Amtrak has a new strategy to help you board your train at Union Station

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This caught my attention from that article:

"New “boarding conductors” have been added to free train crews for other duties. Boarding conductors are responsible for alerting crew members to any pre-departure issues and for ensuring the train is ready to depart on schedule. They also greet passengers when they arrive on the platform and help troubleshoot any issues they might have."

"Boarding Conductor's"? Isn't that more or less the scope of station usher's?
 
Some of you may remember that I did a preview visit to WASH a few months before I boarded the Silver Meteor in December. I witnessed the confusion and the lines and the hemmed in gate areas. I think this new plan is an improvement. When I boarded the train as a sleeper guest, I did so from the Lounge with the assistance of an excellent Red Cap. So, the situation that I had witnessed was not of a concern. As I said, I think this new Plan is worthy of "seeing how it works".
 
crescent-zephyr said:
It baffles me how these stations want to pretend they are airports. Just let people go the platform and board the train! It works so simple in LA with open platforms. You just walk to the track and wait to board.
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You mean exactly how it works all across the world?
When it comes to train travel Amtrak seems to like reinventing the wheel rather then just follow convention.
 
Um, I boarded a train in Washington yesterday. It didn't seem like it was any different than the usual procedure. They do have a separate priority boarding line for Business class, disabled, people with small kids, Select Plus, etc. On Gates D,E,and F, they took out the seats and put in crowd control ropes to allow people to line up inside the boarding area rather than have long lines blocking the concourse. For gates H,J, and K, it doesn't seem to be any different.

If there was extra staff, it didn't seem to make any difference, at least for the Northeast Regional I boarded. Maybe it helps for the overnight trains, where they want people going to certain destination to go to certain cars.
 
ScouseAndy said:
You mean exactly how it works all across the world?
When it comes to train travel Amtrak seems to like reinventing the wheel rather then just follow convention.
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That's pretty much the way the MARC and VRE trains work at the same station.
But the current situation is an improvement. For a while, when they started this gatekeeper nonsense, the gatekeepers were also checking tickets as people passed through the "kontrol" point, slowing down the lines.

Of course, there may have been a reason at first, when the Regionals were transition from being all unreserved to some being reserved and some being unreserved to all being reserved. The conductors were really picky about your ticket. I once got kicked off in New Carrolton for having an unreserved ticket on a reserved train. It might have made sense for a short while to keep people from boarding the wrong train, but they kept it up long after it was unnecessary. But they did eventually do away with the ticket checking.

When I visited Britain and Japan, you had to have a ticket to get to the platform area, which was manually checked, but once you were beyond the control point, you could go to any platform at any time. You also had to show your ticket to get out when you arrived at your destination (except for a couple of London area suburban stops, which appeared to be unstaffed.)
 
I can sort-of see the need for this in New York (in particular) since NYP is a bit more packed than a number of other stations. I can also see it for the "downstairs" platforms at WAS (H/J/K). For the rest of the station, I think Amtrak would be better-served by "standardizing" which platforms the Regionals vs Acelas (vs Marc trains) tend to platform at and calling it a day.
 
crescent-zephyr said:
It baffles me how these stations want to pretend they are airports. Just let people go the platform and board the train! It works so simple in LA with open platforms. You just walk to the track and wait to board.
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I thought of this whole controlled platform access (or "kindergarten walk" to use the customary derisive term) issue the other day when my 6pm (so not the height of rush-hour) Metra train from the north concourse of Chicago Union Station had three people who boarded the wrong train line, including one intended for BNSF even though the BNSF line uses the other concourse. :confused:

If people riding the relatively frequent Metra trains can manage to screw up despite the sign at the end of each platform describing the train and listing every stop it makes, I don't think it's absurd, condescending, or nannying for Amtrak to take countermeasures against the same thing happening on trains that run maybe a few times a day at the most, and for most only once a day or less. Yes, the Europeans, etc., don't do it, but they also generally don't have once a day "so sorry you missed it, gotta wait 'til tomorrow" service.
 
John Bredin said:
I thought of this whole controlled platform access (or "kindergarten walk" to use the customary derisive term) issue the other day when my 6pm (so not the height of rush-hour) Metra train from the north concourse of Chicago Union Station had three people who boarded the wrong train line, including one intended for BNSF even though the BNSF line uses the other concourse. :confused:

If people riding the relatively frequent Metra trains can manage to screw up despite the sign at the end of each platform describing the train and listing every stop it makes, I don't think it's absurd, condescending, or nannying for Amtrak to take countermeasures against the same thing happening on trains that run maybe a few times a day at the most, and for most only once a day or less. Yes, the Europeans, etc., don't do it, but they also generally don't have once a day "so sorry you missed it, gotta wait 'til tomorrow" service.
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That’s on them. I got on the wrong train in California once.... blamed myself for not reading the signs correctly or asking the conductor.

If people get on a train without knowing where it’s going, and they failed to read the sign or ask questions.... I don’t think the answer is to treat all passengers like they are in preschool.
 
Here’s a picture of WUS just the other day. There is a priority line just in front of me and then the general line just beyond that for Gate F.

