Back Bay & Westerly: Two More Unstaffed Stations

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NTL1991

Train Attendant
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From sources inside the company, it's been pretty much confirmed that Amtrak's Westerly,RI (WLY) station will be permanently unstaffed as of the close of business, Friday, September 30th. No Amtrak presence will be at the station to provide assistance to passengers with disabilities, make or change reservations, accept cash payments, or accept Unaccompanied Minors.

This news comes only a month or so after dozens of Baggage/Red Cap/Ticket Agent job cuts in the BOS-NHV region.

The Worcester, MA (WOR) station, serving the Lake Shore Limited, has been *unstaffed* for months now. This was a popular station for those traveling from New England to Chicago and points west.

It's also been confirmed that Boston Back Bay, MA (BBY) will be unstaffed by Amtrak agents as well. I don't have a specific date as of yet, but will update this as soon as anything is heard.

Edit: Clarified the fact that WOR is unstaffed, and not completely closed.
 
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The Worcester, MA (WOR) station, serving the Lake Shore Limited, has been closed for months now. This was a popular station for those traveling from New England to Chicago and points wester
"Closed" meaning what exactly?
 
The Worcester, MA (WOR) station, serving the Lake Shore Limited, has been closed for months now. This was a popular station for those traveling from New England to Chicago and points west.
"Closed" meaning what exactly?
Closed meaning absolutely no Amtrak presence, no ticket agent, no checked baggage service, no Amtrak Express service, no unaccompanied minors, and no cash payments, The Kiosk is still there, and the train still stops there.

And correct, Cash Payments will no longer be able to be made at WLY and BBY, just as they cannot be made at WOR since they've closed the Ticket Office.
 
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That's too bad but I guess it's a sign of the times. I can understand WOR with only 2 trains per day and BBY with its proximity to South Station, but WLY still serves 9 or so weekday trains and a dozen on the weekend.
 
That's too bad but I guess it's a sign of the times. I can understand WOR with only 2 trains per day and BBY with its proximity to South Station, but WLY still serves 9 or so weekday trains and a dozen on the weekend.
And during the summer months, it's not uncommon to see close to 100 people boarding/detraining the few trains that DO stop at WLY...
 
I think WOR would perhaps be better described as an unstaffed Amtrak station rather than being closed.
 
I'm not surprised about WLY. The agent was only there from (I think) 7 am to (I know) 3 pm on Monday to Friday ONLY. (No agent after 3 pm on weekdays or anytime on weekends.) And there was only 1 agent.

I'm also not surprised about WOR or BBY. Those are basically staffed MBTA commuter stations. And BBY does not have checked baggage, etc... - only board/detrain.
 
I think WOR would perhaps be better described as an unstaffed Amtrak station rather than being closed.
Edited my original post. Those of us who are close to Amtrak Operations tend to refer mainly to the Ticket Office. The WOR Amtrak Ticket Office is closed. The station is still serviced by commuter rail and bus.
 
I'm not surprised about WLY. The agent was only there from (I think) 7 am to (I know) 3 pm on Monday to Friday ONLY. (No agent after 3 pm on weekdays or anytime on weekends.) And there was only 1 agent.

I'm also not surprised about WOR or BBY. Those are basically staffed MBTA commuter stations. And BBY does not have checked baggage, etc... - only board/detrain.
For at least the past 7 or so years that the Amtrak Ticket Office was open, WOR has been unstaffed by MBTA agents or officials. Worcester Station security is present on site, however. MBTA Ticket sales were always processed through their station kiosk or on-board. I doubt it's changed since the Ticket Office closed.

BBY does not provide checked baggage service, but does provide Baggage Assistance and Unaccompanied Minor service, in addition to ticketing services.

Westerly is open Monday - Friday, 5:30a to 1:15p. Closed nights and weekends. I would be in favor of having more presence there, not less. A night shift means that the tunnel could be secured overnight and reopened by the morning shift rather than being open 24 hours a day without any monitoring. Weekends during the Summer and Holidays get extremely busy. Also, with the new full-length High Level platforms at Kingston, one stop up the line, shaving minutes off boarding/alighting, there's no reason not to stop most, if not every Northeast Regional at Westerly. The reason people don't use the station is the limited train service...
 
