Is the CZ always so stressful?

A few weeks back I had a reward trip from PHL to Glenwood Springs. We had business to NYP, then the LSL to CHI (roommette) and the CZ to Glenwood. Our sleeper was until Denver, and we were coach from there until Glenwood.

We had a wonderful time on the LSL. The attendant was very courteous and friendly. We were never disturbed. The food at dinner was delicious. Everything was so relaxing. I would gladly do it again.

The CZ was another story. Here's a list of the things that made the whole sleeper experience very unenjoyable and stressful:

--attendant not introducing herself or being present

--constant LOUD announcements

--when asking the attendant about something her response: "That's what I said in my announcement."

--the lead dining attendant's voice which was always a YELL

--being told to leave the diner very abruptly at dinner after barely finishing our food

--getting a look like I was asking for something impossible when I asked for another tea to go at dinner

--one of the dining workers scolding the people who sat with us because he used blue pen instead of black pen to fill out the dining card form "Remember for next time, it has to be done in black ink. You might have to do it over again."

--terrible food in the diner

Overall it felt like we were elementary school kids being pushed around by our teachers. Just everyone we encountered was loud, pushy, rather inept, and had no sense of customer service. I would not want to do this trip again. Ever.

(The coach portion of our trip and view of Glenwood Canyon was fantastic, and I would recommend just doing that portion in coach if I talk to others about train travel.)

Also as a comparison I can now say that I much prefer the viewliner to the superliner rooms because of in-room toilet and upper berth window. That superliner rommette is just soo small with no place to store anything!

Is this route just so popular that they have no manners? Or were we just unlucky? One thing I noticed is that the crew was very young compared to LSL (and also the Crescent crew I've experienced a few times). Maybe they just are not experienced or trained properly?

Sounds like substandard service to me. When you write to Amtrak customer service -- I think these points will be most effective -

Sleeping car attendant -- should introduce self and tell you how to call and what she/he can do. Should no way assume that you heard the last announcement -- too many ways a passenger could have missed that (in the john, between cars, intercom failure)

The diner -- the crew does have to move people along - there limited seats and limited time to serve the whole train -- but -- most of the crews who have served me in the diner do not just do the "geddoutahere" -- schtick. If a lousy cuppa will help you to move out and make room for the next seating -- no problemo,

As for the pens and ink -- who they trying to kid? Amtrak (in my experience in the diners) provide pens -- that's just crazy.

About the food quality -- subjective -- unless the dinner was frozen or burned - advice is to leave that out of your complaint.

But please do contact Amtrak customer service - give them car and room and date and they will know whom to chastize.

Sounds like the worst of the worst from Amtrak's Chicago crew base. Call and write a letter. As long as you provide your reservation number and date you traveled, they can sort out the rest.

Your list of concerns from above are a good starting point. In your letter match each complaint with a specific crew member. Even if you don't know their names, Amtrak can sort it out. Use terms such as sleeping car attendant, LSA, for the lead service attendant in the diner, etc.

The type of behavior described in your post is not acceptable. Your letter will help correct it.

IMHO Amtrak has serious morale issues in Chicago crew and it needs to be addressed.

Back in Nov 2011, I had a good trip on the CZ from CHI to PRO in a sleeper.

I would not tell people not to take the train after only one trip on any particular route because you may have just hit a bad crew on that particular trip.

Remember there are 6 trains/crews on that route and the other 5 crews may be adequate to wonderful.

Do contact customer service about your experience so they can address the problems and hopefully improve service for future riders.

As to the pens, they need to be black ink for "processing" the checks.

Oh my, Had a great time with no complaints on the 2 LD trains I have taken. Since I will be traveling more often to NM, I am waiting for a bad trip to happen now. I hope I have not been just lucky and that the complaints are from people who bother to write while the good trips go unheralded.

berkyo said:

Oh my, Had a great time with no complaints on the 2 LD trains I have taken. Since I will be traveling more often to NM, I am waiting for a bad trip to happen now. I hope I have not been just lucky and that the complaints are from people who bother to write while the good trips go unheralded.

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This is usually the scenario. People who get upset want to rant and share their story. When it's an average or good trip, with nothing out of the ordinary, people generally don't write about it.

Sorcha said:

berkyo said:

Oh my, Had a great time with no complaints on the 2 LD trains I have taken. Since I will be traveling more often to NM, I am waiting for a bad trip to happen now. I hope I have not been just lucky and that the complaints are from people who bother to write while the good trips go unheralded.