I think this is better than when they had chairs forming the “wall” around gates.

What I don’t like at WUS is you cant easily see the departure boards from where I was sitting between the angle and the size of the font used.

IMG_8199.JPG
 
crescent-zephyr said:
That’s on them. I got on the wrong train in California once.... blamed myself for not reading the signs correctly or asking the conductor.

If people get on a train without knowing where it’s going, and they failed to read the sign or ask questions.... I don’t think the answer is to treat all passengers like they are in preschool.
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The mistake is "on them" alone, but the burden of dealing with it isn't only "on them". :rolleyes:The station staff at Chicago or NY or DC wouldn't have to deal with it, but some conductor would for sure, and probably a customer service agent would too.

I knew about the three people on my train because the crew were dealing with the problem at least partially on the public address system, and I could hear one of the crew's radios. And all the Metra crew had to do was make sure they got off at the first stop and tell them what to do next. An Amtrak passenger, especially on a once-daily train, is probably going to need more.
 
Most once daily trains have conductors and train attendants checking tickets. But sure. I mean Amtrak’s going to the airline style process anyways so it’s me that has to get used to it. Ha.
 
crescent-zephyr said:
That’s on them. I got on the wrong train in California once.... blamed myself for not reading the signs correctly or asking the conductor.

If people get on a train without knowing where it’s going, and they failed to read the sign or ask questions.... I don’t think the answer is to treat all passengers like they are in preschool.
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I tend to agree with you. I got on the wrong train in Japan in Osaka. This occurred during rush hour with trains operating on very short headways. I got on the train, started to look for my reserved seat, and then realized I had gotten on a commuter train rather than the Limited express that I had reserved. Fortunately both trains went to the nex station where I got off and waited for my train. There were a few seconds of horror that I had screwed up a day of railroadingas I visualized the commuter train veering off onto a new route.
 
crescent-zephyr said:
Most once daily trains have conductors and train attendants checking tickets. But sure. I mean Amtrak’s going to the airline style process anyways so it’s me that has to get used to it. Ha.
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If Amtrak were truly going to airline style boarding at the big stations they would have boarding card/eTicket triggered turnstile style gates to enter the boarding area/gate. Those actually work surprisingly well, whenever I have used them. At one airport they even had associated facial recognition for international boardings driven by the facial image that is encoded in ones Passport. You had to place the Passport on an NFC reader.The exceptions were handled on the side by an agent.

But don't worry. That won't happen anytime soon.
 
jis said:
If Amtrak were truly going to airline style boarding at the big stations they would have boarding card/eTicket triggered turnstile style gates to enter the boarding area/gate. Those actually work surprisingly well, whenever I have used them. At one airport they even had associated facial recognition for international boardings driven by the facial image that is encoded in ones Passport. You had to place the Passport on an NFC reader.The exceptions were handled on the side by an agent.

But don't worry. That won't happen anytime soon.
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I haven’t seen these in use for any domestic flights, so I’m not sure how this applies. I was talking about airlines scanning your ticket before you board, rather than after, and the general process of lining people up at one gate when there are multiple boarding doors on a train.
 
All the doors of a train however are on a platform which can have entrance wicket gates like they do in many countries.

BTW, the first time I used one of these boarding pass scanner driven turnstiles was I believe at O'Hare, and that too for a Regional gate. In any case even where there is no turnstile, a significant number of passengers scan their own boarding cards at the scanner anyway.
 
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John Bredin said:
I don't think it's absurd, condescending, or nannying for Amtrak to take countermeasures against the same thing happening on trains that run maybe a few times a day at the most, and for most only once a day or less. Yes, the Europeans, etc., don't do it, but they also generally don't have once a day "so sorry you missed it, gotta wait 'til tomorrow" service.
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Nearly every route has a last train of the day, even in Europe and Asia, which will indeed result in having to wait until the following day. In my view Amtrak's responsibility should be to implement clear and concise signage (and matching operational directives), to provide access to staff so confused customers can request help when needed, and to assist passengers with special needs or disabilities. Other than that it should be on the passengers to either figure it out themselves or request help if they're unsure. Some long haul passengers will make mistakes and need to be removed or left behind, but that lesson will likely only need to be learned once to last a lifetime.
 
They can rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, but it doesn't make much difference if there isn't the appropriate signage and visual elements used to focus people where they need to be.

The concept of interior direction implementation, known as 'wayfinding', is one which is increasingly being deployed in new and renovated interior design. However, it seems that it is often the last element given extensive thought in a design or renovation, when it should come right after the final layout is approved.

As Amtrak Blue noted, simple elements like not being able to read the display boards from every location can be a major hindrance to making a needed change actually usable.

Instead of hiring the guy from Enterprise Rent-A-Car, they should have hired someone from the Mayo Clinic. That institution has one of the best wayfinding and customer focus implementations I have ever seen. The Rochester campus has a myriad number of buildings, but once you know where the buildings are in relation to each other, you just follow the signs to where you need to go.

At the very least, having an app that would display current boarding information and having a live map that would geolocate passengers and display current activity would help alleviate some of the poor directional and informational usage as it now exists.
 
