NEW AMTRAK CEO: William J Flynn

[mcgrath618]

I hate to be that guy, but do we think perhaps Mr. Flynn will therefore be more accommodating to excursions on Amtrak rails?

Flynn strikes me as a “if the money’s there, I’m there” kinda guy. You’d have to be, to send commercial airliners into war zones. Private car owners can’t be THAT much worse than warlords, can they?

I mean, if people will spend $90 to ride behind two rebuilt F9s in Reading, I'm sure money can be found with excursions on Amtrak.

[gokeefe]

I hate to be that guy, but do we think perhaps Mr. Flynn will therefore be more accommodating to excursions on Amtrak rails?

I think this a really good point about Anderson's departure. I agree that the probability of change with regards to excisions and private car owner handling is very high. He understands the value of good PR and knows that it can get you exponential returns on investment. And, "yes" I am talking about dollars turning into more dollars and not just buying "goodwill" or other intangibles.

[Return to Reading Company Olney Sta]

I hate to be that guy, but do we think perhaps Mr. Flynn will therefore be more accommodating to excursions on Amtrak rails?

Flynn strikes me as a “if the money’s there, I’m there” kinda guy. You’d have to be, to send commercial airliners into war zones. Private car owners can’t be THAT much worse than warlords, can they?

I mean, if people will spend $90 to ride behind two rebuilt F9s in Reading, I'm sure money can be found with excursions on Amtrak.

The Autumn Express excursions were very popular. Whether they made significant money may be different matter, but assume they were priced to at least cover the direct costs of operating them. (And in conversing with other passengers when I ride them, they did attract some non-regular and non-railfan riders. So these were a way of introducing Amtrak to new pool of potential future customers.)

[Gilbert B Norman]

A few more items "on the plate" to chew on before worrying about excursions and PV's, latter of which it looks like they're handling anyway:

---- The broken safety culture.
-----On time performance - Amtrak and Class I operations
-----Systemwide Food & Beverage on the LD's
-----Equipment procurement
-----Corridor improvements

And the "Huge" Elephants in the room:

-----Gateway/Portal/B&P

[eolesen]

I hate to be that guy, but do we think perhaps Mr. Flynn will therefore be more accommodating to excursions on Amtrak rails?

I think this a really good point about Anderson's departure. I agree that the probability of change with regards to excisions and private car owner handling is very high. He understands the value of good PR and knows that it can get you exponential returns on investment. And, "yes" I am talking about dollars turning into more dollars and not just buying "goodwill" or other intangibles.

Go read the 2019 annual report. The changes to excursions and PV's were a net positive. I don't see those changes rolling back.

[Tadman]

Also, it’s not like they said absolutely no private cars, like Via did for 1/2. They tightened up the rules a lot. That’s it. Frank Thompson still rolls by my house regularly and the Webb Rail NP cars are still all over Instagram.

[Tadman]

This just in (1015AM Central Time) from the New York Times...

Amtrak, Struggling to Keep Trains Running, Chooses a New Leader: William J. Flynn, chairman of Atlas Air Worldwide, will take over as the railroad’s finances improve but its political fortunes remain turbulent.

NOTE: If you are not a subscriber to the times, you have a limited number of articles per month before a paywall kicks in. Be warned.

Also, what fake news regurgitator over at the NYT thinks Amtrak is “struggling to keep trains running”? Total bull hockey. Of all the myriad challenges the railroad faces, keeping trains running is not a problem. If they kept them running in 1974 with ex-PC and cars that barley ran, i think they’ll do just fine in 2021.

[east point]

Tadman: Did not read it as you did. It is A fact that Amtrak is struggling to keep North river tunnels operative. That is how I read the article not a system wide problem. Agree that the writing by NYT could have been better worded.

[David Benton]

You forgot to call it the "failing New York Times".
Its from the Metro section, so is specifically referring to NYC issues. The North river tunnels and Gateway tunnels, the portal bridges, and the NY Penn trackwork, are covered in the article.
Struggle might not be the best word to describe it, "faces challenges" might be better, but the funding issues are far from fake news.

[Gilbert B Norman]

Mr. Dunville, Gray Lady's skin is very impervious to slings and arrows such as you have have chosen to shoot at her. I've been reading her since I was seven yo and for Sunday Dinner, both my Sister and I had to select articles from The Times, inform our Father of what we selected so he too could be cognizant, and then recite to his satisfaction at the Dinner table.

That daily "thump on the porch" now costs me $1200 a year, but worth every penny of such.

[GWoodle]

In the Amtrak press release Mr Anderson will have had his 3 year term as CEO of Amtrak but will stay on until the end of the year. He will train Mr Flynn to get him up to speed.

[east point]

Get him up to speed or throw on the brakes before for he can get up to speed ?

[gokeefe]

Moorman did the same for Anderson. Seems to have worked out just fine.

[BandA]

You don't really know what the new guy will do until the old guy steps aside and the training wheels come off, for good or bad. Good training is fairly important when bringing in an outsider.

So, you have a semi-revolving door of CEOs, you have a board of directors, and you have a "deep state", i.e. the permanent layer of management steeped in institutional and technical knowledge. How active a role does the board of directors take?

[WesternNation]

For what it's worth:

Flynn comes from a railroading family. His father was a Conrail engineer; his uncle, an Amtrak engineer; and his brother, an Amtrak conductor and local union chair.

From Railway Age

Interesting...and certainly gives me hope for the future of Amtrak. I would hope that Flynn's brother (if still in active service) can help to provide a boots-on-the-ground view of the operations to help reshape how Amtrak functions for the future. Or at least, that's how I would do it.

There's a reason why my current employers have an Operations Reference Database (ORDb for short) that is maintained on the station-level. The best people to ask about operational challenges and capabilities are the people who are actually there. This allows decisions regarding scheduling and diversions to be made without accidentally screwing over a field station or sending an aircraft to a station that can't handle it. Additionally, all of the partner regional carriers have access to it.

Consulting the engineers, conductors, trainmasters, and RFEs to help reform the safety culture as well as changing operations would probably be a wise decision.