It's hard to like Amtrak when they keep messing up with delays

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Texan Eagle

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Aug 25, 2011
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In the last one month now I am 3 out of 3 on my score of "poor Amtrak trips". Having quite a month I guess!

After riding Coast Starlight with broken HVAC and rude attendant, today I rode Capitol Corridor from Oakland to Santa Clara and back, and Amtrak disappointed me on both legs. I had convinced a co-worker to ride the train with me instead of dealing with traffic, and now he hates me :p

The morning Cap Corridor departed fine from Oakland, and came to an abrupt halt between Oakland and Hayward. 15 minutes of no movement, no updates from the crew, just waiting, and then started moving and never recovered from the delay. With Amtrak, delays are measured in hours so 15 minutes seems like nothing, but remember this is a commuter route. Reaching Santa Clara at 8.40am instead of 8.24am meant we missed the connecting bus, had to pay up for cab and got late to a meeting. Oh well.

On the way back, we were to take the 12.26pm Cap Corridor from Santa Clara. That time came and went, no signs, no announcements, no train in sight. After 20 minutes of waiting, I called 1800-USA-RAIL and after a long hold, tells us the train is only 8 minutes late, when I was standing at the platform 20 minutes beyond departure time! Anyway, it arrived 30 minutes late, stopped abruptly near Great America and dropped us at Oakland 45 minutes late. 1 hour commute ended being almost 2 hours.

I contacted Amtrak Customer Relations and his response was- "if a train is less than 30 minutes late, it is on time. There is no reason to complain". He also decided to add his unasked-for advice that if I did not want to miss my appointments I should "have just taken earlier train".

It sucks that unlike Europe and Japan where trains run to the minute, Amtrak runs on the philosophy that if a train delay is not measured in hours, it is all good. And oh, the absolute disinterest among crew to keep the passengers informed what is going on.
 
In the last one month now I am 3 out of 3 on my score of "poor Amtrak trips". Having quite a month I guess!

After riding Coast Starlight with broken HVAC and rude attendant, today I rode Capitol Corridor from Oakland to Santa Clara and back, and Amtrak disappointed me on both legs. I had convinced a co-worker to ride the train with me instead of dealing with traffic, and now he hates me :p

The morning Cap Corridor departed fine from Oakland, and came to an abrupt halt between Oakland and Hayward. 15 minutes of no movement, no updates from the crew, just waiting, and then started moving and never recovered from the delay. With Amtrak, delays are measured in hours so 15 minutes seems like nothing, but remember this is a commuter route. Reaching Santa Clara at 8.40am instead of 8.24am meant we missed the connecting bus, had to pay up for cab and got late to a meeting. Oh well.

On the way back, we were to take the 12.26pm Cap Corridor from Santa Clara. That time came and went, no signs, no announcements, no train in sight. After 20 minutes of waiting, I called 1800-USA-RAIL and after a long hold, tells us the train is only 8 minutes late, when I was standing at the platform 20 minutes beyond departure time! Anyway, it arrived 30 minutes late, stopped abruptly near Great America and dropped us at Oakland 45 minutes late. 1 hour commute ended being almost 2 hours.

I contacted Amtrak Customer Relations and his response was- "if a train is less than 30 minutes late, it is on time. There is no reason to complain". He also decided to add his unasked-for advice that if I did not want to miss my appointments I should "have just taken earlier train".

It sucks that unlike Europe and Japan where trains run to the minute, Amtrak runs on the philosophy that if a train delay is not measured in hours, it is all good. And oh, the absolute disinterest among crew to keep the passengers informed what is going on.
You think that trains run on time and everything is dandy until you ask the locals. I was on the TGV and it was over 2 hours late.

DSC03871 by B H, on Flickr

British railroads are full of nothing but complaints in British news. Also, there was a recent article called, "Why German Trains Don't Run On Time." Unless your in Switzerland, you shouldn't count on trains being on time for important meetings.
 
In all fairness you should never leave yourself that little wiggle room for arriving to something important. What if your bus suffered a mechanical issue? Or got stuck in traffic? Unruly passenger?

I agree the train should be on time, but just be careful on timings when heading to important things. Earlier this year I had a business guy going off on me and the rest of the crew because we ruined his day, made him late for his meeting (he gave himself 25 minutes, assuming an on time arrival, to get across Boston to the place the meeting was being held).

