jccollins
Conductor
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2002
- Messages
- 1,266
Amtrak has suspended all checked baggage service availability to Reno, Nevada on the California Zephyr indefinitely due to their inability to use the newly refurbished downtown train station or continue to directly stop the trains at the temporary station.
Passengers are currently being transported on the California Zephyr to the unstaffed Sparks, Nevada station (about five miles away) and shuttled on buses to the temporary Reno station which is still in use. Trains are running through the downtown Reno train trench but are unable to stop at or use the downtown Reno station due to a dispute on the station's lease agreement.
Vito at Amtrak Customer Service, who personally seemed to have extensive knowledge of the details of the arrangement, told me during a telephone conversation earlier this evening that the City of Reno is already in the process of evicting Amtrak from their temporary downtown modular building station. She continued that if Amtrak is successfully evicted before it is able to move operations over to the newly-refurbished station, that the station would become unstaffed and passengers would not have an indoor waiting room to wait for the trains (or rather the shuttle buses over to Sparks to catch the train).
Reno averages 55,000 pax/year on and off trains at the station, and the unstaffed Sparks station averages about 20,000 pax/year on and off the trains. Since the busing began from Reno to Sparks a few weeks ago to catch the train, ticketed ridership to Reno is about 40% of what it was at this time last year. This follows what would have been the strongest ridership year for Reno in Amtrak's history.
Passengers are currently being transported on the California Zephyr to the unstaffed Sparks, Nevada station (about five miles away) and shuttled on buses to the temporary Reno station which is still in use. Trains are running through the downtown Reno train trench but are unable to stop at or use the downtown Reno station due to a dispute on the station's lease agreement.
Vito at Amtrak Customer Service, who personally seemed to have extensive knowledge of the details of the arrangement, told me during a telephone conversation earlier this evening that the City of Reno is already in the process of evicting Amtrak from their temporary downtown modular building station. She continued that if Amtrak is successfully evicted before it is able to move operations over to the newly-refurbished station, that the station would become unstaffed and passengers would not have an indoor waiting room to wait for the trains (or rather the shuttle buses over to Sparks to catch the train).
Reno averages 55,000 pax/year on and off trains at the station, and the unstaffed Sparks station averages about 20,000 pax/year on and off the trains. Since the busing began from Reno to Sparks a few weeks ago to catch the train, ticketed ridership to Reno is about 40% of what it was at this time last year. This follows what would have been the strongest ridership year for Reno in Amtrak's history.