just fine with that, as long as any concerns or requests I'd made were passed on in a crew briefing (like a relacement train crew does a briefing with the outgoing one and/or with the dispatcher).


People who take OBS jobs, or at least a notable portion of them, probably like their lifestyle, difficult as it may be. Prior to meeting my g/f, I probably would have loved that lifestyle and jumped at the chance to work a LD OBS job. Some of the OBS are gigantic pricks who should never be in a service-industry job. They make up about 10% of Amtrak's LD OBS people, I'd wager. The rest of them are the backbone of Amtrak's long-distance business.

Ask anybody in the car industry. Cutting costs is the most difficult thing in business when it comes to avoiding middle-management excess. Why? Because cutting costs can sometimes reduce pointless expense and excess. It is more likely, however, to cut quality. Imprudent cost cutting has brought the American auto industry to its knees.

If you can remove a worker from the kitchen of a dining car without me, a passenger, noticing, go right ahead. But if the passenger will notice, god forbid you do it. The adjustment on the CONO was a master-stroke, although I would have based it on a Lounge. SDS was an act of peerless idiocy.

Changing OBS along a route would possibly reduce cost mildly. It would probably increase it in the event of late trains. In the end it would barely cut cost in total, while degrading the level of service incredibly. What makes Amtrak's long distance lateness tolerable are the OBS crews. I can enjoy the extra time on the train in the same level of luxury and comfort as the rest of the trip. If the OBS shut down when the crew went dead, it would be horrible.



jackal said:


> This is not directed at GML specifically, as I do agree that it's wrong to insinuate that blue-collar workers are somehow less than white-collar middle-management, but I did want to make one comment:
> I know it doesn't seem fair to most people that a hard-working janitor or hotel maid can be paid so little while white-collar, college-educated management is paid so much, and I don't necessarily believe that Fortune 500 CEOs are often worth the millions they pay themselves, but the truth is that anyone who's desperate for a job can go to these entry-level, minimum-wage jobs while it takes special talent to cast a vision to run a company effectively. I've been a janitor, a blue-collar laborer, and a middle manager (in a very small company in the service industry--honestly, my job would likely fall into the category your dad would can, but hey, the job was handed to me), and I know several visionary executive-types personally, and I have to say that they're worth their salt (though none of the ones I know makes millions). Although I don't know him, Jim Sinegal of Costco is a great example of a visionary guy and an effective leader who has the humility to draw a fairly small (for a company his size) salary but one that provides a perfectly fine standard of living. But it's precisely those qualities that make him such a good leader and Costco such a well-run company--the greedy executives of the Enrons and Tycos will eventually fall. Just knowing how screwed up government bureaucracy can be, I just can't support government regulating what people are paid. Unions aren't much better. But if a union could negotiate contracts fairly for both the employes and the company and without creating a employee-versus-company mentality, I might have less of a problem with unions. Unfortunately, they're selfish and only look out for their own, to the downfall of the company itself, which ends up hurting the employees by putting them out of work (union contracts with defunct companies do no good). _That's_ the problem I have with unions, not that the workers themselves are not worth it.


First of all, he wasn't my dad. My dad is a psychologist. This was my best-friend's dad. A good CEO is worth his weight in gold. They aren't worth their weight in Platinum, Uranium, diamonds, rubies, or sapphires (which is how some seem to be paid). Without a visionary genius at the helm, a company will not get anywhere. I don't disagree with you.

A good management structure is also important. Even the best CEO can't manage every single worker in a large company. He needs people under him to help, and in really large companies, those people under them need people under them to help too. The larger the company, the more layers of management you need. A person can only manage so much.

The problem is that in far too many situations, there are a lot of things that aren't needed. Cutting jobs amplifies itself, believe it or not. A manager can handle a certain number of people before being overwhelmed. If you cut 300 people from various departments, you can then remove a half dozen or so managers, restructuring the system so that the other managers take the load. If you remove a half dozen managers, you can probably eliminate an upper manager.