2190 had a fatality and quite obviously there was nothing that we could do. We suggested he check Greyhound at the station or rent a car as we had no other options to give him.
 
I fully sympathise with Texan Eagle, and feel the lack of info from staff compounds the damage done to passengers moral.

One the other hand, an automated "We deeply regret the inconvenience caused" announcement does little to soothe either.

Maybe part of the solution would be to give train staff the authority to show initiative, maybe telephone ahead so the connecting bus can be held?

I believe trains in mainland europe are by and large pretty reliable, but I would always take an earlier train for an important journey, simply due to the "pipeline" nature of rail travel. One delay on the system often has a knock on effect, and in these cases the crews may not know why there is a delay, other than the signal is red...

I am off to Derby today for an "internet date", and will certainly be taking an earlier bus!

Cheers,

Ed.
 
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In all fairness you should never leave yourself that little wiggle room for arriving to something important. What if your bus suffered a mechanical issue? Or got stuck in traffic? Unruly passenger?
Like I said, delays happen, I don't care if I am putting myself into a tight connection and missing due to that. What I do care about is Amtrak's lax attitude towards punctuality and the Customer Relations guy shrugging me off saying "if the delay is 30-45 minutes, it is as good as on time". Now, this might be acceptable (ideally not) on a 40 hour long CZ ride from Chicago to SF, but on a commuter line when your 1 hour commute becomes close to 2 hours, that is not "as good as on time".

And oh, the complete lack of interest among the onboard crew in informing the passengers what is going on. On both my trains, the crew was behaving like they have been forced to be on a train, and this is seen every so often on other Amtrak trains too.
 
I've generally found the Amtrak California crews to be more attentive and helpful than those on the national trains, and most Amtrak passengers would probably kill to be "only" 14 minutes late (here's to lowered expectations!). Additionally, most delays are beyond Amtrak's control (freight interference, trespassers, etc) and there's really nothing customer service can do about it.

Nevertheless, it sounds like the crew could have done a better job keeping everyone informed of the delays via onboard announcements. Airline pilots always inform passengers of the current ETA and provide updates if conditions change. Why can't Amtrak?
 
Amtrak has little to no control regarding the on-time performance of most of their trains.

The railroads that own the tracks Amtrak trains run on do.

The NEC is about the only exception in that regard, as that's about the only track Amtrak owns.

Maybe the don't-work-for-Amtrak railroad dispatchers don't keep the Amtrak Engineer fully informed regarding why the dispatcher made the Engineer stop the train.

And there are many reasons a dispatcher may make the Amtrak train stop.

Indeed, the doesn't-work-for-Amtrak dispatcher may not know when the Amtrak train will again be able to move.
 
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I've generally found the Amtrak California crews to be more attentive and helpful than those on the national trains, and most Amtrak passengers would probably kill to be "only" 14 minutes late (here's to lowered expectations!). Additionally, most delays are beyond Amtrak's control (freight interference, trespassers, etc) and there's really nothing customer service can do about it.

Nevertheless, it sounds like the crew could have done a better job keeping everyone informed of the delays via onboard announcements. Airline pilots always inform passengers of the current ETA and provide updates if conditions change. Why can't Amtrak?
Threads like these always make me laugh when you consider how subjective they are. While not excusing poor customer service, even that term is subjective. The crew of this train might not had any idea of what the delay was about, or how long it would be, so there is very little to announce other than the obvious...that the train is stopped. So, they don't say much. We've had threads about how that annoys people.

However, if you make a routine monotonous announcement, that may ruffle feathers. Indeed in this very thread, someone mentioned " One the other hand, an automated "We deeply regret the inconvenience caused" announcement does little to soothe either." Indeed. So, a routine announcement that indicates nothing and offers a heartless apology would probably annoy some passengers (myself included.)

Recently, someone started a thread about a conductor that described exactly what was happening, why it was happening and how it was happening. If memory serves, that passenger decided it was too much information and unnecessary. So, you're never going to please everyone.

As for making phone calls, crews are not allowed to just jump on phones since Chatsworth. It is a federal offensive. You may use a company issued phone for company business provided the radio doesn't work (reemphasized after 89) or will not accomplish what you need (e.g. a call to customer service/reservations, wi-fi support and certain mechanical issues.) As such, passengers, who have social media at their command often know more about what is going on than the crews, who may have been on the train for hours without contact. They may know about the derailment, fatality, explosion well before the people on the rails.

