The Perception of Amtrak

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Very credible article. Amtrak really needs to change the perception of passenger train travel which has been negative for the last 50 years. In Florida where I live we are hoping that All Aboard Florida will be successful and that will result in expansi lesson and a better perception of train travel I believe when the California High Speed trains from LA to SF is operating and business travelers take to it like Acela, similar systems will be built. Rail travel for business for distances of 500 miles or less could be as popular as the 1920s and before I think will be another 50 years.
 
I find myself wondering which train he took. Looks like he's from Florida, so I'm guessing the Silver Service; he mentions that the local transit system runs on the same tracks, so either Miami or Orlando.

The stations along the Silver Service route in Georgia and South Carolina are famously dilapidated, and it was the main topic in the Performance Improvement Plan for the Silver Service. (Maybe someone else can figure out which stations he photographed.)

The mention of a "two hour detour through a large city" makes me think Silver Star. The "swaying" reported sounds like the poor track conditions along that route.

He doesn't seem to know about the weird situation where private corporate freight lines control the tracks -- if he did understand this, he'd immediately realize that the right-wingers are talking through their hats and don't have a point, as this causes many of the problem conditions he describes.

It sounds like he didn't check the (really easy to find on the website) timetables or maps to see what cities he was passing through, which is the sort of mistake I wouldn't expect anyone to make, let alone complain about; not finding this is really his problem, not Amtrak's.

His main complaints about matters under Amtrak's control are about the state of restrooms, and secondarily the condition of the Amfleet cars, as far as I can tell. I can't argue there; Amtrak certainly should find a way to keep the restrooms clean.
 
Unfortunately, this is the perception that many people have when they ride Amtrak for the first time. Service is inconsistent, bathrooms, especially riding coach, can be a nightmare, the cars are slowly falling apart, fares are not always competitive, and OTP is (well, that is another issue).

Those of us who love riding trains just look the other way, sometimes. But in reality, we see all of these problems and wonder how long it will be before our next ride will be the last one. (Either by our choice or due to Congressional funding). I wish there were more money in Amtrak's coffers, but that is not likely to happen in the current political environment. :( And money is not the solution to the management problems that hinder Amtrak's ability to produce a quality ride at a decent price.
 
Nothing will get attention as long as ridership and load factors keep going up. It is human tendency to avoid addressing problems until they start hurting somewhere.

I bet that the toilet cleaning problems will get fixed on corridors first, since not withstanding the fantasies of posters at TO, that is where the real ridership and money is.
 
As usual Bill, rrdude and jis hit the nail on the head!

A good example of Amtrak Managers being in a Cocoon was the Pere Marquette Anniversary/Special Train that Joe Hess rode! There were several VIP Cars with Politicians and Amtrak Suits aboard but the Amtrak Royalty never even walked through the Coaches even though there was a Transdorm to make this an easy undertaking! Let them eat Cake!
 
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Toilets are an issue for my gf. The ones in bc on the Lincoln service are adequate when clean. But that's not always a given. Drafty cold cars in November, December, and January on our trips to stl also annoy her. Hopefully the bi-levels address these issues.

She does prefer the train to driving because she can get up and move around.

One if our more humorous moments was spontaneous. We were on the Texas eagle in a roomette. The sca was training somebody. He introduced himself and the trainee. Did his spiel. Then brusquely told us in front of the trainee to address all questions to him since the trainee did not know what he was doing. Gf, not accustomed to am-rudeness, had wide eyes. Her expressions as the training continued throughout the trip contained eye rolls, "oohs, ahhs, and what?!!!" She was amazed that anybody could learn under those conditions.
 
That is, despite what anyone on this forum thinks, the most balanced, "real world" view the state of Amtrak...
Amen!

As a passenger, I don't give a crap about freight controlling the tracks, funding, or the myriad of excuses some use to give Amtrak a free pass.

I don't expect the average person taking a train as a mode of transportation to get to a destination in a timely manner to even know about those things.

Really, it's not our job as paying customers to learn about the operations and woes of Amtrak.

I love taking the train but Amtrak has become an unreliable way to get anywhere.

When I buy a ticket to go somewhere at the time promised on the ticket I expect to arrive at that time or close to it, not an hour or a half day or more later.

That said, I have 3 trips in my folio right now :wacko: :blink: :huh:
 
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I could fix the toilet issue.

Proposal 2.0. Sign on door:

Users will be photographed when the door opens, and

again when they leave the toilet. The interior of the toilet

will be photographed after each user leaves. Problems

will be handled by Amtrak Police.
The policy should keep most dirty people from fouling the room.

