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

[Thirdrail7]

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

That is the point of this experiment. While you call "all hands on deck," there are numerous federal and company requirements the crew is responsible for that would lead them away from loading the passengers.

Unfortunately, with station congestion at a high, they want to load the train to thin out the station...often, without the crew even being present. This is why they started using a boarding conductor. They can attempt to perform the numerous pre-departure requirements prior to the crew showing up....assuming the train is ready.

Even when that is done, there are some things that must be performed by the crew, such as the class II brake test. Even so, with three crew members, manning three sets of staircases, that leaves 6 unattended staircases without assistance. If a crew member actually has to go into the train to assist someone, that leaves another set of traps without anyone assisting....and that is part of the problem.

It is nice to have people in the station, assisting passengers. However, passenger assistance is needed on the platform. It would be beneficial if they deployed more station staff to the side of the train.

 

[Seaboard92]

Or if Amtrak did what VIA does on their corridor. They have a train attendant assigned to every in service car. So all traps are attended.

 

[jis]

Or expedite building the high level platforms that are planned anyway [emoji57]