These 307 people need things to support them. There are going to be a few secretaries for that group that are now redundant. Fleet managers, logistics people, travel departments, and so on can be made smaller. 320 people cut from the force means 320 less computers. You can remove that expense, and probably a member of your IT staff, as well. Now that you have 321 people no longer working for you, you need 321 peoples worth of less office space. So you can relocate to a smaller building, or derive revenue from renting the unused portion of your current building. Since you are no longer occupying that space, you need less cleaning staff, less security, less maintenance people. You produce less garbage, so your refuse expenses go down.

My friends dad was an extremist, I'll admit. He once told me, "If you have 4 people in a department, and each one is idle for two hours a day, fire one of them." He was also known for cutting out departments entirely and then hiring people to replace them as he saw problems crop up.

He was, however, an intelligent cost cutter, which too many people aren't. If he cut the 4th person, he'd likely give the other three a 15-20% raise. In his mind, he'd still saved between 40 and 55% of the other persons salary, and the remaining workers, while having more work, feel like they are being compensated for it. He hated working around the government, which he saw as an incompetent group of chimps. Were it not for that, he'd probably be an excellent CEO for Amtrak.



AlanB said:


> I'm suspect that were one to look at one specific moment in time, one could indeed find a brief point(s) where passenger trains made a small profit. But as a whole over the course of time, and pre-Amtrak, moving passengers by train (or any other mode for that matter) has not been profitable. The airlines collectively have barely broken even over the course of time, bus companies come and go and those that remain probably wouldn't remain without help, even if that help is only not having to pay the true value of their passage over our streets and highways.


Trains can be, and have been, profitable. Anything can be- you just charge people for it on a cost-plus basis. Before trains had competition, they probably were very profitable. They didn't need to charge competitive pricing, and in those days, people didn't need to move around so much. Going from New York to Chicago is a needed thing for business sometimes these days. A hundred years ago, the number of people who needed or even perceived a need, to do that were few and far between. There wasn't the belief that even relatively poor people should be able to travel a thousand miles if they wanted to.

Private trains can also be profitable. Auto-Train (the company, not the train) was reasonably profitable. They went out of business because they over-extended and were undercapitalized such that they couldn't handle the immediate costs of a couple of derailments. There are a variety of "land-cruise" trains that make profits, as well.

Offering trains as alternative transportation to, say, an airplane at a comparable price, however, can not inherently be profitable due to the subsidized nature of air and road travel. Were taxpayers not charged for road costs, and instead drivers were charged based upon the actual cost of their traversing the road they were driving on, and airlines not having the various subsidies they have and thus had to charge the actual cost of flying people from A to B, then trains too could be profitable.



meatpuff said:


> People are generally paid by what value they add. So if you are an assembly line worker at an auto plant, you will be paid along the lines of what percentage of work you did in transforming a pile of raw materials into a much more valuable automobile. Talented white-collar managers and CEOs can add quite a bit of value. If a CEO of a large-ish corporation can see how to eliminate waste to help the company's bottom line to the tune of $15M per year, then what a bargain to pay him a one million dollar salary! CEOs having the vision, knowledge and iron will to make these kind of changes are rare, and are paid accordingly.


Talented managers make the company work. There are a lot of people working for companies that, were they fired, the company would continue to function well. If such a person exists, they should be fired. Most large companies are full of them. Especially profitable companies. Profits cover a wide variety of sins. The average company, inherently, does not look at costs when profits are high. In other cases, they would prefer not to. Take Exxon-Mobil. I looked at their balance sheet and did some digging on my own into them.

First of all, their profits last year were heavily under-stated. Not illegally- they were quite legal. But in accounting, there are a dozen places where you can decide to do things in a way that increases or decreases apparent income and profit. A lot of internet companies, looking to show profits on their balance sheets, choose all the increases. Most companies choose some one way, some the other, so it balances out. Exxon-Mobil chose all the profit decreasing methods they could. Had they gone with the most aggressive profit showing methods, their profits would have been about 20% higher last year. Had the chosen it in the middle, the way most companies do, it would have been about 12% higher.

