Baggage Mishaps

[John Bobinyec]

Yesterday my wife took 92 to Washington with three hours to connect with 19. She checked a bag through to Atlanta, with a transfer at Washington. Although both trains were on-time, the bag missed 19. That brings up a thought. Since e-tickets are now scanned, it would be a good idea for the train and station personnel to have some sort of means to scan baggage tags at various times:

- acceptance by station

- transfer to train

.

.

.

- receipt by owner.

The process might even be able to notify someone that a bag has been missed so that they can find it and get it where it needs to go so that it doesn't miss its connection.

jb

 

[Guest]

Since e-tickets are now scanned, it would be a good idea for the train and station personnel to have some sort of means to scan baggage tags at various times:

- acceptance by station

- transfer to train

.

.

.

- receipt by owner.

I think the real question is, how much extra would you be willing to pay for such tracking? $200 per bag? $100?

As with anything, it always comes down to how much additional revenue/profit will this bring to Amtrak.

 

[OBS]

Since e-tickets are now scanned, it would be a good idea for the train and station personnel to have some sort of means to scan baggage tags at various times:

- acceptance by station

- transfer to train

.

.

.

- receipt by owner.

I think the real question is, how much extra would you be willing to pay for such tracking? $200 per bag? $100?

As with anything, it always comes down to how much additional revenue/profit will this bring to Amtrak.

Depending how much money is paid out for lost bags, the increased accountability of bags may pay for itself....

 

[NW cannonball]

I think the real question is -- how close to this is Amtrak already doing? They seem to do pretty darn well with whatever system they use now. (with its occasional failures, and many successes - as reported on other threads)

Using a higher-tech system should, however, not be very expensive - it's old technology now - everyplace from airlines to retailers to hospitals to freight railroads scans and updates location for everything from freight cars to urine specimens to - yes baggage. Not to mention parcels and shipping containers.

Yeah, it all comes down to cost/benefit -- who knows?

 

[Ispolkom]

I think the real question is -- how close to this is Amtrak already doing? They seem to do pretty darn well with whatever system they use now.

This is certainly true. When I travel I usually check bags, and airlines lose my bags more often (proportionally) than Amtrak. Amtrak, of course, has the advantage that at many stations there is only one train, and that there is often plenty of time to sort bags in the baggage car en route.

But yes, now that Amtrak has the infrastructure to use e-tickets in place, why not track baggage as well?

 

[Hytec]

Not necessarily "track" a bag like UPS or USPS. Amtrak baggage handlers could just scan a baggage tag to determine on which train it should be loaded at stations where lots of passengers transfer to other trains like WAS, CHI, etc. Airlines have used this technology for over 20 years that I'm aware of.

 

[John Bobinyec]

The fiasco continues. Well, the delayed bag should have shown up on 19 at Atlanta this morning - 1 day late. Is it there? I don't know. Atlanta doesn't answer their phone. So I left a message - with no response so far. I called an agent at the central phone number. She couldn't get a hold of Atlanta either. She called Washington - the bag is not there. We opened up a lost bag claim. And now we wait.

If scanning was in place, the bag would be located no matter where it was. If it wasn't taken off train 92 - we'd know that. If it was taken off 92 at Washington, but didn't make it onto 19 - we'd know that. We'd at least have an idea of where to start looking. The way it is now, if a bag is lost, there's no way to do anything, until it ultimately shows up - by itself.

jb

 

[OlympianHiawatha]

If Amtrak "upgraded" to Electronic Baggage Tracking it would be just that much more to go wrong. The system works great as is. You dump your bag at a Checked Baggage Station, it gets tagged and put onto a cart to the respective (and often only) train. And since the volume of bags is much less than at a typical airport and the distance they have to travel between connections is usually shorter there is much less chance of anything going wrong.

All in all from what I have seen and heard missed bags are very rare on Amtrak.

 

[benjibear]

I think a simple scanning system could help, but the question is can Amtrak afford it and how much of a problem is it?

 

[John Bobinyec]

To finish the story, the bag did finally show up at Atlanta, 1 day late. My wife was notified that it was there.

I wonder if anyone has any statistics on lost bags.