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Effective Saturday, October 1, 2016, the Amtrak stations at Boston Back Bay, Massachusetts and Westerly, Rhode Island will be unstaffed. Ticketing and passenger assistance services will no longer be available.

The last day agents will be on duty will be Friday, September 30, 2016.

Boston Back Bay, Massachusetts (BBY)

  • Waiting room hours will remain as they are today (this station is shared with MBTA commuter trains).
  • Quik-Trak kiosks will remain available.
  • The closest staffed station is Boston South Station (BOS), 1.2 mi/2.0 km east.
Westerly, Rhode Island (WLY)

  • The waiting room will be unavailable until further notice. Passengers may wait for trains on the station platform.
  • Quik-Trak kiosks will be unavailable until further notice as they are inside the waiting room.
  • The closest staffed stations are New London, Connecticut (NLC), 18.6 mi/30 km west; or Kingston, Rhode Island (KIN), 22 mi/35 km east
 
Asking customers to Wait on the platform in the dead of winter is not good customer service, IMO.
 
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Asking customers to Wait on the platform in the dead of winter is not good customer service, IMO.

Also, at WLY, the electric wheelchair lifts in the stairways to the tunnel are keyed, and powered on and operated by the station agent. This might be an issue unless the state of Rhode Island (who owns the building) pays someone to open/close the station, and clean and maintain the waiting area and bathrooms, which is what the Amtrak agent does, much the same as the situation at Kingston, RI (KIN).
 
Can you at least buy a ticket once you are on board? On the flip side, does it mean anyone can board? Even without a ticket?

So this will be one step below the service available at Metropark, where NJT agents can take cash payments for tickets and such?
Not even a kiosk? That station has been build up in recent years with a nice big parking garage and it even services some Acelas. A relative of mine uses it from time to time but only to get off the train.

Another interesting station nearby is the New Brunswick Station, as it has a highrise building (mostly corporate housing as I understand as the town itself is not terribly safe and you want to minimize walking) almost right on top of the station. The relative I mentioned lives in that highrise and needless to say it's very convenient for traveling to Philly, Baltimore or DC.
 
I never realized BBY was staffed. The platform is so dark, creepy and filthy. The only time I ever use BBY is if I need to make a quick transfer from BON to BOS and vice versa.

Plus, the quirk of the ticketing is that amtrak considers BOS, BBY and RTE all the same ticket. Agents usually don't scan until after it reaches RTE.
 
They were very quick with scanning my tickets over the last few weeks, all 3 Regionals I took out of BOS I had my ticket scanned before reaching BBY.
 
Can you at least buy a ticket once you are on board? On the flip side, does it mean anyone can board? Even without a ticket?
You can certainly buy on board, but seeing that 99% of tickets are eTickets, and are lifted electronically, conductors have no reason to remit anything to the ticket receivers, like they did in the past with the punched tickets and cash.

Most conductors will refer you to 1-800-USA-RAIL to buy your ticket with a credit/debit card, and they come back and lift your ticket after it's in the reservation system. These trains are supposed to be 100% reserved, except in the case of boarding at an unstaffed station.

For cash paying passengers that board at stations which are unstaffed, Amtrak suggests they purchase a stored-value card (Visa Gift Card, etc.) to load the card with cash, then go online or call to assign the proper ZIP code to the card to allow for payment online/over the phone, then purchase the ticket that way... Not a very user-friendly experience.

BBY was unstaffed for some time after the diesel fumes in the Amtrak ticket office were getting to dangerous levels. They spent months working out ventilation improvements which seemed to anger those wealthy neighbors (the tunnel ventilation noise was quite loud apparently) more than anything.
 
They were very quick with scanning my tickets over the last few weeks, all 3 Regionals I took out of BOS I had my ticket scanned before reaching BBY.
It depends how busy it is. On busy runs, they will hustle and try to lift most of the tickets right out of BOS. If they waited until the Route to lift them, they'd miss lots of people detraining at PVD, who then try to go up to the ticket windows for a refund because they think they're smarter than the eLift system, conductors and ticket agents... On VERY busy days, (Around Holidays, School Starting Up, Letting Out, etc.) once the conductor lifts a certain percentage of tickets from a departure point, the eLift system automatically "Force Lifts" the remainder of the tickets from that destination, so that if the train is packed full, they don't have to necessarily scan every single ticket, including those fare evaders "hiding out" in the bathrooms...