Secondly, they have the most bloated corporate structure I have ever seen in my life. There are about 35 layers of management between the bottom-level white collars and the vice presidents that manage them. The spend about 12 billion dollars a year more than they have to on employment expenses. And I'd imagine that they really don't want those 12 billion to show up on their balance sheets, lest some Americans start a mass-lynching campaign.


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## TVRM610 (Feb 13, 2008)

OBS crews start at $15 an hour (on the jobs listing on amtraks website). Does anyone really believe that is too high? The grocery store around the corner from me is hiring casheirs at $9 an hour!

I personally would not call amtrak OBS staff "blue collar" at all. To compare a sleeper attendant to hotel maid is ridiculous. First of all, a sleeper attendant is the Maid, Bellman, Greeter, Tour Guide, and Room Service for everyone on his car ( I challenge any hotel management to try and ask there housekeepers to do all of the above for minnimum wage!)

They also have to have good communication skills, and a professional appearance. I feel like there is a certain type of person that works for amtrak, and they are highly skilled and worth every cent.


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## sweet tea (Feb 13, 2008)

please forgive me if i'm working off bad information here -- almost everything i half-know about amtrak i've picked up from reading this site, so i may be wrong about this -- but it seems to me that the trouble with unions in OBS jobs isn't mostly about salaries.

i, at least, don't think the pay is unreasonable, or at least not unreasonably high. but my impression is that the unions cause two kinds of difficulty when it comes to flexibility:

1. intercraft flexibility. i don't see a good reason that OBS employees, assuming they've had the appropriate training and that there is not a safety issue, can't do more than one craft per trip. if the diner is slammed and the sleepers aren't busy, i don't see why the sleeper attendant can't help seat people, for instance. if the cafe attendant is due for a break, he or she should be relieved, so that passengers can continue to buy. of course, every employee should have adequate scheduled break time, etc., but for the time that they are scheduled to be working, they should be working if work is needed, and helping each other out. this does not seem crazy to me, and i think it would be useful to be flexible in this way.

2. firing flexibility. i take it from earlier discussions -- again, please forgive me if i'm wrong -- that it is difficult to get rid of bad employees who are in the union. that's nonsense. we've all met great employees on trains and lots of decent ones, but the bad ones drive away customers. everyone has a bad day from time to time, and no reasonable (i know, i know) manager will fire someone over a trifle, since trainging, etc., a new employee costs time and money. but sometimes it's not just a bad day, and a manager should be able to deal with that. there's no reason, for instance, that the coach attendant i had on multiple LSL trips should still be around.

if those two changes cost more money in salaries because good people cost more, then so be it. i believe they would save money and build ridership in the long run.


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## jackal (Feb 13, 2008)

Green Maned Lion said:


> Changing OBS along a route would possibly reduce cost mildly. It would probably increase it in the event of late trains. In the end it would barely cut cost in total, while degrading the level of service incredibly. What makes Amtrak's long distance lateness tolerable are the OBS crews. I can enjoy the extra time on the train in the same level of luxury and comfort as the rest of the trip. If the OBS shut down when the crew went dead, it would be horrible.


Very good points in your post, and I find nothing you said to contain anything I disagree with.

I did want to point out, though, that I didn't advocate instituting hours-of-service laws for OBS staff, since they are not in a safety-sensitive position like the train crews are. If a train were delayed such that it were late to a staff change point, I don't see why they wouldn't continue to work and receive overtime pay until the staff change point.

FWIW, I think the points made by sweet tea in the last post are valid. I don't think OBS staff are necessarily overpaid, just that the union has negotiated some rather dumb stipulations meant only to protect the number of jobs and prevent cost-cutting in OBS staff. If the OBS workers' union were to dissolve tomorrow, I don't think Amtrak would or would be able to lower the pay much below the current start of $15 per hour, simply because of the reasons TVRM610 mentioned--they wouldn't be able to hire anyone to do that job for any less! But why can't we let free-market forces determine fair wages rather than a union's selfish attitude that demands to possibly artificially inflate the pay scales? (And with respect to meatpuff's comments on unions, perhaps my experience with a union has colored by view of unions, so maybe they're not all selfish and out there to fend only for themselves.)


