Bad Amtrak customer service and maintenance- Disastrous Calif. Zephyr

Amtrak mechanical has really fallen.

It's routinely placing malfunctioning cars in service, a big no-no for a business that wants to please its customers.


Amtrak's quality control is getting really bad. The sleeping car me and my elderly mother rode in on the California Zephyr this month had no AC. The crew said it had been like this for a week, meaning the car has been routinely running when it shouldn't have.

Maintenance in CHI didn't fix it, and didn't replace it with a working unit. This made a lot of passengers angry with summer temps in the 90s on the California Zephyr. Many said "Never again..."



I called Amtrak customer service en-route (the first day, of 2 nights) to see if the car could be repaired at Salt Lake City or Denver, the next major service stops. Nope. Nothing to be done.



The crew recommended sleeping in coach or in the lounge, which weren't acceptable solutions. The train was sold-out, so there weren't any rooms available.



The family room in our car was evacuated, so me and a gentleman across the aisle took those big beds (per directions of our attendant). It was a little cooler, and better than the other rooms, which were infernos. The 2nd night, at 1 a.m., the conductor moved us to a roommette in the crew car at Holdredge, NE, which was air conditioned. But a 1 a.m. transfer wasn't convenient.



A large group of America by Rail travelers boarded at Glenwood Springs. They were very upset at the heat. One was looking into an overnight bus from Denver or renting cars, none of which were practical, so they remained aboard.



The crew (and I) recommended contacting customer service for refunds. We got a $500 voucher, which seemed fair.

This reflects badly on Amtrak management. The buck stops at the supposed CEO's desk.



There was no rational reason the defective sleeping car should remain in service. This points to Amtrak's lousy customer service and maintenance. Things like this shouldn't happen, particularly at the peak of summer travel.

I do not understand how you can claim that Amtrak Customer Relations is lousy? They provided you with $500 - which even you above said seems fair!

If Customer Relations was so lousy, they would have given you nothing!

I personally believe that Andersons' hidden agenda is to wipe out all LD trains by killing ridership with ****-poor boxed dogfood meals, packed/sold out trains, and, of course bad order equipment being used. Shades of the '60s when almost every RR wanted out of the passenger business.

I meant customer service, overall, not only after the trip.

That car should've been repaired while en route, not a week later.

Am sure CEO Anderson -- who's responsible for the company's product and quality of its product -- would IMMEDIATELY have his AC repaired if his office lost AC.

ohle said:

I meant customer service, overall, not only after the trip.

That car should've been repaired while en route, not a week later.

Am sure CEO Anderson -- who's responsible for the company's product and quality of its product -- would IMMEDIATELY have his AC repaired if his office lost AC.

Click to expand...

It's very difficult to repair a car en route. There's a very limited time at each stop, and they have to make sure they do it in a manner that is not posing any kind of hazard to the passengers. I get that it sucked to have a broken A/C in the summer, but there are limits to what they can do about it once the train is underway.

cpotisch said:

ohle said:

I meant customer service, overall, not only after the trip.

That car should've been repaired while en route, not a week later.

Am sure CEO Anderson -- who's responsible for the company's product and quality of its product -- would IMMEDIATELY have his AC repaired if his office lost AC.

Click to expand...

It's very difficult to repair a car en route. There's a very limited time at each stop, and they have to make sure they do it in a manner that is not posing any kind of hazard to the passengers. I get that it sucked to have a broken A/C in the summer, but there are limits to what they can do about it once the train is underway.

Click to expand...

However, I was on the Silver Meteor last week and the AC in one of the coach cars failed. The coach attendant moved the passengers into the other coaches. When the train pulled into Savannah, maintenance was able to repair the AC, which was a pleasant surprise. I was in a sleeper, but I chatted with a coach attendant who I have know for a while.

pennyk said:

cpotisch said:

ohle said:

I meant customer service, overall, not only after the trip.

That car should've been repaired while en route, not a week later.

Am sure CEO Anderson -- who's responsible for the company's product and quality of its product -- would IMMEDIATELY have his AC repaired if his office lost AC.

Click to expand...

