All Aboard Podcast: Why All the Amtrak H8?

Last Friday, in my weekly column (https://www.allthingstrains.com/post/fr ... trak-going), I talked about why I believe Amtrak has insoluble structural problems, despite my love of passenger trains (and great experiences on Amtrak). Well, I sure stirred up a hornet's nest, so here is my latest podcast episode where I explain myself more in-depth.

Podcast Link: https://rumble.com/v46wlxk-all-aboard-e ... ak-h8.html

Let me know what you think--even if you think I'm 100% off base. In future episodes, I'll share some of my thoughts on how to improve Amtrak, and I'd love to chat with anyone willing to discuss!

-Phil
Host, All Aboard Podcast
All Things Trains

AllThingsTrains wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 6:58 pm Amtrak has insoluble structural problems, despite my love of passenger trains

Welcome to the board. Your position is very similar to mine. This discussion has been a big one around here for 10+ years and it sure stirs some passions. The thing that really frustrates me is that, whatever the mission of Amtrak, they do a really poor job of it. Management has little incentive to succeed nor lead much, and labor is isolated and demoralized, leading to really poor experiences for the passengers. You get the feeling management never rides the trains so they don't really have any feedback for labor in the form of procedure or policy, which means the front line is left to do things as they see fit. That means erratic and uneven levels of service that frustrate paying passengers to no end.

We argue often about budgets and such, but having a more involved management is not much of a budgetary issue. It's more of an engagement and leadership issue.

Tadman wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 9:59 am

AllThingsTrains wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 6:58 pm Amtrak has insoluble structural problems, despite my love of passenger trains

Welcome to the board. Your position is very similar to mine. This discussion has been a big one around here for 10+ years and it sure stirs some passions. The thing that really frustrates me is that, whatever the mission of Amtrak, they do a really poor job of it. Management has little incentive to succeed nor lead much, and labor is isolated and demoralized, leading to really poor experiences for the passengers. You get the feeling management never rides the trains so they don't really have any feedback for labor in the form of procedure or policy, which means the front line is left to do things as they see fit. That means erratic and uneven levels of service that frustrate paying passengers to no end.

We argue often about budgets and such, but having a more involved management is not much of a budgetary issue. It's more of an engagement and leadership issue.

I think you nailed it. Management doesn't eat their own dog food, so they are disconnected from their product.
There should be a directive that they have to use amtrak for all transportation, when possible.
One night on a train with no power and clogged toilets may make them change minds..
and also, bring in management from other countries with functional passenger rail.

What trains are you riding with clogged toilets and no power? The trains I've been on lately have been fully functional and even on time.

Management needs an onboard supervisor who only reports to head conductor. As well it needs to hire persons who ride trains but only report to the manager of the route they rode. As well they ride different routes so to remain anonymous.

Or perhaps ask the congresspersons from those jurisdictions to ride their trains. You can bet things would change fast if they were able to ride anonymously.

I love riding trains--beautiful scenery, the ability to move around during the journey, meeting new people. But I don't trust Amtrak to do everything it can to make sure I get to my destination without hassles and delays. I understand that sometimes the delays are beyond Amtrak's control, but usually the hassles are caused by Amtrak. A recent example would be the trip I took to PDX to visit friends between Christmas and the New Year. I purchased my ticket in November, before the Cascades schedule change was announced. Amtrak automatically rebooked my trip after the schedule change, but the new itinerary wasn't what I wanted. I tried to revise the booking online, but that would have cost me an additional $13.50 to get my preferred trains. I spent 2 evenings trying to connect with "Julie", but she wouldn't take my calls or call me back. Oh well, my time is money, so I finally changed the itinerary online and paid the extra $13.50. I've experienced plenty of schedule changes with airlines and the process is usually pretty easy if the new flights are inconvenient: call, wait a few minutes, explain the situation and it's done. Unfortunately, with Amtrak, it's never that easy.

