Amtrak "travel feedback"

I just emailed Amtrak about my recent trip, complementing many employees, but also expressing discontent about a rude employee and a long wait for dinner in the diner.

This is the response I recieved:

Dear xxxxxx,
Thank you for your kind words about the service we provided when you traveled on Amtrak.

We are tremendously proud of our dedicated and talented employees who go above and beyond their assigned duties to deliver outstanding levels of customer service. It is our highest priority to ensure that we do all we can to provide our valued customers with a safe and enjoyable trip.

We have forwarded your comments on to the appropriate supervisors so that commendations might be made.

Thank you again for taking the time to let us know that you are happy with our efforts. We know that our goals are being met when we receive a response such as yours.

We look forward to the privilege of serving you again.

Sincerely,

xxxx

Amtrak Customer Service

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No mention of my negative experiences, which I did want Amtrak to be aware of. Instead, I recieved what seems to be a copy-and-paste job of an official Amtrak statement. In the past, Amtrak usually contacted me by phone, but here there is no mention of such. Is there anything I can do?

I would take their BS form letter and with another letter of yours send both to Alex Kummant, the Amtrak president, and tell him you do not appreciate the stupid form letter brush off and that you expect substantial answers.

Maybe you should call Customer Service and ask to speak with a manager. After a near-death experience on Amtrak, I called and got two $200 vouchers for future travel. You can even warm up to them first by saying you were worried your compliments didn't get to the right people after recieving such a generic response. In customer service, feedback is essential, and a well-run transit agency should be happy to hear your comments.

That is really insulting! I agree with greatcats. They completely brushed you off. Don't let them get away with that. Whoever wrote that letter to you needs some schooling in customer relations.

I received a similar "form letter" last year after leaving positive and negative feedback on a trip on the Cardinal. However, in the "form letter" I received, they at least apologized for the negative incident....

Can we see your original letter to Amtrak, too?

Guest said:

Can we see your original letter to Amtrak, too?

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Sadly, I sent it in the form on Amtrak's website and never bothered to print it, which I should have.

I recently sent comments to Amtrak regarding the Ca Zephyr trip we were on being 12 hours late to Emeryville and the cascade of effects such lateness causes. I also made a website suggestion (I think it would be very helpful to state which stations have parking for your car while on a trip). Anyway, I got no response from Amtrak on either of these issues, other than a reply saying they had received the message.

********************** Be advised - this is a 4 year old topic ****************************************

I take the train every week from new York to Baltimore and back. I have experienced the train systems on many other continents including Europe (all over) and Asia (Korea, Japan, and China). I would say that almost 60% of the time I suffer from extreme delays usually due to train of track malfunction. Quite simply, the train system of the richest nation on the face of the earth is completely unreliable, whereas the systems in foreign countries, even very poor ones, run like clockwork. Why is this? It's horribly frustrating to plan meetings when I routinely arrive an hour later than scheduled. Where am I at this moment? Two hours late because we are waiting for a bridge to close on order for the train to move on. This is a joke! Does Amtrak not plan ahead. It would be faster if I disembarked and walked from here through the tunnel to Penn Station, but of course I'm not allowed to. Thanks for listening.

Amtrak keeps improving all the time and i enjoy my trips between Edmonds WA and Vancouver BC. The staff are all nice amd friendly and the seats very comfortable. They maintain a high standard of cleanliness too amd keep passengers well informed along the way. I do wish the wifi would be more powerful to accomodate downloading movies / videos off Netflix amd You Tube. I ran a speed test on the network and downloading speed was only .13 mps which is very limiting. Hopefully they will upgrade their system soon!

Kevin said:

********************** Be advised - this is a 4 year old topic ****************************************

I take the train every week from new York to Baltimore and back. I have experienced the train systems on many other continents including Europe (all over) and Asia (Korea, Japan, and China). I would say that almost 60% of the time I suffer from extreme delays usually due to train of track malfunction. Quite simply, the train system of the richest nation on the face of the earth is completely unreliable, whereas the systems in foreign countries, even very poor ones, run like clockwork. Why is this? It's horribly frustrating to plan meetings when I routinely arrive an hour later than scheduled. Where am I at this moment? Two hours late because we are waiting for a bridge to close on order for the train to move on. This is a joke! Does Amtrak not plan ahead. It would be faster if I disembarked and walked from here through the tunnel to Penn Station, but of course I'm not allowed to. Thanks for listening.

