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Sauve850

OBS Chief
Joined
Jan 9, 2014
Messages
703
Location
West Palm Beach, Florida
I just finished a four train cross country trip. A few items of note. The trips were Coast Starlight Tacoma to LA. SW Chief LA to Chicago. 3 day break. Capitol Limited Chicago to Washington and Silver Meteor Washington to West Palm Beach.

I rode in a sleeper all the way. All sleeping cars were in the front of the train. Ear plugs were a must to sleep. I slept well on all legs.

The food wasn't too bad. Surprised. Breakfast was good on all trips, had a couple of burgers and a salad on the CS and even the chicken was pretty good. I liked the cheesecake and chocolate mousse. Dinner companions were all interesting. Those who eat in their room miss some fun.

SCA's were good. 1 was ok and 3 were very good. Diner personnel were pretty good to excellent on the CS.

Mgmt ratings not so good. We got caught in the big boulder that blocked the Glorieta Pass on SWC 4. At lunchtime all passengers were told to gather belongings in 15 minutes to board busses for train 3 in Raton some 250? miles away. People didn't get lunch or walked away from lunch and all passengers were ready, repeat ready in that short time frame. All were boarding the busses and then staff stood out there and did nothing for an hour. Staff smoking their cigarettes. Conductors on the phone seemed lost. It was poor mgmt. When we arrived at train 3 they did not have all the rooms ready even though they had five hours notice. My bedroom had no towels or soap. Unacceptable. Then they tried to feed everyone at once so dining car staff overwhelmed. It was still evening so no need to do all at once. Mgmt not trained for this obviously.

On the Capitol Limited we were rolling along when freight trains on each track were disabled in PA. Took about 4 hrs. I listened on scanner to conductor and engineer who were way too nice to dispatch. They should have had supervisors to talk to as we watched a long freight go by us an hour before we were clear. Even if it was one of the disabled trains we easily should have gone first. All Amtrak folks and us passengers who had scanners knew conductor was done at 16:20 hrs. Had two-three hrs or more notice to have replacement waiting at the proper stop. Engineer advised the proper folks early on.No such luck. Had to wait another 30 minutes. Passengers and sca's flipping out.

I made my Sliver Meteor train connection by 30 minutes instead of a 6 hr wait. No problem as I would have to wait somewhere. Great sca and almost an on time arrival except for a bad switch in Florida.

Lots of nice hardworking regular employees but poor on the mgmt end of things.

Ray
 
There were probably some valid reasons why you lingered in Albuquerque, but to have everyone rush and then sit there without being informed is rather poor, I must agree. And I would think your train at Raton should have been ready. Today I wrote a letter to Mr. Moorman expressing my views as a Flagstaff passenger on the declining levels of service. For whatever it is worth, it is in the mail.
 
They were waiting for bottled water and snacks for the busses. Wasn't necessary as we could have done pit stop enroute for ten minutes. As it was our bus broke down an hour out of Albuquerque and we limped into a gas station restaurant area and waited another hour for the bus. It was one of those where no one was in charge. I will also write expressing my views on the declining service on some of the trains I was riding on. I still enjoy train travel.
 
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