Click to expand...

This is usually the scenario. People who get upset want to rant and share their story. When it's an average or good trip, with nothing out of the ordinary, people generally don't write about it.

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Yes...unfortunately this is what usually happens. And i'll admit im guilty of this as well. However, over the past few years i've made a conscious effort to make the same effort to acknowledge those that go above and beyond as well as those who fall well short.

Sorcha said:

berkyo said:

Oh my, Had a great time with no complaints on the 2 LD trains I have taken. Since I will be traveling more often to NM, I am waiting for a bad trip to happen now. I hope I have not been just lucky and that the complaints are from people who bother to write while the good trips go unheralded.

Click to expand...

This is usually the scenario. People who get upset want to rant and share their story. When it's an average or good trip, with nothing out of the ordinary, people generally don't write about it.

Click to expand...

That is true, and IMHO, that is how it should be. Personally, I will write/call/complain about terrible service. I will grin-and-bear-it about marginally bad service, I will do nothing at all about average service, and I will write/call/congratulate superior or excellent service.

My daddy taught me to be willing to "throw orchids as easily as throwing brickbats"

Sorcha said:

berkyo said:

Oh my, Had a great time with no complaints on the 2 LD trains I have taken. Since I will be traveling more often to NM, I am waiting for a bad trip to happen now. I hope I have not been just lucky and that the complaints are from people who bother to write while the good trips go unheralded.

Click to expand...

This is usually the scenario. People who get upset want to rant and share their story. When it's an average or good trip, with nothing out of the ordinary, people generally don't write about it.

Click to expand...

ok but doesn't a customer have a right to expect a reasonable level of service? i have complained and i have complimented for service outside the norm. as i read the op, the service was less than reasonable. also, isn't the cz supposed to have some sort of quality assurance program?

yarrow said:

Sorcha said:

berkyo said:

Oh my, Had a great time with no complaints on the 2 LD trains I have taken. Since I will be traveling more often to NM, I am waiting for a bad trip to happen now. I hope I have not been just lucky and that the complaints are from people who bother to write while the good trips go unheralded.

Click to expand...

This is usually the scenario. People who get upset want to rant and share their story. When it's an average or good trip, with nothing out of the ordinary, people generally don't write about it.

Click to expand...

ok but doesn't a customer have a right to expect a reasonable level of service? i have complained and i have complimented for service outside the norm. as i read the op, the service was less than reasonable. also, isn't the cz supposed to have some sort of quality assurance program?

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She wasn't saying people shouldn't / can't rant & rave, but that those are usually the only things you read online because people don't usually post that they had a good or even excellent trip.

yarrow said:

Sorcha said:

berkyo said:

Oh my, Had a great time with no complaints on the 2 LD trains I have taken. Since I will be traveling more often to NM, I am waiting for a bad trip to happen now. I hope I have not been just lucky and that the complaints are from people who bother to write while the good trips go unheralded.

Click to expand...

This is usually the scenario. People who get upset want to rant and share their story. When it's an average or good trip, with nothing out of the ordinary, people generally don't write about it.

Click to expand...

ok but doesn't a customer have a right to expect a reasonable level of service? i have complained and i have complimented for service outside the norm. as i read the op, the service was less than reasonable. also, isn't the cz supposed to have some sort of quality assurance program?

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Of course they do. I wasn't saying they are wrong to call. I just meant that you hear and read the bad stories more than the average/good because those are generally the people who are more vocal.

NYC84 said:

Sorcha said:

berkyo said:

Oh my, Had a great time with no complaints on the 2 LD trains I have taken. Since I will be traveling more often to NM, I am waiting for a bad trip to happen now. I hope I have not been just lucky and that the complaints are from people who bother to write while the good trips go unheralded.

Click to expand...

This is usually the scenario. People who get upset want to rant and share their story. When it's an average or good trip, with nothing out of the ordinary, people generally don't write about it.

Click to expand...

Yes...unfortunately this is what usually happens. And i'll admit im guilty of this as well. However, over the past few years i've made a conscious effort to make the same effort to acknowledge those that go above and beyond as well as those who fall well short.

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Same here. I've made a conscious effort to write about hotels, restaurants, and attractions on Yelp and TripAdvisor after every trip. I upload photos too, since a lot of travelers (myself included) like to see "honest" pictures of the rooms and food rather than professional pictures.