It's very difficult to repair a car en route. There's a very limited time at each stop, and they have to make sure they do it in a manner that is not posing any kind of hazard to the passengers. I get that it sucked to have a broken A/C in the summer, but there are limits to what they can do about it once the train is underway.

Click to expand...

However, I was on the Silver Meteor last week and the AC in one of the coach cars failed. The coach attendant moved the passengers into the other coaches. When the train pulled into Savannah, maintenance was able to repair the AC, which was a pleasant surprise. I was in a sleeper, but I chatted with a coach attendant who I have know for a while.

Click to expand...

But would they necessarily have been able to move everyone from that sleeper into the adjacent sleepers? There are plenty of seats in a coach, but sleepers don't hold nearly as many people, and on the CZ in peak season, they usually run pretty full.

cpotisch said:

pennyk said:

cpotisch said:

ohle said:

I meant customer service, overall, not only after the trip.

That car should've been repaired while en route, not a week later.

Am sure CEO Anderson -- who's responsible for the company's product and quality of its product -- would IMMEDIATELY have his AC repaired if his office lost AC.

Click to expand...

It's very difficult to repair a car en route. There's a very limited time at each stop, and they have to make sure they do it in a manner that is not posing any kind of hazard to the passengers. I get that it sucked to have a broken A/C in the summer, but there are limits to what they can do about it once the train is underway.

Click to expand...

However, I was on the Silver Meteor last week and the AC in one of the coach cars failed. The coach attendant moved the passengers into the other coaches. When the train pulled into Savannah, maintenance was able to repair the AC, which was a pleasant surprise. I was in a sleeper, but I chatted with a coach attendant who I have know for a while.

Click to expand...

But would they necessarily have been able to move everyone from that sleeper into the adjacent sleepers? There are plenty of seats in a coach, but sleepers don't hold nearly as many people, and on the CZ in peak season, they usually run pretty full.

Click to expand...

I think the point of Penny's message was they were able to repair it enroute....

There's a thousand reasons air conditioning can fail. A failed fitting on a line can be fixed with a generic part, some refrigerant, and a guy with a wrench. A seized compressor is going to require shop time for replacement or repair. Just because one problem can be fixed while the train is en route doesn't mean another could.

ohle said:

I meant customer service, overall, not only after the trip.

Click to expand...

Customer service, specifically?

Upon boarding the Cardinal at WAS 2 weeks ago, the sleeping car attendant was nowhere to be found until 10-15 minutes AFTER departure!! It was everyone for themselves to get on the sleeper and find their own rooms. A mere 7 hours ago, upon boarding the Silver Meteor at Winter Park, after the train stopped, the attendant for my car did not open the door. I have no idea where he was. I boarded at the 2nd sleeper and that door was staffed by the conductor! It was 5 minutes later I first met him, and I was the only sleeper passenger boarding his car at WPK.

On the other side of the coin, tonight for dinner in the diner, after being shown my seat and given a menu, the server asked what would I like to drink. Less than 2 minutes later he appeared with my milk, a salad, and a warm dinner roll on a plate...all before asking my room/car #, etc. He was very efficient and cleared off used plates within a couple seconds of my finishing the salad, roll, dinner, etc. The car was nearly filled after the 6PM seating and there were 2 servers + LSA.

On the poor service side, when I went to take a shower at 5:45 AM this morning on the Silver Star, there were only 3 bath towels and 2 soaps available. Judging from the size of the dirty-towel bag, 3 people showered at night before I got there in the morning. So the car was barely provided enough towels and soap for the trip. A couple months ago on the Sunset Ltd, going into LA on the 2nd morning there were NO bath towels available. I figured that would happen the morning before, so I went down with my hand towel and the usual face cloth, bar of soap (if not previously seen), and my small bottle of shampoo. After carefully wiping myself down with the washcloth after the shower, the hand towel 'finished the job'.

Other times, there's literally MOUNTAIN of bath towels and soaps, and even hand towels in the shower. And surprise of surprises, on the Lakeshore Ltd 2 weeks ago, there were even a number of brand new cheap-foam shower flip-flops in the shower room. Part of the new 'fresh choices' program to go with the useless amenity pack in the room? In 40+ years of riding Amtrak sleepers, I've NEVER seen flip-flops provided!

ohle said:

Amtrak mechanical has really fallen.