As for customer service, I can't answer for them other than to say that European trains are not always punctual and if you want to compare it to the Japanese, they provide for more support for their trains than we, where trains are an aside. So, the comparison is ludicrous. Additionally, they can't actually see the train. Thanks to the computerized time entry system, a train can stop right outside of station and since the train is inside the geo-fence, as far as everyone can tell, the train is in the station. So, what would you expect the agent, who may be in California but also may be in Pennsylvanian to say to you? They can only go by what the computer says.
 
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I remember a conversation I had with a German waiting for the Leonardo Express in Roma Termini. The train was not on schedule and he was about to have a melt down about the Italians and their trains. Everyone else was in an Italian frame of mind and had not planned their travel schedule to the minute, like the unfortunate German.
 
While I understand Amtrak is no match for many foreign passenger rail systems, understand that it is not meant to be. Amtrak was created to prevent railroads from being wiped out in 1971. The historical context still is critical when you think about what Amtrak is to this day (with the exception of the NEC, but then again I have found my fair share of delays while riding the Acela). Amtrak was created to save the railroads, not to serve the passengers. This country has since never made passenger rail into even a faint iota of a national priority, and the tough truth is that it likely never will become of national importance. I have my ideas of how to change that, but this thread is not the place for that sort of discussion. The simple answer is that your concerns are not going to be taken seriously because UP runs the railroad upon which Amtrak operates the trains on which you had delay problems, and UP's shareholders do not care whether passengers get to where they are going on time. Amtrak can pick whatever philosophy it wants, but that will be meaningless so long as they are running on infrastructure that is built and maintained for freight shipping purposes.
 
I contacted Amtrak Customer Relations and his response was- "if a train is less than 30 minutes late, it is on time.
That is incorrect. According to Amtrak's own website:

On-Time Performance (OTP)

On-time performance is a percentage measure of train performance. It is calculated by taking the total number of trains arriving "on-time" at the end-point of the run divided by the total number of trains operated on the run. A train is considered "on-time" if it arrives at the final destination, or end-point, within an allowed number of minutes, or tolerance, of its scheduled arrival time. Trains are allowed a certain tolerance at the end-point based on the number of miles traveled. For example, trains traveling 250 miles or less are allowed a 10 minute tolerance while trains traveling over 550 miles are allowed a 30 minute tolerance, which is the maximum allowed. A long-distance train traveling over 550 miles would be considered "on-time" if it arrived at its final destination within 30 minutes of its scheduled arrival time. On-time performance is only calculated and measured at the end-point of a train route.
Bolding mine. The entire Capitol Corridor is much less than 250 miles, so the 10-minute tolerance would apply. Whether or not a train is listed as "on time" is measured from the train's final destination.

Based on the information you provided, your westbound train reached its final destination (San Jose) exactly 10 minutes late, so I suppose it was technically on time, but for your particular destination you were more than 10 minutes late, so I think you'd have a case to make.

However, your eastbound train was more than 10 minutes late at every stop along the way, and was more than 30 minutes late at most stops, including the final destination in SAC. Late by any standard, really.
 
Well, how about that. There's an actual reason for the delays involving somebody getting hurt. Too bad this person's (possibly serious) problems messed up Texan's day.
 
Well, how about that. There's an actual reason for the delays involving somebody getting hurt. Too bad this person's (possibly serious) problems messed up Texan's day.
Regardless of the reason for the delay, there's no excuse for Amtrak phone agents to be so dismissive, especially when they cite an inaccurate standard of lateness.
 
Maybe part of the solution would be to give train staff the authority to show initiative, maybe telephone ahead so the connecting bus can be held?
This sounds like a good suggestion to me. I'd be curious what Amtrak employees think of it.

Amtrak has little to no control regarding the on-time performance of most of their trains.
Amtrak has more control over their own performance than "little or none". Every time one of their locomotives dies, or they have to screw around with the electrical connections, or try to fix the food reheating equipment, or bad order a defective passenger car, that's on Amtrak and nobody else. They also have 100% control over how they interact with passengers who are delayed.