If it's especially good service, I'll write a "thank you" blurb on the company's Facebook page and "like" them.

We were on the CZ last month and the train was on time, had a good sleeper attendant, and no mechanical problems with our car. But, the dining car service was maddening. We didn't have the lack of service the OP mentions. It's just how they did things. Reservations required for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We had had a long day upon leaving from Sacramento and wanted to sleep in a bit as we headed into Colorado the next morning. My wife and I ready to go by 8am. Too bad. At 7:50am the steward or LSA announced on the PA that the waiting list for breakfast was closed. Fortunately our sleeper had good coffee and I got a snack from the lounge. At lunch and dinner both days (we got off in Denver) we chose our meal times. That was ok. What annoyed us was the incessant use of the PA calling passengers by name. There is a better way. We had completed a trip on the Canadian the week before. While there were two diners, the train had 10 sleepers. You chose one of three seatings (which then rotated after the first day). The only announcement made was at the start of each seating. It worked well and we never had to wait or stand in line and plenty of time to linger over our meal.

Was on the CZ mid-May this year. And yes, dining car was reservations only... but not wanting to be rushed through dinner and dinner conversations, chose the last seating: and surprisingly, everything on the menu was still available, but more importantly, were allowed to "dawdle" through dinner, talk and watch the scenery go by until about 930. And yes there were by name announcements from 530 on "your table is available"... wasn't bothered by them in the least. Now mind you that we had a half full train (coach, don't know about sleepers etc), but the service was excellent... actually thanked everyone of the crew/staff that was up at 3am when I got off at LNK - letting them know that it was them, the staff, that made the difference, and the difference they made was very positive... and they seemed very grateful to hear such.

Like tony, I usually call CS for both exceptionally bad and good service. Otherwise, things aren't likely to improve much. We've generally had good service on our many trips on the Crescent.

northnorthwest said:

--one of the dining workers scolding the people who sat with us because he used blue pen instead of black pen to fill out the dining card form "Remember for next time, it has to be done in black ink. You might have to do it over again."

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NW cannonball said:

As for the pens and ink -- who they trying to kid? Amtrak (in my experience in the diners) provide pens -- that's just crazy.

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AmtrakBlue said:

As to the pens, they need to be black ink for "processing" the checks.

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Correct, the checks must be filled out using black pens. The computer that scans the checks only sees black ink. A check filled out with blue, or any other color, shows up blank and is recorded as a no sale. This leaves the LSA having to explain why he/she doesn't have enough revenue to cover the cost of the food sold. This is why many crews won't even let you fill out the check at all, they only ask you to sign it and they specifically hand you a pen to do it.

That said, clearly the crew member on the CZ could have handled the matter with far more tact & class than they did.

I hate (yes hate) when LSA's call for reservations by name.

It's a simple task for LSA's to fill out the room and car number, then hand the customer a pen to sign... If the LSA is going to be lazy, they shouldn't scold the passenger for using the wrong pen.

In my experiences, only the worst dining car crews rush customers away. Totally unprofessional. If the crew is doing their job efficiently, they won't need to do that.

My opinions.

Now on the Zephyr, I've actually had excellent service... I even specifically remember an LSA explaining in a super professional way why his pen had to be used to sign checks. So I think you just got unlucky.

TVRM610 said:

I hate (yes hate) when LSA's call for reservations by name.
It's a simple task for LSA's to fill out the room and car number, then hand the customer a pen to sign... If the LSA is going to be lazy, they shouldn't scold the passenger for using the wrong pen.

In my experiences, only the worst dining car crews rush customers away. Totally unprofessional. If the crew is doing their job efficiently, they won't need to do that.

My opinions.

Now on the Zephyr, I've actually had excellent service... I even specifically remember an LSA explaining in a super professional way why his pen had to be used to sign checks. So I think you just got unlucky.

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Why? (hate being called by name)

My impression was that they were trying keep the dinning car full, w/o en masse turning the car over per the seating schedule, ie, when a table came available, they simply would call enough names to refill it - my impression is that this way they were actually able to seat people ahead of their reservation times. ... I came away positively impressed, ie, given that they were serving a small city on wheels, in a 10' wide space, with limited seats etc: they did one h of a job.

TVRM610 said:

I hate (yes hate) when LSA's call for reservations by name.

