Amtrak CEO live stream broadcast Monday

[Chey]

Looks like you have to register for it to see it live. I hope it will be recorded for those who can't attend. It's this Monday at 10 AM ET

I hope I'm not violating any board policy by pasting the actual wording of the RPA announcement.

"We Need You To Sign Up! Amtrak CEO Flynn Live Online With the Washington Post
Amtrak CEO Bill Flynn on Monday morning will appear in a LIVE online broadcast to talk about “The Future of Rail Travel,” and we want our members to sign up in force. Amtrak needs to know we’re watching and listening.

Register at this link: The Path Forward: Future of Train Travel

On the registration form, you’ll be asked for Job Title, Company, and state. We strongly suggest that people list their title as Member, and their company as Rail Passengers Assn."

 

[Seaboard92]

I would register to join in on it, especially if I could grill the CEO on some hard questions. But I will be touring some office cars in the Southeast.

 

[Barb Stout]

My husband is aware that I read the AU forum digest every day, so he forwarded to me an email he got from The Washington Post that listed several "digital events" including one with William Flynn, the new Amtrak CEO, who will be discussing "The Path Forward: The Future of Train Travel". It will be tomorrow, Monday at 10 am EDT and will be moderated by Frances Stead Sellers. Given that it's moderated, I'm guessing that means that viewers might be able to participate? I don't know how to embed emails in here, but here is the link to the registration page: The Path Forward: Future of Train Travel
I hope the link works. I registered and will be "attending".

 

[flitcraft]

Bumping this to move it up...I'm now registered and will listen, but it is symptomatic of how Amtrak is thinking that they've set it for 10 am EDT, which is 7 am PDT. The West is definitely an after-thought with Amtrak, as ever...

 

[sttom]

I registered for what it's worth.

 

[Barb Stout]

Bumping this to move it up...I'm now registered and will listen, but it is symptomatic of how Amtrak is thinking that they've set it for 10 am EDT, which is 7 am PDT. The West is definitely an after-thought with Amtrak, as ever...

But it's summer, 7 am is way past sunrise, so this one is already active and doing tasks at 7am.

 

[Chey]

Bumping this to move it up...I'm now registered and will listen, but it is symptomatic of how Amtrak is thinking that they've set it for 10 am EDT, which is 7 am PDT. The West is definitely an after-thought with Amtrak, as ever...

Early to bed, early to rise... I hope this will be worth it. I have a Western trip planned and I pray it won't be the last. Bless you for tuning in.

 

[trainman74]

Bumping this to move it up...I'm now registered and will listen, but it is symptomatic of how Amtrak is thinking that they've set it for 10 am EDT, which is 7 am PDT. The West is definitely an after-thought with Amtrak, as ever...

This appears to be a Washington Post event, not an Amtrak event, so it makes sense that they would be primarily concerned about people within their circulation area.

 

[MikefromCrete]

Bumping this to move it up...I'm now registered and will listen, but it is symptomatic of how Amtrak is thinking that they've set it for 10 am EDT, which is 7 am PDT. The West is definitely an after-thought with Amtrak, as ever...

TYiy

Bumping this to move it up...I'm now registered and will listen, but it is symptomatic of how Amtrak is thinking that they've set it for 10 am EDT, which is 7 am PDT. The West is definitely an after-thought with Amtrak, as ever...

This event is being put on by the Washington Post. Amtrak has nothing to do with its scheduling.

 

[joelkfla]

He seems to be uninformed on HSR. He talked about working with the host railroads to run HSR on the existing freight network.

Also gave a "non-answer" to a question about the future of food service.

 

[sttom]

He also didn't give a definite timeline on restoring long distance services. He just said that the trains will be tri-weekly though the winter, but no standard as to what will justify increasing the schedule back to normal.

There was also no discussion about what will happen with the states.

 

[joelkfla]

He also didn't give a definite timeline on restoring long distance services. He just said that the trains will be tri-weekly though the winter, but no standard as to what will justify increasing the schedule back to normal.

There was also no discussion about what will happen with the states.

In fact, it sounded very much like the the reduction was seasonal, not COVID-related. He said more than once that LD ridership was traditionally lower in the winter.

 

[flitcraft]

This was a disappointment if you were expected real news or thoughtful discussion (I wasn't), but I agree that the bright spot, if any, is the implication that the reduction in LD trains was a response to lower ridership in the off season, so we can hope that there is a recognition that daily service in the peak season makes good fiscal sense for Amtrak. We'll see, though. Common sense seems in short supply these days...

 

[brianpmcdonnell17]

This was a disappointment if you were expected real news or thoughtful discussion (I wasn't), but I agree that the bright spot, if any, is the implication that the reduction in LD trains was a response to lower ridership in the off season, so we can hope that there is a recognition that daily service in the peak season makes good fiscal sense for Amtrak. We'll see, though. Common sense seems in short supply these days...

