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Shortline

Shortline

Conductor
Joined
Mar 13, 2011
Messages
1,178
Location
All over the United States
Waiting on 20 to arrive BHM. New station still isn't open, current one is pretty depressing, and the agents (who simply put a "no check in required take a seat and wait sign" in the window and are hiding out on a bench in the entryway area are about as pleasant as a cornered rattlesnake. Train is looking to be an hour late, and updates keep pushing it later so wandered down to the Piziz Food Hall, - trendy upscale food court that caters to the wealthy business travelers and office workers downtown, figured if I was going to wait may as well be with an artisanal cheese board and a craft beer.

Anyway, tried going on to the Amtrak site to watch the progress of the train to get back in time but can't find it-is that live track a train thing still on there?
 
It's still there. On the main page of the Amtrak Web site scroll down until you see "Track Your Train."
 
It's live enough for my purposes. Frankly, with the security risk of advertising where trains are and how fast they're traveling at any given moment, I'm surprised they share it at all.
 
Regarding the first comment in this thread about the agents in Birmingham, I, myself, have always wondered why is it among some Amtrak station agents, and some dining car personnel, that they just don't seem to have the right attitude and people skills for customer service work. They seem very mis-cast for their occupations.

Is it because of the labor unions Amtrak has to deal with that employees with attitudes can't be fired?

In the case of my travels on the long distance trains it has been very unusual that during my trips I haven't come across at least one employee who doesn't exhibit any of the human relations skills and empathy that would normally be expected of workers serving customers. Why aren't those folks immediately relieved of their duties?

And if it IS the unions protecting the workers with bad attitudes, what would it take for Amtrak to eliminate the labor unions? I don't see that a productive and proficient employee with a whiz-bang sales personality needs a union anyway. Thoughts?
 
Shortline said:
Frankly, with the security risk of advertising where trains are and how fast they're traveling at any given moment, I'm surprised they share it at all.
Click to expand...
Trains run in open daylight. Sabotage took place long before the Internet became ubiquitous, and any group of terrorists who wants to engage in that kind of thing doesn't have to depend on a website to tell them where trains are. Note that airliners are trackable in near real-time on many websites.
 
Unions don't create bad attitudes, it is usually a failure to create a proper work environment. Southwest Airlines is one of the most unionized airlines, it has good customer service. Other similar airlines don't. Companies need to have properly trained field supervision and middle management, who know how to deal with issues. Creating an adversarial attitude doesn't work with or without a CBA. Senior management also has to support the efforts, otherwise why would anyone at any level care? If their are no repercussions for poor performance by the people above me, exactly why should anyone give a damn. The culture of the US contributes to the problem, we have a very low percentage of unionization compared to most of the rest of the industrialized world, but they don't generally have as serious a customer service problem.
 
Charles785 said:
Regarding the first comment in this thread about the agents in Birmingham, I, myself, have always wondered why is it among some Amtrak station agents, and some dining car personnel, that they just don't seem to have the right attitude and people skills for customer service work. They seem very mis-cast for their occupations.

Is it because of the labor unions Amtrak has to deal with that employees with attitudes can't be fired?

In the case of my travels on the long distance trains it has been very unusual that during my trips I haven't come across at least one employee who doesn't exhibit any of the human relations skills and empathy that would normally be expected of workers serving customers. Why aren't those folks immediately relieved of their duties?

And if it IS the unions protecting the workers with bad attitudes, what would it take for Amtrak to eliminate the labor unions? I don't see that a productive and proficient employee with a whiz-bang sales personality needs a union anyway. Thoughts?
Click to expand...
My thoughts are that out of 5 whole posts, two of them get straight into Union Bashing, and the other three are hardly supportive of Amtrak. Thoughts ?

Ed.
 
xyzzy said:
Shortline said:
Frankly, with the security risk of advertising where trains are and how fast they're traveling at any given moment, I'm surprised they share it at all.
Click to expand...
Trains run in open daylight. Sabotage took place long before the Internet became ubiquitous, and any group of terrorists who wants to engage in that kind of thing doesn't have to depend on a website to tell them where trains are. Note that airliners are trackable in near real-time on many websites.
Click to expand...
True-However, having served for quite a few years in, and been fairly well trained in security, anti-terrorism, and rail security, I can think of quite a few ways this information would be extremely beneficial for someone with bad intentions, While you're correct, in that there are so many other ways to get this same info, or much of it anyway, it would add a layer of difficulty. In any event, I'm not advocating it go away, just surprised it's there at all.
 
People rarely want to take responsibility for whatever is not right. Fix blame before fixing problems. That is across the board not at one level of a company, it is both a worker and a management problem. You can create a toxic environment in a workplace, regardless of whether or not it is unionized. Look at many of the large retailers. But good managers can thrive in an environment where fear and intimidation are not part of their toolkit, and actually knowing how to manage is. Amtrak fits right into the same mold as many other companies, unionization is the first excuse of weak or poor management, managers don't sit around in a meeting about a problem and say that they are the problem.
 

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