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The reason our Passenger Rail System is so far behind other nations is that we (as a nation, namely our government) do not support passenger rail; we do support Freight Rail and actually have one of the best freight rail systems in the world. Most countries that have great passenger rail service tend not to have that great of a freight rail service. It tends to be one or the other.

Given the proper funding, and changing of track ownership to the government (probably Amtrak) our passenger rail system could flourish & be really something great to talk about. However our freight rail system would suffer & the Freight Rail Companies (who have money & hands in the government) don't want that to happen.

peter

Kevin said:

Quite simply, the train system of the richest nation on the face of the earth is completely unreliable, whereas the systems in foreign countries, even very poor ones, run like clockwork. Why is this?

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I've thought about this a lot, and the best answer I can come up with is that the United States is no longer one big economy with a common goal. Rather, it's fifty much smaller economies with vastly different means and expectations. As a result they find it difficult to play nice and work well together toward a common goal. At one time there was a stronger federal government that was more focused on domestic issues and worked to counteract some of this division. They were willing and able to force major projects through even when states balked at the methods or costs, but that appears to no longer be the case. As a result it's probably no longer possible to create a world-class passenger rail network in a country as fundamentally divided as ours has become.

I agree with TS, but see a bigger problem. Lobbyists. Plain and simple. And it's on both sides and they equally share the blame. Although I vote for the person I "think" is going to take less of my money and give it to people who are not doing the minimum amount of effort to improve their lives and to the person I "think" is going to try to keep government out of my life, I have little respect for either party.

That being said, we can reclaim our great country if we could force Congress to pass a law that no lobbyist may meet with a federal legislator on federal property including POTUS and VP and if found to be meeting with a lobbyist off federal property would lose all committee and sub committee appointments forever while a legislator.

Then and only then will Congress act on behalf of all Americans and not individual groups or companies

NAVYBLUE said:

That being said, we can reclaim our greatest if we could force Congress to pass a law that no lobbyist may meet with a federal legislator on federal property including POTUS and VP and if found to be meeting with a lobbyist off federal property would lose all committee and sub committee appointments forever while a legislator.

Then and only then will Congress act on behalf of all Americans and not individual groups or companies

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I've never agreed with Senator John McCain and his stance on Amtrak, as well as a few other issues that I won't mention. But this is one area where he and I see eye to eye. Perhaps it was partially show, although I don't think so, but he has consistently tried to introduce legislation to dramatically curtail the efforts of Capital Hill lobbyists.

He seems to be one of the few who understand that this is supposed to be a Government of the People, by the People, and for the People; not the lobbyist with the biggest pockets.

AlanB said:

NAVYBLUE said:

That being said, we can reclaim our greatest if we could force Congress to pass a law that no lobbyist may meet with a federal legislator on federal property including POTUS and VP and if found to be meeting with a lobbyist off federal property would lose all committee and sub committee appointments forever while a legislator.

Then and only then will Congress act on behalf of all Americans and not individual groups or companies

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I've never agreed with Senator John McCain and his stance on Amtrak, as well as a few other issues that I won't mention. But this is one area where he and I see eye to eye. Perhaps it was partially show, although I don't think so, but he has consistently tried to introduce legislation to dramatically curtail the efforts of Capital Hill lobbyists.

He seems to be one of the few who understand that this is supposed to be a Government of the People, by the People, and for the People; not the lobbyist with the biggest pockets.

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I honor Sen McCain's service but saw eye to eye with him on very little as he tried to curry favor with the "other" side to resurrect his stature after the Keating 5 although the IG and the senior Democrat senator found he did nothing illegal or ethically wrong other than be too close to a scroundrel. (Keating) That being said, John really tried to reel in the lobbyists but I didn't like the his campaign finance reforms. I think it was close to free speech. I say let whomever donate to whoever they want. I would require that any donation to a legislator by a person/company/union, etc be sent to the US Treasury for legality that it came from a US citizen or someone who was allowed to legally donate. After verification, it goes to the legislators campaign funds and is entered into the federal register the same day for all Americans to see. No more packing or bundling. One for one for one. When you shine the lights, the **** roaches scurry. John also didn't do very much pork other than the general welfare for ALL like libraries, senior centers, education, transportation, tourism. He never had a bridge to nowhere.

Say goodnight Gracie