It may screw up those who actually miss the train by 20 minutes and find their ticket is already lifted, but you're supposed to cancel prior to train departure anyway, or your ticket is at risk of being forfeited.
 
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Amtrak and ripta need to work out a provision for Westerly to have a non-Amtrak employee caretaker/station host like so many small stations have away from the nec. I know in Mystic the chamber of commerce controls the waiting room (it has blizzare hours).
 
I never realized BBY was staffed. The platform is so dark, creepy and filthy. The only time I ever use BBY is if I need to make a quick transfer from BON to BOS and vice versa.
Just what station are you talking about, Back Bay is a more spartan station than South, but dark, creepy and filthy it's not, and I ride from there often.

The one upside to no agent at Back Bay, is it will require large convention groups to board at South Station where they can be pre boarded, and provided assistance.

We have had a few instances where a large group insisted on boarding there (granted it's closer to some very large hotels, and the Hynes Convention Center), and it took

forever.

Ken
 
Asking customers to Wait on the platform in the dead of winter is not good customer service, IMO.

Also, at WLY, the electric wheelchair lifts in the stairways to the tunnel are keyed, and powered on and operated by the station agent. This might be an issue unless the state of Rhode Island (who owns the building) pays someone to open/close the station, and clean and maintain the waiting area and bathrooms, which is what the Amtrak agent does, much the same as the situation at Kingston, RI (KIN).
It's not that hard to get keys made for the conductors.. They may even have keys already. I know that the hand crank wheel chair lifts that are locked up at many stations just use a basic switch key.
 
I never realized BBY was staffed. The platform is so dark, creepy and filthy. The only time I ever use BBY is if I need to make a quick transfer from BON to BOS and vice versa.
Just what station are you talking about, Back Bay is a more spartan station than South, but dark, creepy and filthy it's not, and I ride from there often.

The one upside to no agent at Back Bay, is it will require large convention groups to board at South Station where they can be pre boarded, and provided assistance.

We have had a few instances where a large group insisted on boarding there (granted it's closer to some very large hotels, and the Hynes Convention Center), and it took

forever.

Ken
I don't think "dark, creepy, and filthy" is completely off-base as a description of Back Bay Station's *platform* area.
 
Asking customers to Wait on the platform in the dead of winter is not good customer service, IMO.

Also, at WLY, the electric wheelchair lifts in the stairways to the tunnel are keyed, and powered on and operated by the station agent. This might be an issue unless the state of Rhode Island (who owns the building) pays someone to open/close the station, and clean and maintain the waiting area and bathrooms, which is what the Amtrak agent does, much the same as the situation at Kingston, RI (KIN).
It's not that hard to get keys made for the conductors.. They may even have keys already. I know that the hand crank wheel chair lifts that are locked up at many stations just use a basic switch key.

It doesn't really make sense at WLY, and it's not as simple as "getting keys made."

With a ticket agent there, passengers with disabilities or impairments can check in prior to departure, the station agent monitors the train status and assists the passenger at the appropriate time, arriving train side before the train approaches, wheelchair (crank) lift in position and ready to board the passenger. No delay incurred to trains.

But conductors would need to leave their train (because, of course, you cannot actually see anyone waiting at the station side tunnel entrance while your train is blocking view), walk down the stairs into the tunnel, through the tunnel, up the stairs to the station side, to check to see if someone is boarding with a wheelchair. If this is the case, the conductor would need to operate the electric wheelchair lifts on either staircase, unlock and move the manually wheelchair lift train-side, board the passenger, then return and re-secure the lift. Not exactly the same situation
 
Also at WLY, the station is on the south side of the tracks. Due to high speed Acela, there is a fence in between the northbound (station side) track and the southbound track. The entry to the stairs is near the track on the northbound side but 50 feet or so from the southbound side! (I've never crossed thru the tunnel, so I'm not exactly sure where the entry is on the other side.)
 
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