Having personally witnessed the 'priority' line at both NYP and WAS in the past couple of months, it looks like there's always a number of 'non-priority' passengers that naturally run to that line.

In particular, last week at WAS, they posted train #148 at gate K of all places. By the time I got there, I saw perhaps 20 others in the 'priority' line ahead of me. Like airlines, elderly, disabled, those with children get priority, as do AGR Select Plus and Select Executive. With one exception the passengers I saw were clearly under 65 years old and seemed to be quite physically able. At no time did I see the 'gate agent' FKA 'gate dragon' actually 'check' any tickets or anything else of those boarding in the priority line. Fortunately, I fit the 'elderly' group as well as the AGR status group, and showed him my card as verification.

In retrospect, the 'backing off' of the gate dragons no longer checking tickets at NYP or WAS allows for faster boarding, roughly 15 minutes at WAS for originating trains and 10 at NYP for through trains. The downside is that it's anybody-who-wants-priority can board early. It won't be too long before more and more people get in the priority line. And yes, I know that NYP Club Acela lounge guests get priority status...that's why there's maybe 30+ people in that line. And Club Acela passengers in WAS are directed directly to the train without going through 'the mob'.
 
Well, and on Sunday there was the added "joy" of having 195 get into the station and then having to wait about 15 minutes to be let down to the train. No, it wasn't so they could finish the locomotive swap...when we got down there, there was no engine on the train.

This is all just a stupid exercise. Insert an unprintable opinion here.
 
Anderson said:
Well, and on Sunday there was the added "joy" of having 195 get into the station and then having to wait about 15 minutes to be let down to the train. No, it wasn't so they could finish the locomotive swap...when we got down there, there was no engine on the train.
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One of the biggest problems in DC (other than the fact they converted a train station into a mall and then wonder why there isn't room for the growing number of passengers) is the lack of egress. There is only one real (legal) way off the platforms in WAS and that is heading in the exact same direction as the people that are trying to board the train.

In your case, you were waiting for the 400+ passengers to unload, head to the lone escalator and elevator used to vacate the passengers so they could load the train. Other terminal stations (such as New Haven and Boston) have the same problem, but New Haven doesn't have anywhere near the same passenger load as WAS and BOS doesn't load trains for through movement.

An exit towards K street would really help the cause.
 
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That...actually makes sense. I didn't see the massive load of passengers coming upstairs (I thought there were two escalators...one further out for debarking traffic, one close in for loading traffic...based on going through different areas when getting on and off trains) but the resulting platform congestion mostly makes that a moot question. The fact that 92 was at the same platform, opposite track (and 91 had just cleared out) probably did not help matters (it sure as heck didn't help with getting down the train in a timely manner...between work on the platform and having to stop for one of the red cap carts I felt like I was only barely making it to the Business Class car before the train left.

Of course, I could also Monday morning quarterback their platforming choices (putting 91/92 on one pair of tracks and 195 on the other platform would seem to make more sense).

At least for the through tracks, there's probably a case for extending the build-over a bit further down if they're hell-bent on controlling access...TBH I can't think of why I would want to exit to the north. Depending on how they do it, they might get some seating back (which given the propensity to get massive pax loads on those trains, particularly around 1500 when they theoretically have 91, 92, and 95/195 to deal with, would be nice).

Logistically, I'm also wondering if they couldn't stop the trains a little further south (so that the escalators were around car 2-4 instead of right at car 1) and thus use both escalators?
 
Anderson said:
That...actually makes sense. I didn't see the massive load of passengers coming upstairs (I thought there were two escalators...one further out for debarking traffic, one close in for loading traffic...based on going through different areas when getting on and off trains) but the resulting platform congestion mostly makes that a moot question. The fact that 92 was at the same platform, opposite track (and 91 had just cleared out) probably did not help matters (it sure as heck didn't help with getting down the train in a timely manner...between work on the platform and having to stop for one of the red cap carts I felt like I was only barely making it to the Business Class car before the train left.

Of course, I could also Monday morning quarterback their platforming choices (putting 91/92 on one pair of tracks and 195 on the other platform would seem to make more sense).

At least for the through tracks, there's probably a case for extending the build-over a bit further down if they're hell-bent on controlling access...TBH I can't think of why I would want to exit to the north. Depending on how they do it, they might get some seating back (which given the propensity to get massive pax loads on those trains, particularly around 1500 when they theoretically have 91, 92, and 95/195 to deal with, would be nice).

Logistically, I'm also wondering if they couldn't stop the trains a little further south (so that the escalators were around car 2-4 instead of right at car 1) and thus use both escalators?
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My ongoing issue with boarding NE Regionals in DC: when the train leaves from the eastern tracks (J and K gates), passengers need help boarding, because they must climb the stairs. At the moment of boarding, when all hands should be "on deck," the conductors and other staff magically disappear. Hence the elderly, handicapped, etc., must rely on "the kindness of strangers" -- other passengers -- to get their suitcases and sometimes themslves up the stairs. This happened again yesterday, when four of us went WAS to PHL. -- JLoewen
 

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