MBCR vs Amtrak

MudLake wrote:I respectfully disagree. Commuter railroads and Amtrak neither cooperate or compete with each other. There are no established agreements for commuter railroads to feed passengers to Amtrak such as Republic Airways and others have with all of the large airlines (other than Southwest). About all you can say is they share the same facilities in many places.

And that's unfortunate. Amtrak and commuter railroads should cooperate, code share, and cross-sell--it could only benefit all parties. If they were private-sector companies, they would. Chalk it up to the bureaucratic mindset, I guess.

CHTT wrote:In the Chicago area, Amtrak and Metra have separate ticket agents at Union Station, Glenview, Naperville and Joliet. Amtrak has an agent at Homewood, but Metra just has vending machines. It's doubtful the Amtrak and Metra ticket agents would know anything about the others service, except in a general way.

The Homewood agents' window actually has a sign next to it that says "Metra tickets NOT for sale" or something like that. Seems they probably get a lot of questions from hapless non-regular riders who think "o hay I'll just go on in here and get a ticket."

For what it's worth, a few years ago trying to avoid a trip cross town to South Station, you know on the easily accessable and friendly MBTA service I asked the folks at the Downeaster office in North Station if they could print out my Amtrak tickets for our cross country trip. You would have thought I was asking Macy's to help me purchase something at Gimbels, or Pan Am to ticket me on a completly TWA itinerary. No way, they're not even associated with Amtrak according to person in the ticket office. 'Scuse me. Oh, well off on the MTA to see if I could find where Charlie was on my way to South Station.
Best regards,
Rodger

CHANGEATJAMAICA wrote:. . . I asked the folks at the Downeaster office in North Station if they could print out my Amtrak tickets for our cross country trip. You would have thought I was asking Macy's to help me purchase something at Gimbels, or Pan Am to ticket me on a completly TWA itinerary. No way, they're not even associated with Amtrak according to person in the ticket office. 'Scuse me . . .

No offense taken if this is deemed off-topic, but there is something screwy with the Amtrak ticket station at North Station. Last summer, a family was trying to print (or perhaps buy) an apparently complicated itinerary at the one (1) ticket window. It took nearly a half-hour, during which the one (1) quik-trak machine was out of order. The line for the arrving Downeaster stretched almost as far as the eye could see.

I'm not sure what the moral of this story is, except that Amtrak has a truly amazing capacity to screw seemingly easy stuff up. Other than the repair person who showed up promptly and frantically tried to fix the machine, no one seemed to even be aware of the near-mob conditions until less than 5 minutes till train time, when the agent bothered to look out the window (to his credit, he looked like he was stifling a scream).

JPS

The attitude of the Boston agents (at BOS and BBY at least) is probably due to the fact that when Amtrak ran the MBTA commuter rail, you could use any window for any transaction, commuter or intercity. Once MBCR took over the types were obviously split, and given the typically inadequate/nonexistent signage, I bet a lot of people end up waiting in the wrong lines, and then taking out their frustration on the agents.

For my part I have never had a problem at BOS or BBY when asking for printed tickets, regardless of where my trip is originating (I often have itineraries starting in WOR where there is no agent).

We had dealt with the fact that Amtrak would rather bus its long distance passengers rather then train them from Portland. The Downeaster is contracted with the State of Maine and run in partnership with a authority. NOW AIRLINES---The agents Will tell you what the next flight is even if its on a another airline.

I usually pick up my tickets for the Downeaster at the Dover NH Quik-TraK machine a day or two before my travel, as the Dover machine has had out of service spells over the years, although it has been better the last year or so. At any rate, on one occasion, I had a last minute change in plans, so did not use the tickets. On a subsequent trip to Boston, I tried to get at refund at the North Station Amtrak ticket window, but was advised I would have to go to South Station to do that.

This contracted operation by NNEPRA with Amtrak permits one party to point the finger at the other party, when things go astray. At any rate, there are just 61 days left before the NNEPRA needs to come up with $6 million in federal funds and around $2 million from the State of Maine or the whole Downeaster service will be history.

Dick

MudLake wrote:

Littleredcaboose wrote:My argument here is that MBCR feeds passengers into Amtrak. Much like a commuter airline

I respectfully disagree. Commuter railroads and Amtrak neither cooperate or compete with each other. There are no established agreements for commuter railroads to feed passengers to Amtrak such as Republic Airways and others have with all of the large airlines (other than Southwest). About all you can say is they share the same facilities in many places.

I have to agree with Littlered on this one. By "feed", I presume s/he means passengers connect from one entity to the other. For example, last month I took Metro North from Mt. Vernon, NY, to Stamford, then Amtrak to Back Bay, then CR up to Andover. In the past, I've gone the other way several times, terminating at NY Penn Station. I'm a hard-core railroad person, and I don't know if someone else would've done it, but renting a car one-way in Mt. Vernon was not an option offered by Enterprise.