It's routinely placing malfunctioning cars in service, a big no-no for a business that wants to please its customers.



Amtrak's quality control is getting really bad. The sleeping car me and my elderly mother rode in on the California Zephyr this month had no AC. The crew said it had been like this for a week, meaning the car has been routinely running when it shouldn't have.

Maintenance in CHI didn't fix it, and didn't replace it with a working unit. This made a lot of passengers angry with summer temps in the 90s on the California Zephyr. Many said "Never again..."



I called Amtrak customer service en-route (the first day, of 2 nights) to see if the car could be repaired at Salt Lake City or Denver, the next major service stops. Nope. Nothing to be done.



The crew recommended sleeping in coach or in the lounge, which weren't acceptable solutions. The train was sold-out, so there weren't any rooms available.



The family room in our car was evacuated, so me and a gentleman across the aisle took those big beds (per directions of our attendant). It was a little cooler, and better than the other rooms, which were infernos. The 2nd night, at 1 a.m., the conductor moved us to a roommette in the crew car at Holdredge, NE, which was air conditioned. But a 1 a.m. transfer wasn't convenient.



A large group of America by Rail travelers boarded at Glenwood Springs. They were very upset at the heat. One was looking into an overnight bus from Denver or renting cars, none of which were practical, so they remained aboard.



The crew (and I) recommended contacting customer service for refunds. We got a $500 voucher, which seemed fair.

This reflects badly on Amtrak management. The buck stops at the supposed CEO's desk.



There was no rational reason the defective sleeping car should remain in service. This points to Amtrak's lousy customer service and maintenance. Things like this shouldn't happen, particularly at the peak of summer travel.

Click to expand...

This sounds like the same car I was on in July. Fortunately for me only half the car was out and there was plenty of open rooms in the other half. It failed as we were coming in to Chicago which was also fortunate. But our SCA was very annoyed as he reported the issue with the AC a couple of times before.

What car were you in? I was in 632 Room 11.

ohle said:

The crew (and I) recommended contacting customer service for refunds. We got a $500 voucher, which seemed fair.

Click to expand...

Lucky You! When boarding the A/T, the car attendant was surprised at our being there (???) BOTH of our rooms were flooded...carpet a sopping mess. He said he had told the counter and the maintenance to take our rooms out of service. No body told us!!! Standing on the platform, our choice was...well...the car was already loaded, so driving to Florida was out. Our only choice = pile the luggage on top of the toilet off the floor, spread out a dozen towels to hold the water, stay off the floor. Contacted "Customer Service". Result = N-O-T-H-I-N-G - NO REFUND, NOTHING!!! "Hey - We got you there...".

Its bad with no air conditioning anywhere on a train. I would have had to get off at first major city. You mentioned " me and my elderly mother" . What happened to her?

I boarded a sleeper in DC to West Palm Beach a few years back and no a/c. I talked to the conductor who said its no a/c or go see customer service. I left the train and customer service gave me taxi fare to DCA and a coach ticket to West Palm Beach on the next available flight. I also received a nice voucher. Not sure that would happen today.

spinnaker said:

ohle said:

Amtrak mechanical has really fallen.

It's routinely placing malfunctioning cars in service, a big no-no for a business that wants to please its customers.



Amtrak's quality control is getting really bad. The sleeping car me and my elderly mother rode in on the California Zephyr this month had no AC. The crew said it had been like this for a week, meaning the car has been routinely running when it shouldn't have.

Maintenance in CHI didn't fix it, and didn't replace it with a working unit. This made a lot of passengers angry with summer temps in the 90s on the California Zephyr. Many said "Never again..."



I called Amtrak customer service en-route (the first day, of 2 nights) to see if the car could be repaired at Salt Lake City or Denver, the next major service stops. Nope. Nothing to be done.



The crew recommended sleeping in coach or in the lounge, which weren't acceptable solutions. The train was sold-out, so there weren't any rooms available.



The family room in our car was evacuated, so me and a gentleman across the aisle took those big beds (per directions of our attendant). It was a little cooler, and better than the other rooms, which were infernos. The 2nd night, at 1 a.m., the conductor moved us to a roommette in the crew car at Holdredge, NE, which was air conditioned. But a 1 a.m. transfer wasn't convenient.