If that implication is correct I don't see that as good news; rather than being a single year event it would presumably repeat every year. It also wouldn't make much sense since the highest ridership time of year is in the late fall/early winter and there have been no indications of daily service during that time. In addition, it was previously stated that full service could resume as early as Summer 2021, whereas a seasonal service would likely resume sometime in the spring.

 

[jis]

The entire interview of Bill Flynn

https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live-amtrak-ceo-william-flynn/

 

[user 14106]

DId anyone hear Bill Flynn's Washington Post interview today?

You can watch it here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live-amtrak-ceo-william-flynn/

 

[brianpmcdonnell17]

It's interesting that he said 10 of 15 trains will be reduced to tri-weekly service. I would interpret that as meaning 5 trains will continue to operate at greater frequencies, but the SL and Cardinal could technically be excluded from the 10 as they are not being reduced. The SM could also be excluded, since it will operate four days. Even so, those 3 and the AT are only 4 total trains, which means presumably one other route will run more frequently than 3 days per week. I suppose the SS could be excluded since it is being cut in the summer and not the winter, but that would be stretching it. If there are one or more trains besides the AT remaining daily, what are they likely to be? My first guess would be the LSL but that does experience a major Winter ridership drop.

 

[OBS]

It's interesting that he said 10 of 15 trains will be reduced to tri-weekly service. I would interpret that as meaning 5 trains will continue to operate at greater frequencies, but the SL and Cardinal could technically be excluded from the 10 as they are not being reduced. The SM could also be excluded, since it will operate four days. Even so, those 3 and the AT are only 4 total trains, which means presumably one other route will run more frequently than 3 days per week. I suppose the SS could be excluded since it is being cut in the summer and not the winter, but that would be stretching it. If there are one or more trains besides the AT remaining daily, what are they likely to be? My first guess would be the LSL but that does experience a major Winter ridership drop.

I think it's more likely he had his facts wrong (unfortunately!).

 

[brianpmcdonnell17]

I think it's more likely he had his facts wrong (unfortunately!).

Yeah, that wouldn't surprise me. Another possibility is they know they're going to only cut 10 but they don't know which yet. It wasn't just that he misspoke since he also said they're cutting most, not all, which would be misleading if they're only leaving one daily train. It would also explain why the Auto Train is the only one he mentioned by name and why the booking system still shows all trains as daily.

 

[AmtrakFlyer]

10 of 15 trains will operate tri weekly.
5 or 6 will operate as it. Kinda sounds like Andersons, “we see a need for 5-6 LD trains in the future” doesn’t it? Semantics but it’s the exact same thing from a different angle. It was obvious listening to him Covid has very little to do with the cuts.

 

[jis]

We are back to trying to read the tea leaves based on off the cuff remarks by the CEO, bringing in our own prejudices into the reading. We will never know what happens until the proverbial fat lady sings. Meanwhile what we should do is keep communicating with all the people in positions of power the need for maintaining a full daily passenger network across the nation even if it is using trains with three cars in them on certain days.

 

[west point]

Winter travel low ? What about one to two weeks before Thanksgiving to after New Year's ? That is as big as the summer rush. I'll admit that it is lower until spring breaks and Easter but then rapidly increases. What is needed is a week by week comparing traffic broken down between the three types of service. That needs a 20 year spread sheet.

 

[Trogdor]

Winter travel low ? What about one to two weeks before Thanksgiving to after New Year's ? That is as big as the summer rush. I'll admit that it is lower until spring breaks and Easter but then rapidly increases. What is needed is a week by week comparing traffic broken down between the three types of service. That needs a 20 year spread sheet.

The week of Thanksgiving is busy. One to two weeks before then? Not at all. Also, in between Thanksgiving and Christmas also tends to be fairly low as well. People have work, kids have school (to the extent that any of that will be relevant this year, and the extent to which it isn’t relevant doesn’t exactly bode well for any kind of travel either).

 

[tricia]

A lot of people travel to/from the warm, sunny southwest in the winter months. Amtrak makes it hard to do that by train with the Sunset Limited's 3-day-a-week schedule, awful calling times for several major destinations, and lack of connections to Phoenix.

 

[toddinde]

I think it's more likely he had his facts wrong (unfortunately!).

He said 10 of the 15 would be reduced. The five include the Cardinal, Sunset (already tri-weekly) and Auto-Train. That leaves two not to be reduced to tri-weekly, and those two are the Silver Meteor at four days a week and the Palmetto. The railfan speculation that some western long distance train and maybe the Capitol or Lake Shore, weren’t listening to what he said.