Dick H wrote: At any rate, there are just 61 days left before the NNEPRA needs to come up with $6 million in federal funds and around $2 million from the State of Maine or the whole Downeaster service will be history.
Dick

Which would be sad - it's one of the few services Amtrak's done in recent years which actually took off nicely. I thought it would be a total flop and was wrong on that.

I'm sure Guilford (whoops - Pan-Am Railways) will be more than glad to help 'em move off the line if the service shuts down...

travelrobb wrote:

MudLake wrote:I respectfully disagree. Commuter railroads and Amtrak neither cooperate or compete with each other. There are no established agreements for commuter railroads to feed passengers to Amtrak such as Republic Airways and others have with all of the large airlines (other than Southwest). About all you can say is they share the same facilities in many places.

And that's unfortunate. Amtrak and commuter railroads should cooperate, code share, and cross-sell--it could only benefit all parties. If they were private-sector companies, they would. Chalk it up to the bureaucratic mindset, I guess.

Amtrak and MARC are strongly tied together. Amtrak operates the MARC Penn Line, and sells MARC tickets at their ticketing counters at their staffed stations. Amtrak Quik-Trak machines also sell MARC tickets and are located at most MARC stations (including non-Amtrak stations). MARC passengers with multi-ride tickets can also ride most Regionals on the weekends, and other times MARC doesn't operate (plus some during the week to Aberdeen). Also, Amtrak 151 makes two MARC stops at Perryville and Edgewood. Also, both services will occasionally "rescue" each others passengers from broken down trains.

I do know that the MTA (MARC) isn't completly satisified with the relationship, particularly the fees Amtrak charges, and has requested (or will request) bids to operating the entire MARC service (including the two CSX operated lines). Also, Amtrak won't let MARC run on weekends.

WOR is still a staffed station, Noon to 8PM weekdays...

I picked up my tickets there for my BOS-CHI-EMY trip and return in May.

jgeary27 wrote:
For my part I have never had a problem at BOS or BBY when asking for printed tickets, regardless of where my trip is originating (I often have itineraries starting in WOR where there is no agent).

realtype wrote:

travelrobb wrote:

MudLake wrote:I respectfully disagree. Commuter railroads and Amtrak neither cooperate or compete with each other. There are no established agreements for commuter railroads to feed passengers to Amtrak such as Republic Airways and others have with all of the large airlines (other than Southwest). About all you can say is they share the same facilities in many places.

And that's unfortunate. Amtrak and commuter railroads should cooperate, code share, and cross-sell--it could only benefit all parties. If they were private-sector companies, they would. Chalk it up to the bureaucratic mindset, I guess.

Amtrak and MARC are strongly tied together. Amtrak operates the MARC Penn Line, and sells MARC tickets at their ticketing counters at their staffed stations. Amtrak Quik-Trak machines also sell MARC tickets and are located at most MARC stations (including non-Amtrak stations). MARC passengers with multi-ride tickets can also ride most Regionals on the weekends, and other times MARC doesn't operate (plus some during the week to Aberdeen). Also, Amtrak 151 makes two MARC stops at Perryville and Edgewood. Also, both services will occasionally "rescue" each others passengers from broken down trains.

I do know that the MTA (MARC) isn't completly satisified with the relationship, particularly the fees Amtrak charges, and has requested (or will request) bids to operating the entire MARC service (including the two CSX operated lines). Also, Amtrak won't let MARC run on weekends.

And you can also buy MARC tickets for the Camden and Brunswick Lines by Amtrak Ticket Agents, I duid that in April 2008 when bought my one way ticket for a MARC Railfan Ride to Metropolitan Grove and an Amtrak Ticket Agent helped me with the ticket

Littleredcaboose wrote:Have Noticed that Amtrak agents have been nasty and dont like giving info to Commuter Rail passengers since they lost the contract to run commuter rail. Do they consider MBCR to be a scab operation

LRC: I think your perceptions may be exaggerated, at best. Besides, an Amtrak agent has no business providing an MBCR customer with service any more than an MBCR agent does to an Amtrak customer.

Let's move on to some more productive conversation, as this topic is a "reach" in any case.

-otto-

The MBTA and Amtrak are not a competitor relationship but have a slight cooperation since Amtrak dispactches most of the south side lines and Amtrak Trains sometimes rescue broken down commuter trains , and vice versa if an amtrak breaks down

Otto Vondrak wrote:

Littleredcaboose wrote:Have Noticed that Amtrak agents have been nasty and dont like giving info to Commuter Rail passengers since they lost the contract to run commuter rail. Do they consider MBCR to be a scab operation

LRC: I think your perceptions may be exaggerated, at best. Besides, an Amtrak agent has no business providing an MBCR customer with service any more than an MBCR agent does to an Amtrak customer.

Let's move on to some more productive conversation, as this topic is a "reach" in any case.

-otto-

No we are supoosoed to have a intrgrated common carreir railroad system. In the Old days of the multi-line railroads when one had to take two,three or even 4 railroads the Agent looked up the time-table in the Official Guide and almost got someone to there doorstep. Railroads exchanged cars and engines as the Rutland would feed into the NY Central and then the cars might be swithced all the way to Florida