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## TVRM610 (Feb 13, 2008)

sweet tea said:


> please forgive me if i'm working off bad information here -- almost everything i half-know about amtrak i've picked up from reading this site, so i may be wrong about this -- but it seems to me that the trouble with unions in OBS jobs isn't mostly about salaries.
> i, at least, don't think the pay is unreasonable, or at least not unreasonably high. but my impression is that the unions cause two kinds of difficulty when it comes to flexibility:
> 
> 1. intercraft flexibility. i don't see a good reason that OBS employees, assuming they've had the appropriate training and that there is not a safety issue, can't do more than one craft per trip. if the diner is slammed and the sleepers aren't busy, i don't see why the sleeper attendant can't help seat people, for instance. if the cafe attendant is due for a break, he or she should be relieved, so that passengers can continue to buy. of course, every employee should have adequate scheduled break time, etc., but for the time that they are scheduled to be working, they should be working if work is needed, and helping each other out. this does not seem crazy to me, and i think it would be useful to be flexible in this way.
> ...


As for #1. I think that Amtrak has done that somewhat in the past. I think the problem is that as a practice this would be very difficult. And really only practical in a few instances. For example, a sleeper attendant has meals to deliver during meal times. And coach attendants aren't trained for cash handling, so if money were to go missing and there were multiple cashiers who do you blame etc. Now I agree with you, but I feel like many of the rules would be the same without unions as well, just as business practices.

#2 - This gets very tricky for me. Is amtrak transportation, or is it hospitality? The answer of course is its a unique blend of both. I am very picky about customer service when I'm in a hospitality environment, but for some reason I hold Amtrak to a different standard. I'm not sure if thats because I've travelled amtrak since i was a kid and expect a mix of attitudes or what. Again I feel like this is not a union issue as much as a company issue. I think Amtrak sees it as if your doing your job, it doesn't matter how friendly you are. But perhaps OBSgonefrieght will have more insight to company views on that regard.


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## GG-1 (Feb 13, 2008)

Aloha

I am a moderator here and have seen several complaints about these threads so I want to suggest, Like I did in responding here that we step back and count to 10 each time we answer. Over my working career in an industry with unique needs just like Amtrak, I have witnessed, been involved with, both parts of the Labor/Management equations.



sweet tea said:


> please forgive me if i'm working off bad information here -- almost everything i half-know about amtrak i've picked up from reading this site, so i may be wrong about this -- but it seems to me that the trouble with unions in OBS jobs isn't mostly about salaries.


Here is the most unknown truth about Unions. Unions first, stand for unity. This translates to Job security, and Working together. Please remember I said this "In a perfect world" Next is the salary issue, What is fair for one is fair for all (remember "perfect World")



> i, at least, don't think the pay is unreasonable, or at least not unreasonably high. but my impression is that the unions cause two kinds of difficulty when it comes to flexibility:


I agree with you here, as if the wages were so off base, the negotiations would not have lasted so long.



> 1. intercraft flexibility. i don't see a good reason that OBS employees, assuming they've had the appropriate training and that there is not a safety issue, can't do more than one craft per trip. if the diner is slammed and the sleepers aren't busy, i don't see why the sleeper attendant can't help seat people, for instance. if the cafe attendant is due for a break, he or she should be relieved, so that passengers can continue to buy. of course, every employee should have adequate scheduled break time, etc., but for the time that they are scheduled to be working, they should be working if work is needed, and helping each other out. this does not seem crazy to me, and i think it would be useful to be flexible in this way.


Not being an OBS employee I am unable to speak for what inter craft flexibility is reasonable. But from my craft rules what we use for guidance is "How does this effect employment?" Does my employer want me to cross departments to avoid hiring someone else, then I don't do it. however if no one's job is at stake I help my co-workers.