A large group of America by Rail travelers boarded at Glenwood Springs. They were very upset at the heat. One was looking into an overnight bus from Denver or renting cars, none of which were practical, so they remained aboard.



The crew (and I) recommended contacting customer service for refunds. We got a $500 voucher, which seemed fair.

This reflects badly on Amtrak management. The buck stops at the supposed CEO's desk.



There was no rational reason the defective sleeping car should remain in service. This points to Amtrak's lousy customer service and maintenance. Things like this shouldn't happen, particularly at the peak of summer travel.

Click to expand...

This sounds like the same car I was on in July. Fortunately for me only half the car was out and there was plenty of open rooms in the other half. It failed as we were coming in to Chicago which was also fortunate. But our SCA was very annoyed as he reported the issue with the AC a couple of times before.

What car were you in? I was in 632 Room 11.

Click to expand...

Car 0631, Room 11.

The car's physical, or identifying, number is 32041 (the number painted on the end of the car).

I was told on another list that the first number, 0631, can be changed per train trip.

32041 represents the actual car, while the other number represents the number of the car on that specific consist. As an example, 32041 would be 05XX if it was a sleeper on the same train going in the other direction., the first 2 digits are the train number, the second 2 are the position within the consist, I believe it is counting away from the diner...

The bottom line is that Amtrak does not have enough spare equipment to remove a partialy defective car from the train. I have had several occasions when the heating simply has not worked in my roomette.

Getting "compensation" is not the point, getting a functioning travel experience, the one you paid for, is the expectation. It is 2018 after all, not the dark ages...

Ed.

I h

caravanman said:

The bottom line is that Amtrak does not have enough spare equipment to remove a partialy defective car from the train. I have had several occasions when the heating simply has not worked in my roomette.

Getting "compensation" is not the point, getting a functioning travel experience, the one you paid for, is the expectation. It is 2018 after all, not the dark ages...

Ed.

Click to expand...

I was going to say the same thing...if it's true that the car has made more than one trip with the known failed air conditioning, that is inexcusable....

It should have been removed from service until repaired, replacement available or not, and affected passenger's either reaccommodated or given refunds.

caravanman said:

The bottom line is that Amtrak does not have enough spare equipment to remove a partialy defective car from the train. I have had several occasions when the heating simply has not worked in my roomette.

Getting "compensation" is not the point, getting a functioning travel experience, the one you paid for, is the expectation. It is 2018 after all, not the dark ages...

Ed.

Click to expand...

At least you got compensation. Amtrak has no obligation to even give you that - their only obligation is to get you from Point A to Point B.

I don't see how an equipment failure equals bad customer service. There's nothing that could have been done en route by the on board service personnel.

DevalDragon said:

caravanman said:

The bottom line is that Amtrak does not have enough spare equipment to remove a partialy defective car from the train. I have had several occasions when the heating simply has not worked in my roomette.

Getting "compensation" is not the point, getting a functioning travel experience, the one you paid for, is the expectation. It is 2018 after all, not the dark ages...

Ed.

Click to expand...

At least you got compensation. Amtrak has no obligation to even give you that - their only obligation is to get you from Point A to Point B.

I don't see how an equipment failure equals bad customer service. There's nothing that could have been done en route by the on board service personnel.

Click to expand...

The whole point is that the car was defective before it started it's journey, and had been for several days.

The bad customer service is the bad attitude to the customer which says "Yes we know it's broken, but send it out anyway".

As I say, it is 2018... If you can't see that the whole deal should be better than just getting from A to B in a broken train car, then maybe you deserve Amtrak's woeful service.

Breakdown en-route is a different matter of course,

Ed.

This is a really bad experience, but I don’t think it’s an indication that Amtrak mechanical has fallen. Anyone who isn’t looking through Richard-Anderson-hate-colored-glasses would note that Amtrak mechanical has essentially always been bad, and Chicago in particular has had the reputation of being the worst of the bunch.

This goes back decades. There may be patches of time here and there where things got slightly better for a bit, but by and large, what you experienced on this trip (a broken car that departed Chicago without being repaired) has been going on since forever.