There are plenty of good people at Amtrak who want to do a good job, but there just seems to be an unsurmountable layer of inefficiency and inertia that prevents people who want to do a great job from being able to do a great job. I certainly don't hate Amtrak, but I always consider every possible way that things could go wrong before I'm willing to buy a ticket on Amtrak.

Tadman wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 9:59 am We argue often about budgets and such, but having a more involved management is not much of a budgetary issue. It's more of an engagement and leadership issue.

I think budgets and political considerations though are actually a paramount consideration one shouldn't ignore or downplay. I think just concluding the problem is this CEO or that manager if only we could fire them and get a "real railroader" in is always an easy answer and solution. Many of us expect Amtrak to be this highly functional and competent organization when the political situation in Washington it answers to is largely dysfunctional and incompetent and constantly back and forth. We have never been able to give Amtrak a long term consistent mission statement or any sort of long term budget certainty so that they can plan. It's always a year to year annual trip back to the trough. We have one administration and Congress that says that Amtrak is a for profit entity that must make minimizing its taxpayer subsidy the number one goal, then another one that says service is the priority. Amtrak may not spend any taxpayer dollars on food service and then five years later food service is a part of the experience and we're setting up a working group on how Amtrak can improve food service. These are pretty extreme back and forths on just two issues. This all has an implication on who you hire and I think ignoring it ignores part of what the problem is. How can one expect to have a non dysfunctional entity when dysfunction is always what has steered its vision? In fact 50 years later we are still having the same old debates about whether Amtrak should even exist or whether we should even have passenger rail in this country. A country has to decide something is a priority if we really want it to be great. People like to complain about people like Richard Anderson - I myself wasn't a huge fan - but he was hired for a reason and its largely because of the political climate at the time when he was hired. I'm all for getting a competent and consistent board and management in place - but we have to decide we even want Amtrak before we can expect them to have a coherent long term vision. I think some of what the IIJA infrastructure bill has done is a good start both in terms of the money and trying to set a service based mission statement - allowing Amtrak to plan some of these long needed state of good repair items. But we throw it all away and hit the reset button if when the next Administration and Congress comes in we are back to looking at cutting or eliminating Amtrak or once again changing the mission statement back to profits and cutting.

I'd add I'm not saying management doesn't matter. But so long as we don't do something to try to finally at least give Amtrak a 5-10 year runway mission and direction wise in order to try to insulate it from the cycle to cycle dysfunction the dysfunction will just continue in one way or another. I'm not talking about insulating them from accountability and transparency. I'm talking about not tinkering every fiscal year with the mission statement, and budget parameters.

lordsigma12345 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 18, 2024 11:43 am I'd add I'm not saying management doesn't matter. But so long as we don't do something to try to finally at least give Amtrak a 5-10 year runway mission and direction wise in order to try to insulate it from the cycle to cycle dysfunction the dysfunction will just continue in one way or another. I'm not talking about insulating them from accountability and transparency. I'm talking about not tinkering every fiscal year with the mission statement, and budget parameters.

That would be a positive step. To make that happen you will have to find a dedicated source of funding that's not the "General Fund". And that usually means taxing the use of the very object or service you wish to set up dedicated trust fund for. The Highway Trust Fund is taxed by fuel excise taxes, Social Security Trust Fund is taxed by Social Security taxes, etc. As long as you rely upon the Geneal Fund to subsidize passenger railroads, then you are subject to the whims of Congressional program budgets and allocations every year.
How to you propose to tax passenger railroads to fund a dedicated trust fund for it?

lordsigma12345 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 18, 2024 11:31 am

Tadman wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 9:59 am We argue often about budgets and such, but having a more involved management is not much of a budgetary issue. It's more of an engagement and leadership issue.

I think budgets and political considerations though are actually a paramount consideration one shouldn't ignore or downplay. I think just concluding the problem is this CEO or that manager if only we could fire them and get a "real railroader" in is always an easy answer and solution.