> 2. firing flexibility. i take it from earlier discussions -- again, please forgive me if i'm wrong -- that it is difficult to get rid of bad employees who are in the union. that's nonsense. we've all met great employees on trains and lots of decent ones, but the bad ones drive away customers. everyone has a bad day from time to time, and no reasonable (i know, i know) manager will fire someone over a trifle, since trainging, etc., a new employee costs time and money. but sometimes it's not just a bad day, and a manager should be able to deal with that. there's no reason, for instance, that the coach attendant i had on multiple LSL trips should still be around.


No Union wants to support "Bad Workers" some times regulations get in the way, What the Union leadership must do, under their duty to represent, is insure fair hearings and decisions. I have been there, done that many times. Documentation is critical, This is why so many times on this forum we have said to write Amtrak about your experiences. Your comment about the coach attendant that should not be around might be a fair comment, but can you also see that there may be other factors, that you may not be aware of. Most passengers have little dealing with the coach attendant and very little understanding of their duties, including myself. That person is on duty I would assume from an hour before departure, and 30 min after arrival. How many can one service before overload occurs? I don't know. On an Over night assignment how many times should an attendants sleep be interrupted is reasonable? There are many times I have become frustrated, from interruptions, delaying what I am doing, preventing me from getting something done, that I am in the process of doing, as I receive the request to do what I was doing. (this is not a perfect world)



> if those two changes cost more money in salaries because good people cost more, then so be it. i believe they would save money and build ridership in the long run.


Should Trains have a staff relief person, I don't know? But what must be found is the proper balance. As kids we all must have in the playground used the "seesaw", do you remember the results of an unbalanced play, NOT PRETTY There are always two sides to everything lets hope we can find the honesty and truth all the time.

ALOHA


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## AlanB (Feb 13, 2008)

TVRM610 said:


> sweet tea said:
> 
> 
> > please forgive me if i'm working off bad information here -- almost everything i half-know about amtrak i've picked up from reading this site, so i may be wrong about this -- but it seems to me that the trouble with unions in OBS jobs isn't mostly about salaries.
> ...


AFAIK, at least in the case of OBS, the intercraft flexibility that Amtrak is looking for is the ability to call Sam who normally works as a sleeping car attendant to work in the dining car because Johnny is either sick or on vacation/personal day. They aren't looking to have people work multiple jobs while on the train. As it stands right now, Amtrak has to pay workers on the extra board for not working just in case Amtrak actually needs them to take a shift one day, simply because they can't call up Sam to come work in the dining car. This is not the case on the Auto Train, which as noted operates under a different contract.

Turning to point #2, Eric (GG-1) and I have actually discussed this privately and I actually gained a new understanding of things. I'm still not sure that I'm happy with how things are, but at least I do understand that the union must fight to save the worker's job. Which brings us back to exactly what Eric and others have said, take names and report the bad workers. It's the only way to help Amtrak to weed out the bad apples.

But I have to say that it still infuriates me that 10 workers can show up for work and work very hard, while ignoring the one or two workers who have chosen to stand in the corner. So much for brotherhood. The 10 are working harder than they have to, thanks to the 2 selfish workers who have decided that they are better than their brothers.


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## AlanB (Feb 13, 2008)

Green Maned Lion said:


> AlanB said:
> 
> 
> > I'm suspect that were one to look at one specific moment in time, one could indeed find a brief point(s) where passenger trains made a small profit. But as a whole over the course of time, and pre-Amtrak, moving passengers by train (or any other mode for that matter) has not been profitable. The airlines collectively have barely broken even over the course of time, bus companies come and go and those that remain probably wouldn't remain without help, even if that help is only not having to pay the true value of their passage over our streets and highways.
> ...


Trains, as well as all forms of public transportation, are inherently uprofitable. Trains had little to no compeitition prior to WWII, neither the auto nor the airplane were favored forms of public transit at that point in time. And yet the freight Co's were already loosing serious money and conditions in service were starting to decline. Service only increased thanks to the outbreak of war, rationing, and troop movements.

