Green Maned Lion
Engineer
One key issue I have learned in various businesses I've been in over the years: About 5% of very satisfied customers say something to the company to tell them so, or to tell others so. And about 90% of unsatisfied customers spend their time yelling into your ear. Often so loud that they don't hear the things I offer in an attempt to fix the fact that they are not satisfied.While a**holes can come from any place seems like the overwhelming majority of the bad and indifferent OBS come from CHI/Back East! Perhaps the folks you talked with were exposed to some of those, there never are as many people telling others how great their train trips and the OBS involved was except on this sight! I'm as aware as the next guy about the problems, just wish everyone would realize that 40 years of starvation and political shennigans havent helped, not to mention the poor management that Amtrak had @ various times1 Things are looking up, the glass is half full, let's not empty it now! :excl: :excl: :excl:
And then, when they are done making you deaf, but before you can repeat your offers of placation, they hang up, and get a megaphone, and repeat the entire loud complaint to the world at large.
Quote for truth.If as much energy were spent on talking with Congress to really increase funding and if the complainers would decide to join rail advocacy groups around the country lobby for better service, increased routes and new equipment, maybe Amtrak would get somewhere. Complaining on this board does nothing but take up space - unless you have a specific and logical suggestion for improvement.
Every time I see someone refer to OBS staff as unskilled, my eyes turn red. If it is so unskilled, and if you think that is so much money, you try it, [opening to the alimentary canal].Are you trying to say that OBS is underpaid? Starting salary is around $15/hr and all the work except for the cook is unskilled. That is good money in my book especially when you walk into the snack car and see the attendant sitting on their butt half the time. In my opinion OBS is overpaid and the engineers/conductors (ie skilled workers) are underpaid.
While the National Association of Railroad Passengers seems to be a sounding board for positive Amtrak feed back (likely reasons include the fact that Amtrak contributes considerable money to NARP in the form of a contract), I would say that they are the exception, not the rule.Are there any advocacy groups that support passenger rail but are not locked into blindly supporting Amtrak? If so I'll be happy to join. As for speaking with Congress, I've written both my Senators and Congressman personally as I assume many of you have as well. One thing that I'm wondering about is why the annual meet-ups don't include some sort of lobbying component. Lots of folks showing up to voice their support for passenger rail could be far more persuasive than just sending a single letter here and there.
I know plenty of people in NJ-ARP who are less than favourable. In fact, just two days ago I shut up a wildly misinformed Al Papp of NJ-ARP, ranting about "Amtrak's equipment plans don't include plans for expansion!" ("Al, did you actually read the report? Allowing for scalability of production and thus possibility of fleet expansion was sort of its main point." :blink: ) In fact, I would say in general, most organized rail advocates fall into one of two categories, summarized as "Everything sucks" and "Realistic Perspective".
Certainly, at the Lackawanna Coalition, most of our members are highly intelligent (in my opinion, anyway) and tend to find many things about Amtrak disagreeable, to the point of mentioning them frequently at meetings. Which is odd, since our main area of interest is NJ Transit (particularly Morris & Essex and Montclair-Boonton lines) not Amtrak, and our really main concern involving Amtrak (ARC tunnels, and the lack of connectivity thereof for Amtrak) does not involve much in the way of Amtrak doing anything wrong.
Personally speaking as an involved rail advocate, we work pretty hard for the benefit of rail transit (and transit in general), and I personally take offense to your implication that all we do is cheer Amtrak on. Amtrak has its problems, which I argue against. Most of them, however, have little to do with the general complaints I hear, and have a lot to do with political nonsense.
My personal experience aboard Amtrak with service has been extremely good. I doubt that I have unbelievably good luck. I have had a few employees that are less than stellar in performance, but quite frankly, I see that a lot more everywhere else(and I'm not limiting myself to transportation). Given that Amtrak is a government run monolith, I consider that a minor miracle.
However, when Amtrak does have problems and issues, I will be the first to give you an earful about it.