People seem to think of scanning in terms of tracking a bag. Although that's useful, it could also have prevented the bag from missing the train in the first place. When the bags are loaded onto a train, the baggage handler would scan each one. When finished, the "Done" button would be pressed on the iPhone app. The phone signals that there are bags missing, and lists them. The handler would decide whether there is still time to retrieve them or whether the train would have to go without them. In the latter case, an accurate scanning history would indicate what happened and where. Management would have real-time information of misses and hopefully could take appropriate corrective measures.

jb

 

[PerRock]

If scanning was in place, the bag would be located no matter where it was. If it wasn't taken off train 92 - we'd know that. If it was taken off 92 at Washington, but didn't make it onto 19 - we'd know that. We'd at least have an idea of where to start looking. The way it is now, if a bag is lost, there's no way to do anything, until it ultimately shows up - by itself.

Except when someone in the system forgets to scan it. I had a box from UPS that someone forgot to scan and according to the system was still sitting down in Ohio when the delivery guy showed up at my door with it.

Regardless of what system you use there will always be a chance for human error. Amtrak is usually really good at getting people's bags to them. If you dig around here (and probably other places where people 'complain' about Amtrak, you'll find plenty of post about people who have had bags miss connections and have the bag arrive the next train, and then shipped or even driven out personally to the owner. Carry-on bags that get left on board and OBS took it into their hands to ensure the lost parcel gets returned. Compared to the Airlines Amtrak really goes above & beyond when it comes to lost bags.

I also believe Amtrak does have some system in place for keeping tabs on bags, it may not be the high-tech scanner iPhone thing that some of the major parcel services have, and it's definitely not available to the public; but there is probably some logging system in place if even just sheets of paper that get passed around.

peter

 

[benjibear]

Well they just implemented e-ticketing and the bag scanning could maybe be an add on to that system.

 

[OBS]

If scanning was in place, the bag would be located no matter where it was. If it wasn't taken off train 92 - we'd know that. If it was taken off 92 at Washington, but didn't make it onto 19 - we'd know that. We'd at least have an idea of where to start looking. The way it is now, if a bag is lost, there's no way to do anything, until it ultimately shows up - by itself.

Except when someone in the system forgets to scan it. I had a box from UPS that someone forgot to scan and according to the system was still sitting down in Ohio when the delivery guy showed up at my door with it.

Regardless of what system you use there will always be a chance for human error. Amtrak is usually really good at getting people's bags to them. If you dig around here (and probably other places where people 'complain' about Amtrak, you'll find plenty of post about people who have had bags miss connections and have the bag arrive the next train, and then shipped or even driven out personally to the owner. Carry-on bags that get left on board and OBS took it into their hands to ensure the lost parcel gets returned. Compared to the Airlines Amtrak really goes above & beyond when it comes to lost bags.

I also believe Amtrak does have some system in place for keeping tabs on bags, it may not be the high-tech scanner iPhone thing that some of the major parcel services have, and it's definitely not available to the public; but there is probably some logging system in place if even just sheets of paper that get passed around.

peter

Sorry, but there is no longer any logging system in place, and has not been for years.

 

[John Bobinyec]

Baggage Follies Part 2

For the return trip my wife was on the Crescent from Atlanta to Washington and then the Silver Star to Cary, NC. At Atlanta she checked a bag through to Cary. The trains were all on-time. There were 5 hours between trains at Washington. When she got to Cary - guess what - no bag. So she filled out another lost bag claim.

I guess the Washington baggage room is starting to turn into a black hole.

jb

 

[guest]

Not necessarily "track" a bag like UPS or USPS. Amtrak baggage handlers could just scan a baggage tag to determine on which train it should be loaded at stations where lots of passengers transfer to other trains like WAS, CHI, etc. Airlines have used this technology for over 20 years that I'm aware of.

Is it really easier or faster to scan a tag with a scanner, compared with scanning a baggage tag with one's eyes? Frankly, I'd rather rely on the latter, since that can even be done at a bit of a distance...and in either case, it's only as reliable as the user.

 

[tricia]

Baggage Follies Part 2

For the return trip my wife was on the Crescent from Atlanta to Washington and then the Silver Star to Cary, NC. At Atlanta she checked a bag through to Cary. The trains were all on-time. There were 5 hours between trains at Washington. When she got to Cary - guess what - no bag. So she filled out another lost bag claim.

I guess the Washington baggage room is starting to turn into a black hole.

jb

Yow! What a run of bad baggage luck. Hope your next trip runs more smoothly.