Trogdor said:

This is a really bad experience, but I dont think its an indication that Amtrak mechanical has fallen. Anyone who isnt looking through Richard-Anderson-hate-colored-glasses would note that Amtrak mechanical has essentially always been bad, and Chicago in particular has had the reputation of being the worst of the bunch.

This goes back decades. There may be patches of time here and there where things got slightly better for a bit, but by and large, what you experienced on this trip (a broken car that departed Chicago without being repaired) has been going on since forever.

Click to expand...

This. And I might have to use the Richard-Anderson-hate-colored-glasses phrase for myself if you don't mind. It's a pretty good one.

How many spare superliner sleepers are there? I do not think there are many. So not sending the car out means reaccomadation in coach. What if there is no space in coach? Then people just simply don’t go?!! It’s a tough call.

Trogdor said:

This is a really bad experience, but I don’t think it’s an indication that Amtrak mechanical has fallen. Anyone who isn’t looking through Richard-Anderson-hate-colored-glasses would note that Amtrak mechanical has essentially always been bad, and Chicago in particular has had the reputation of being the worst of the bunch.

This goes back decades. There may be patches of time here and there where things got slightly better for a bit, but by and large, what you experienced on this trip (a broken car that departed Chicago without being repaired) has been going on since forever.

Click to expand...

Trogdor said:

This is a really bad experience, but I don’t think it’s an indication that Amtrak mechanical has fallen. Anyone who isn’t looking through Richard-Anderson-hate-colored-glasses would note that Amtrak mechanical has essentially always been bad, and Chicago in particular has had the reputation of being the worst of the bunch.

This goes back decades. There may be patches of time here and there where things got slightly better for a bit, but by and large, what you experienced on this trip (a broken car that departed Chicago without being repaired) has been going on since forever.

Click to expand...

Who's to blame, then?

The man on the moon?

The buck stops with a company's CEO.

When he verbally attacks his own company's product, it shows he cares little about his product or his customers.

caravanman said:

DevalDragon said:

caravanman said:

The bottom line is that Amtrak does not have enough spare equipment to remove a partialy defective car from the train. I have had several occasions when the heating simply has not worked in my roomette.

Getting "compensation" is not the point, getting a functioning travel experience, the one you paid for, is the expectation. It is 2018 after all, not the dark ages...

Ed.

Click to expand...

At least you got compensation. Amtrak has no obligation to even give you that - their only obligation is to get you from Point A to Point B.

I don't see how an equipment failure equals bad customer service. There's nothing that could have been done en route by the on board service personnel.

Click to expand...

The whole point is that the car was defective before it started it's journey, and had been for several days.

The bad customer service is the bad attitude to the customer which says "Yes we know it's broken, but send it out anyway".

As I say, it is 2018... If you can't see that the whole deal should be better than just getting from A to B in a broken train car, then maybe you deserve Amtrak's woeful service.

Ed.

Click to expand...

Exactly.

ohle said:

Trogdor said:

This is a really bad experience, but I don’t think it’s an indication that Amtrak mechanical has fallen. Anyone who isn’t looking through Richard-Anderson-hate-colored-glasses would note that Amtrak mechanical has essentially always been bad, and Chicago in particular has had the reputation of being the worst of the bunch.

This goes back decades. There may be patches of time here and there where things got slightly better for a bit, but by and large, what you experienced on this trip (a broken car that departed Chicago without being repaired) has been going on since forever.

Click to expand...

Trogdor said:

This is a really bad experience, but I don’t think it’s an indication that Amtrak mechanical has fallen. Anyone who isn’t looking through Richard-Anderson-hate-colored-glasses would note that Amtrak mechanical has essentially always been bad, and Chicago in particular has had the reputation of being the worst of the bunch.

This goes back decades. There may be patches of time here and there where things got slightly better for a bit, but by and large, what you experienced on this trip (a broken car that departed Chicago without being repaired) has been going on since forever.

Click to expand...

Who's to blame, then?The man on the moon?

The buck stops with a company's CEO.

When he verbally attacks his own company's product, it shows he cares little about his product or his customers.

Click to expand...

Thirdrail has said in other threads that action is being taken on this. Results won't show up overnight, especially from a place that is as bad as Chicago mechanical.