Srsly.

I don't think that continuing the policy of doing nothing, or doing

only ineffective things, is an answer to the problem.
 
Easier- camera on door with screen- this is the person who used it last. Feel free to ear-walk him back here if it isn't to your satisfaction.
 
Well, I mentioned the actual causes, because they matter.

If perception of Amtrak is poor largely because of problems caused by freight railroads owning the track, then it's pretty obvious what has to be done to change perceptions, namely, get the tracks out of the hands of the freight railroads.

Michigan and Massachusetts governments seem to get that now, and perhaps NY gets it.
 
National Corridors Initiative has a quote from their open letter to journalists:

If you live on the West Coast, or Chicago, you may have noticed that rail travel is substantially improving, but if you live anywhere else, or simply don't take the train, more than likely you share the conventional wisdom about passenger rail: it's old, it barely works, we don't need it.
There is a large segment of US society who hold that statement as a shibboleth, a Received Truth. Amtrak's skeletal network and service only serve to reinforce the negative perceptions. The question is what we can do to change those perceptions.
 
I am sure that Amtrak has tried to address the messy toilet issues. But really, airliner toilets can be as messy as railcar toilets. Well-hydrated men, feeling no pain after a few beers and using the facilities in turbulence are often bad marksmen. On really long flights, some blue room decorations can make people downright nauseous.

It is a given that ladies in particular are appalled at the occasional messy Am-blue room and other untidy aspects of a railcar. The bathroom issue can be a real deterrent for prospective riders and it must be resolved. I don't have any statistics but the bathroom issue very likely has become a PR situation and is costing Amtrak business. Perhaps I am preaching to the choir, but really this should be addressed.

As another example, my better-half, when having to visit a dirty washroom on Amtrak, will give me bigtime grief well-past our destination and will then alert all of her friends of the atrocious facilities enroute. Definitely not cool. Men, on the other hand; veterans of the military, college-dorm warfare, locker rooms, and other venues with questionable facilities, probably take a messy blue room as part of the drill most of the time. We can get over it and we probably never talk about bathrooms on trains (or airplanes). However our ladies expect and deserve better facilities on all trains.

What if ladies had their own restrooms; strategically placed on the train that possibly had a more frequent cleaning schedule enroute? Could such an idea be a solution to a known PR nightmare for Amtrak? The heritage cars had exclusive ladies' rooms and I don't have a recollection of negative comments about those facilities. The Lake Shore Limited, Broadway Limited and City of New Orleans had such facilities as I remember.

Questions:

For the eastern LD trains and NEC: could a single-level car be designed to be part lounge for all passengers and outfitted with an exclusive ladies restroom at one end of the car, similar in design to those on the heritage cars?

On the Superliner: the restroom downstairs with the small bench seat near the door might be a short-term solution. Could such a location be earmarked on each car's lower level for an exclusive ladies restroom?
 
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The additional issues on amtrak is the physical layout of the bathroom IMHO. The bathrooms on the Acelas and superliners are usually ok. I don't recall how the bathrooms are on Surfliners.

The layout of the bathrooms on amfleet and horizon cars are uncomfortable. The toilet is at an angle that makes it difficult to sit in some of the bathrooms. Those level areas next to the toilet collect germs and other things that are disgusting. The controls on the sinks cause water to spray all over when you push up on the bottom of the faucet to get the water to come out. These things are design flaws that are controllable.
 
Steve, as I recall, the Superliners had small bathrooms (in the sleeper) and the toilet was at an angle in at least one. The bathrooms on the Amfleets (I & II) (coach) that I've been in are nice size and the toilets are on the back wall, not the corner.
 
Maybe it's just some of the bathrooms. The ones that are along the back wall with flat space on each are also bad. And I stand by the my statement that the flawed design contributes to the mess.
 
As a large guy on a Superliner, I have to use the handicapped coach restroom if I have to sit down. I don't fit in the regular size ones. The refurbed SI sleeper restrooms are also acceptable, as are the Amfleets.
 
I respectfully disagree with the "men dirty, women clean" gist of 7deuceman's post. I've been repeatedly warned by a relative who worked as a janitor that women's restrooms were consistently more of a disaster area than men's facilities. I would ask 7deuceman to ask his significant other about the (IMHO pointlessly circular) practice of "hovering" if he wants to be disabused of the notion that only men "trash" washrooms.