After the war, ridership once again declined and raising fares didn't help that problem, so the trains continued to loose still more money. Monies that again, the freight RR's covered out of their profits on freight. We airfreight and trucks started cutting into those profits is when the freight Co's started bailing out on running pax service.

Or we could take a look at the NYC subways. For the first 5 years or so, the IRT had a monopoly and only one line. A line where ridership was so high that people were packed in like sardines. As more lines were added, and competition was introduced, profits fell off and eventually became non-existant. Now in fairness I will say that part of the problem was the fact that the IRT wasn't allowed to increase the fare for many years. But again running the trains proved unprofitable in the long run. And without funding from the City to help build the lines, the IRT would have never achieved any profits even during the golden years.


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## Amtrak OBS Gone Freight (Feb 14, 2008)

AlanB said:


> AFAIK, at least in the case of OBS, the intercraft flexibility that Amtrak is looking for is the ability to call Sam who normally works as a sleeping car attendant to work in the dining car because Johnny is either sick or on vacation/personal day. They aren't looking to have people work multiple jobs while on the train. As it stands right now, Amtrak has to pay workers on the extra board for not working just in case Amtrak actually needs them to take a shift one day, simply because they can't call up Sam to come work in the dining car. This is not the case on the Auto Train, which as noted operates under a different contract.
> Turning to point #2, Eric (GG-1) and I have actually discussed this privately and I actually gained a new understanding of things. I'm still not sure that I'm happy with how things are, but at least I do understand that the union must fight to save the worker's job. Which brings us back to exactly what Eric and others have said, take names and report the bad workers. It's the only way to help Amtrak to weed out the bad apples.
> 
> But I have to say that it still infuriates me that 10 workers can show up for work and work very hard, while ignoring the one or two workers who have chosen to stand in the corner. So much for brotherhood. The 10 are working harder than they have to, thanks to the 2 selfish workers who have decided that they are better than their brothers.


Aight... let's clarify a few things a little more in detail. When we speak of "intercraft flexibilty," the only places where that is attained is either on the extra board (when employees are qualified in multiple crafts which is encouraged and required for new employees after 2004) or in the case of "Auto Train's" portion in the OBS contract.

We'll use Alan's example of "Sam" here for illustration purposes. We'll establish him as an employee who was hired prior to 2004. He holds a "regular bulletined position" which has a regular set schedule of work days and rest days. It can be in the form of four days on and four days off or something similar depending on the train and the job structure. We'll make his regular a job which is in the sleepers, we'll have him hold the 9210 car sleeper on cycle number six within the eight man work cycle (the amount of employees needed to cover 9210 for eight days with four employees at home on the rest and four out on a trip in this case). HE IS NEVER CALLED for work! His schedule is set. He knows when he is supposed to come to work and what his off days are unless he is displaced by a senior employee. That is the only time he can be called is to notify him he is displaced. In other words his job duties are on train #92 for the Northbound trip and on train #97 for the Southbound return trip. He knows his duties (hopefully) as a sleeping car attendant and his report times at both ends. The extra board is responsible for filling "regular bulletined positions" which are open in the case of sickness, vacation, etc. The vast majority of extra board employees ARE cross-trained in several crafts allowing them to be used accordingly! Amtrak does not usually change these jobs around in transit except in very unusual circumstances. Now back to Sam. He decides to take the upcoming trip off for vacation. An extra board employee who is rested who also may have worked a trip as a waiter/waitress on their prior trip, will be called to fill Sam's job. Let's say a regular waiter takes their vacation at the same time for the same trip, and another extraboard employee is called to fill that job in the diner. Now let's say Sam's replacement doesn't show up or misses the train for some last minute reason. Amtrak DOES HAVE rights to move "that one" extraboard employee (because he does not hold a regular job) who is filling the job in the diner out of there and up into the sleeper (as long as they're qualified) to replace Sam's replacement so that the first class component is covered! It is more important than the diner job. Now with all that in mind, let's say the coach attendant in the rear who is holding that job as a "regular bulletined position" in the same job cycle as Sam's job (which is how the jobs are usually posted thus making that person part of Sam's regular crew) is in attendance and working this trip, Amtrak CANNOT REQUIRE them (though they can ask) to come up to sleeper and fill Sam's job because they hold a regular job! Hopefully I am potraying a good illustration here.