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Some don't like that in restaurants, either. I know a guy who gives them a fake name, usually of a movie/TV star so when they call that name and he walks up to the desk, everyone thinks he's important.

AlanB said:

northnorthwest said:

--one of the dining workers scolding the people who sat with us because he used blue pen instead of black pen to fill out the dining card form "Remember for next time, it has to be done in black ink. You might have to do it over again."

Click to expand...

NW cannonball said:

As for the pens and ink -- who they trying to kid? Amtrak (in my experience in the diners) provide pens -- that's just crazy.

Click to expand...

AmtrakBlue said:

As to the pens, they need to be black ink for "processing" the checks.

Click to expand...

Correct, the checks must be filled out using black pens. The computer that scans the checks only sees black ink. A check filled out with blue, or any other color, shows up blank and is recorded as a no sale. This leaves the LSA having to explain why he/she doesn't have enough revenue to cover the cost of the food sold. This is why many crews won't even let you fill out the check at all, they only ask you to sign it and they specifically hand you a pen to do it.

That said, clearly the crew member on the CZ could have handled the matter with far more tact & class than they did.

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Urban, or in this case, Amtrak legend. All optical scanners read blue ink just as well as black ink. They insist on black ink becuase...., well because they always have. There is no other reason.

We ride the CZ fairly regularly and we find that crews are either great or they completely suck. No in between. Our last trip on the CZ leading up to Memorial Day weekend we needed to have reservations for breakfast as well. We were going from LNK-DEN and didn't know that. We detrain at 7am or so and we walked into the dining car and it was empty but noticed them "taking reservations" for the later seatings. I've never seen that before. When I took my then girlfriend (now my wife) and her two daughters (now my stepdaughters) on their first trip in '07 from LNK to Glenwood Springs we had the crew from heaven going to GSC. It was the best overall crew I've had the experience to travel with on Amtrak. Treated my family GREAT! I had "warned" my group of what could be "surly" or "lackadaisical" employees and not one was on this crew. But on our way back we were blessed (?) with the crew from either hell or **** Germany circa 1940's.They were everything I warned my family about and they didn't disappoint! So I called the 800 number and praised the crew of the #5 (on such and such date) and had a list of BS that the #6 crew pulled on my family and I. Don't know if it helped or not, but if I was a fighting man, I would have knocked one of the employees on their butt! :mellow:

MrFSS said:

TVRM610 said:

I hate (yes hate) when LSA's call for reservations by name.

Click to expand...

Some don't like that in restaurants, either. I know a guy who gives them a fake name, usually of a movie/TV star so when they call that name and he walks up to the desk, everyone thinks he's important.

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"You talking about me?"

NYC84 said:

Sorcha said:

berkyo said:

Oh my, Had a great time with no complaints on the 2 LD trains I have taken. Since I will be traveling more often to NM, I am waiting for a bad trip to happen now. I hope I have not been just lucky and that the complaints are from people who bother to write while the good trips go unheralded.

Click to expand...

This is usually the scenario. People who get upset want to rant and share their story. When it's an average or good trip, with nothing out of the ordinary, people generally don't write about it.

Click to expand...

Yes...unfortunately this is what usually happens. And i'll admit im guilty of this as well. However, over the past few years i've made a conscious effort to make the same effort to acknowledge those that go above and beyond as well as those who fall well short.

Click to expand...

Same here. But after my latest trip, I wrote a letter that told of the bad, but I also praised (in writing) the good employees I came in contact with. And I was rewarded with a personal phone call from Customer Relations (since they seldom to rarely hear good things) and other things too!.

PRR60... The Amtrak rule book does insist on black ink. So I believe the LSA's get in trouble if it is not in black ink... But that is the LSA's job, not the customers. Your point about the optical scanners is very interesting though!

As to why I hate LSA's calling by name. It reminds me of a teacher calling the students one by one. I also don't like unnecessary announcements going throughout the train.

RailFanLNK said:

Our last trip on the CZ leading up to Memorial Day weekend we needed to have reservations for breakfast as well. We were going from LNK-DEN and didn't know that. We detrain at 7am or so and we walked into the dining car and it was empty but noticed them "taking reservations" for the later seatings.

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Al, are sure they were not just putting people on a waiting list? Since breakfast is first come first serve, it is quite usual for the crew to start a waiting list after it first fills up.