Turning back to the (apparently perennial) topic of Amtrak washrooms, the only issue I've had in my travels is the aforementioned stupid design of those sinks where you push up on a plunger or lever with your hand while it's under the spigot so that you're guaranteed to get splashed to some degree. I haven't in my travels -- admittedly, only a few times a year, mostly on Midwest corridor trains -- encountered a trashed Amtrak washroom. And I have encountered unusable washrooms on Metra and in stations, so it's not because my standards are so low I don't recognize when a washroom is trashed. :)

I was once in a Viewliner roomette on the Lake Shore Limited where the toilets wouldn't flush, but we had water for the sinks and showers. Since my previous sleeper trips were all in Superliner roomettes and I'm not unduly attached to having an ensuite toilet, I had no trouble using a coach washroom as long as I had my shower in the morning.
 
Oh, those "push on a a plunger" sinks are the worst, though the "hold a lever" sinks are almost as bad.

Electric-eye-sensor sinks have become the new standard for public washrooms. Amtrak should do that.
 
You know, the thing about Daily Kos is that the "community" there discusses the intersection between politics and policy, and that they consider themselves the "reality-based community." Thus, if someone in that community wants to complain about Amtrak (even if the complaints are well justified), the complainer should take the time to look at the structural issues about why things are so crappy rather than just say the whole thing should be thrown out.

There are a number of policy issues involved here: (1) does passenger rail have a place in the US transportation system? And what is its place? (2) If passenger rail should be supported, should it be subsidized by the government? That second question is sort of silly, as all transportation is subsidized by the government. Perhaps the better question is what the form the government support should take. On the one hand, there seems to be this American myth that government agencies are incapable of doing anything right, though nobody is seriously suggesting (yet) that we should privatize the US Marine Corps, etc. On the other hand, there is a (well justified) aversion to shoveling taxpayer money into something that benefits a private corporation. Amtrak is something of a bastardized hybrid -- it's a private corporation in which the stock is owned by the US Government, or rather, "We the People."

If you believe that an well-integrated national passenger rail network is an important part of a well balanced transportation system (like I do), then this arrangement actually is a good way to funnel public subsidies into such a system. Whatever other shortcomings Amtrak has, I've never heard any accusations that the top brass are enriching themselves at the taxpayers' expense. It might be interesting to compare Mr. Boardman's total compensation with that of the CEO's and entrepreneur/owners of the various airlines, class I railroads, large-fleet trucking companies, etc. I really think that Amtrak management is probably more interested in trying to run a railroad than make as much money as they can, which is something you can't say about most privately owned companies.

As to whether passenger rail is relevant to most Americans, it seems to me that it's a major player in the urban Northeast and it is growing in the Chicago hinterlands and the west coast. And, come to think of it, commuter rail is a growth industry in Colorado and Texas, among other places.If you add up the population of those places, it adds up to a fairly large proportion of our Nation's citizenry. Certainly a larger portion of the citizenry than those who benefit from farm subsidies, for example.
 
In regards to the men vs women restroom issue. I have spent a good portion of my time after entering them wondering how disgustingly inconsiderate and downright crude some women can be. They are that filthy.! :angry2:
 
Sorry, but I can't accept this article at face value, and I'm a bit surprised to see that so many AU members agree with it. The writer has no published name; we don't know what train(s) he or she rode; we don't know what cities were visited; we don't know what "detours" were made, or why; we don't know what type of equipment was used; we don't know the specific staffing issues of the specific train(s), etc., etc., etc. I think this is a poorly researched and poorly constructed piece of yellow journalism. It's true that Amtrak has a lot of problems, but this article is too vague when it comes to any specific problems.

I agree that this article does reflect the perceptions held by a lot of people, many of whom have never used Amtrak. I agree that there could be some truth to these allegations. But without more specificity, this thing is nothing but a generalized rant without any real value to anybody who would want to address and solve Amtrak's problems.

Tom
 
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I tempered this article with my recent EB venture, and can completely understand the point of view,,, save the restrooms. We were in a sleeper and I never used the coach toilets.

Albeit not "brand spanking new" the cars we traveled in were clean, but the Superliner décor,, over the top blue, does not lend itself to " a clean well lighted place." I failed to notice any carpet tears or other signs of neglect. The staff we encountered were civil and we had a good SCA both ways,,,,

In general I think the article was very level, and of course dependent on the circumstances. I can understand how the author reached his conclusions, and if Amtrrak were customer oriented it might impact performance. Sadly this is not the case.
 
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