532(7) was a late turn due to 527(7) being delayed 2.5 hours because of an on-board passenger injury and the need to re-crew at MTZ.
I wonder what sort of on-board "injury" brings an entire train to a halt for hours on end. Seems like even with this horrendous event the OBS could have handled communication better and the call center staff could have been more understanding and less dismissive. Maybe they were overcome with grief at a passenger being injured on their watch.

Well, how about that. There's an actual reason for the delays involving somebody getting hurt. Too bad this person's (possibly serious) problems messed up Texan's day.
Regardless of the reason for the delay, there's no excuse for Amtrak phone agents to be so dismissive, especially when they cite an inaccurate standard of lateness.
Nothing is ever Amtrak's fault. It's always some other passenger or railroad or government agency or weather phenomenon that makes Amtrak staff look bad.
 
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Hardly.

Sometimes the delay is absolutely Amtrak, fault

But more often than not it's those things you mention that are.

Frankly, the OP sounds like the kind of person that perceives the world they want it to be, rather than the way it actually is.
 
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British railroads are full of nothing but complaints in British news.
Is this by any chance old news?

I know DA will be after me, but I recently spent a week in the UK taking 9 trains, 4 locals and 5 IC's. Each one was on time to the minute. I was also impressed by the friendly staff help at a large station - Reading.

The only complaint I noticed was about crowding on the rush hour trains to and from London.
 
British railroads are full of nothing but complaints in British news.
Is this by any chance old news? I know DA will be after me, but I recently spent a week in the UK taking 9 trains, 4 locals and 5 IC's. Each one was on time to the minute. I was also impressed by the friendly staff help at a large station - Reading.The only complaint I noticed was about crowding on the rush hour trains to and from London.
I've actually had mostly positive experiences on British, French, German, and Japanese trains. Sure, there have been delays here and there, but most of the time they're relatively short and there's usually another train coming along to pickup where the last one left off. The only exception I can think of involved a high speed impact suicide that had apparently closed down a major trunk line and created a knock-on effect for other trains.
 
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Frankly, the OP sounds like the kind of person that perceives the world they want it to be, rather than the way it actually is.
Yeah man, totally. After traveling 50,000 miles, including on every single Amtrak route west of Chicago, having written travel blogs for multiple sites encouraging people to try Amtrak, having won Amtrak's "See America by Train" competition 3 years ago that bagged me a DSLR as a gift from Amtrak, I am totally a whiny complaining guy who doesn't know how Amtrak's world works. You got it.
 
Well, how about that. There's an actual reason for the delays involving somebody getting hurt. Too bad this person's (possibly serious) problems messed up Texan's day.
Yeah, too bad that neither Amtrak's call center, nor Customer Relations, nor signs on the station, nor announcements, nor the Amtrak app had any mention of anything about HOW much the train is delayed, let alone WHY it is delayed. So yeah, take your sarcasm somewhere else.
 
From the Sacramento Bee:

At least one Capitol Corridor train passenger was injured and possibly more Wednesday morning when a train suddenly lurched violently while traveling between Sacramento and Davis.
Read more here: SacBee
 
^^ Which is why I'm surprised that the passenger wasn't detrained at either Davis or Suisun/Fairfield instead of at Martinez which is close to 45 minutes away from where the incident happened.
 
I've filed complaints about Amtrak's gross communications failures before. The folks at Customer Relations agree with me, but it doesn't seem to *do* anything.
 
I just completed a coast to coast and return on Amtrak's Capitol Limited and California Zephyr. The westbound Capitol Limited crew was top notch and we arrive right on schedule in Chicago maybe a few minutes early. The OBS crew on the westbound and eastbound California Zephyr's were again top notched and most would call me by my first name. I had the same crew both directions and special salute to my SCA Dennis. I had the coughing nasal congestion bug both directions and Dennis next door in roomette 001 (I was in 003) was concerned for my health and checked up on me regularly. Also in both directions we had lead engine event delays. The conductor in each occasion gave us a brief update but he had no way to know how long the corrective action would require. Westbound we were on delayed about 30 minutes but eastbound we were delayed over 3 hours but it was late at night and I slept through the delay. Did not know until after we reached Chicago that the lead engine had been removed and we proceeded with only one engine from eastern Colorado to Chicago. If you expect things to be different, then maybe Amtrak is not for you. Personally, I love the adventure and plan my trips to provide for the delays meaning no less than 5 hours connections. In fact, eastbound I always book a room and overnight in Chicago and proceed on my journey the next day.
 
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