Now as of 2004 around October of that year if my memory serves me right, all new OBS employees have a new stipulation in the contract! It established what's known as a "utility worker position." A crew supply point such as LAX or MIA, can only create these jobs after all the regular and extraboard OBS positions have been filled in that crewbase. OBS employees hired prior to 2004 can opt in or opt out of working a utility workers position. If they chose to fill one, then they are bound by its requirements which allows Amtrak to intercraft them at any position on the train in the same trip (similar to Auto Train, but different). The get paid the amount of their highest craft attained for working that position. New OBS employees, however, (those hired after 2004... I am not sure about LSA direct hires, though) have to accept a utilty workers position should they be asked to fill one, and receive compensation under that craft which is a reduced rate! It is not bad for the old heads in OBS, but not that great for the new folks. But it was ratified. I personally think the union did a good job at covering the existing employees at the time, and I believe Amtrak was satisfied with that agreement overall. And new employees are made aware of this (hopefully) before they are hired. Anyway, enough of all that...

Now in regard to surely workers, etc. Just as Alan states in this posting, folks should take names of the bad apples when they encounter them. The union will not defend them forever. A little while before I left I witnessed a local chairman (who works as a sleepr TA) disciplining a coach attendant on one trip. He told them that "they needed to do their job and follow the rules!" and that "we're are not going to continue to cover for you to slack off. Amtrak has a business to run, too."

And as a matter of personal opinion, I didn't see a huge protection for one who doesn't work safe, follow the rules, slack off, or perform half a** work (at least not after a couple of times).

Anyway, in my closing remarks for this topic. I want to point out the fact that unions are a necessary evil in many industries with rail being one of them. It is true some of the unions need to get a little more with the times. But unless there was some drastic changes to take place, I feel the loss of the union would not be a good thing for a long period of time. So the idea of "busting the unions" I just cannot support as well as the "busting of management!" I have worked both sides in my past careers, so I see the potential issues which can become interesting. I no longer work at Amtrak. I work in the freight sector, now. And I see the need of the union there, too. They need to get with the times as well in many areas. I do, however, miss my OBS job at Amtrak in the dining car at some times. I am happy at the stabilty the Mr Kummant has seemed to bring to Amtrak in this last year or so. The company was so close to a major "partial shutdown" IMHO, it wasn't funny! I took a trip with my friend here on the boards (trainboy3250), and I was very happy with some of the changes. Some more need to be made (mainly restore some of the loss jobs due to the SDS), but overall everything seemed more stable on the front line and my former fellow co-workers seemed to be a good spirits compared to the couple years earlier. I still would like to see management make a bigger presence out on the trains. That is where the product is and what the customers ultimately pay for. It is not in their offices! They need to be in the stations and on the trains more than they are. That would boost a big majority of the passengers' views of Amtrak IMO.

OBS gone freight....


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## jackal (Feb 14, 2008)

GG-1 said:


> But from my craft rules what we use for guidance is "How does this effect employment?" Does my employer want me to cross departments to avoid hiring someone else, then I don't do it. however if no one's job is at stake I help my co-workers.


With all due respect, this is exactly my point. If you are able to do both jobs, and if it doesn't harm you to do both jobs, why should the company be forced to not allow you do both jobs and save the extra staffing costs? It's this mentality I can't agree with.

Maybe I wasn't part of the union long enough to fully internalize the concepts of brotherhood and unity, but although I can appreciate wanting to keep your coworkers from being laid off, especially in a business like Amtrak that is not wildly profitable, I think unions and union members need to accept that cost-cutting--when done wisely--is a fact of life and shouldn't fight it with arbitrary rules.

As far as the complaints about this thread, I know I'm new here and don't fully understand the culture here, but what sort of things have been said that have caused complaints? Most other railfan boards I've been on are far harsher than this and quickly degenerate into personal attacks. So far, I haven't seen any of that--simply vigorous debate, which I think is a healthy thing, but all parties here have maintained the highest respect for other people and points of view. (And I'm no stranger to Internet boards, as AlanB and the_traveller can attest; on that other forum, I've seen several intense debates, but all of the moderators and participants agreed that it was good as long as it was kept from becoming personal.) Please, though, enlighten me if that's not the case over here.


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## GG-1 (Feb 14, 2008)

jackal said:


> GG-1 said:
> 
> 
> > But from my craft rules what we use for guidance is "How does this effect employment?" Does my employer want me to cross departments to avoid hiring someone else, then I don't do it. however if no one's job is at stake I help my co-workers.
> ...


I understand what you said, but what you missed from my comment was the balance part. If the Company is trying to squeeze the worker for a few dollars by pushing for craft overlap why? If his request is because there is no way the additional worker is affordable then the request is honored. If it was ever even asked. The labor side of business rarely receives bonuses when the business does well, but if there are difficulties they are the first, and sometimes the only ones asked, or forced to adjust. I can think of several recent contract re-negotiations where the Labor side accepted cuts in the interest of the company survivability which was immediately bestowed on upper management. The stockholders received their usual dividend so managements boost was clearly stolen (in my mind) by management misrepresentation. My food cost go up my housing cost go up, etc. but I am lucky to improve my financial position by even 40 dollars a week when some manager paid over a million gets 100,000... thats why sometimes unions get difficult.



> Maybe I wasn't part of the union long enough to fully internalize the concepts of brotherhood and unity, but although I can appreciate wanting to keep your coworkers from being laid off, especially in a business like Amtrak that is not wildly profitable, I think unions and union members need to accept that cost-cutting--when done wisely--is a fact of life and shouldn't fight it with arbitrary rules.


Shouldn't fight it , ONLY if I am treated equally and honestly, until such time as the company can respect labor can they not fight. American business has made one tragic error, Labor is treated as a liability not an asset. This one imbalance is the key.



> As far as the complaints about this thread, I know I'm new here and don't fully understand the culture here, but what sort of things have been said that have caused complaints? Most other railfan boards I've been on are far harsher than this and quickly degenerate into personal attacks. So far, I haven't seen any of that--simply vigorous debate, which I think is a healthy thing, but all parties here have maintained the highest respect for other people and points of view. (And I'm no stranger to Internet boards, as AlanB and the_traveller can attest; on that other forum, I've seen several intense debates, but all of the moderators and participants agreed that it was good as long as it was kept from becoming personal.) Please, though, enlighten me if that's not the case over here.


You are very correct this forum participants are very respectful, even on "HOT" debates but there have been some times that someone crossed the line and that was dealt with privately. I added my concern in this thread only because I was seeing a general escalation, including myself, that in my opinion was of concern. Unions, Politics, religion all involve strong feelings, we can and should debate as much as we can but sometimes reflection of thought and feelings must also be accounted for. I probably am not saying this well, and at moment I am tired, tomorrow, oh today, I have an unrehearsed live show to deliver.

Aloha and Mahalo


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## frj1983 (Feb 14, 2008)

Amtrak OBS Gone Freight said:


> AlanB said:
> 
> 
> > AFAIK, at least in the case of OBS, the intercraft flexibility that Amtrak is looking for is the ability to call Sam who normally works as a sleeping car attendant to work in the dining car because Johnny is either sick or on vacation/personal day. They aren't looking to have people work multiple jobs while on the train. As it stands right now, Amtrak has to pay workers on the extra board for not working just in case Amtrak actually needs them to take a shift one day, simply because they can't call up Sam to come work in the dining car. This is not the case on the Auto Train, which as noted operates under a different contract.
> ...


Wow,

Thanks for explaining all that OBS...it gives me a little to think about and now I must go and get some tylenol because after reading this entire string, I have a "union type" headache!! Just some humor to lighten things up!!


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