But thats not what I'm advocating. The budgets issue is just a separate issue, and it should be examined.

This is the "consistency of service" issue. If the current middle and senior managers of Amtrak were asked to frequently ride non-NEC services, they would be appalled at the lack of consistency in service. Different boarding doors, different announcements, talking over each other on the PA, different seating assignment procedures, different cars for destinations on the same train, different boarding procedures at stations...

These aren't things that budgets can fix. This is a thing that is fixed by making sure all employees understand what the procedures are and that they absolutely have to follow the procedure with regards to stations, boarding, seating, etc... The budget here is $1000 to print and laminate procedure and duct tape them up in every vestibule.



Why don't we have this? The Canadians and Germans have something similar and it works well. Ignore the fact this is a bit random and made in a few minutes, but you get the idea. Total cost $10.

AllThingsTrains wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 6:58 pm Let me know what you think--even if you think I'm 100% off base. In future episodes, I'll share some of my thoughts on how to improve Amtrak, and I'd love to chat with anyone willing to discuss!

As another pro-rail fiscal conservative, I'm enjoying your podcast.

Tadman wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2024 9:44 am These aren't things that budgets can fix. This is a thing that is fixed by making sure all employees understand what the procedures are and that they absolutely have to follow the procedure with regards to stations, boarding, seating, etc... The budget here is $1000 to print and laminate procedure and duct tape them up in every vestibule.



Why don't we have this? The Canadians and Germans have something similar and it works well. Ignore the fact this is a bit random and made in a few minutes, but you get the idea. Total cost $10.

I don’t disagree with any of that and you are right. But i do think it’s all related. A little bit of multi year certainty and consistency in the mission I think lends to establishing consistency in management and allows top management to focus on the little things rather than constantly having to worry about whether the company is even going to exist next year and what the next congress is going to do. When one has to swing back and forth between cuts and service it’s not good for anything from the top down to the front line employees.

electricron wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2024 12:34 am

lordsigma12345 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 18, 2024 11:43 am I'd add I'm not saying management doesn't matter. But so long as we don't do something to try to finally at least give Amtrak a 5-10 year runway mission and direction wise in order to try to insulate it from the cycle to cycle dysfunction the dysfunction will just continue in one way or another. I'm not talking about insulating them from accountability and transparency. I'm talking about not tinkering every fiscal year with the mission statement, and budget parameters.

That would be a positive step. To make that happen you will have to find a dedicated source of funding that's not the "General Fund". And that usually means taxing the use of the very object or service you wish to set up dedicated trust fund for. The Highway Trust Fund is taxed by fuel excise taxes, Social Security Trust Fund is taxed by Social Security taxes, etc. As long as you rely upon the Geneal Fund to subsidize passenger railroads, then you are subject to the whims of Congressional program budgets and allocations every year.
How to you propose to tax passenger railroads to fund a dedicated trust fund for it?

And Amtrak collects fares. All of the things you mentioned also require substantial general fund subsidies and are hardly self sufficient on those usage taxes. There’s nothing stopping a multi year appropriation or budget agreement for Amtrak if we as a nation decide it’s a priority it just takes some bipartisan compromise. The IIJA provided 5 years of advanced appropriations for Amtrak capital: it’s a great example of what could be done. I’m not saying relax oversight and transparency - merely to give them consistent mission statements and consistent budget so they have a runway to plan. I’m not saying you give them five years of money at once - you just do five years of advance appropriations (the money is sent each year.) Amtrak has been asking for this for years and I honestly think it would help. They’ve got a lot of stuff to clean up their act on - no doubt. But I say again - if we can’t even decide consistently as a nation we even want Amtrak and passenger rail to exist we can’t expect it to be great.

lordsigma12345 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 18, 2024 11:43 am I'd add I'm not saying management doesn't matter. But so long as we don't do something to try to finally at least give Amtrak a 5-10 year runway mission and direction wise in order to try to insulate it from the cycle to cycle dysfunction the dysfunction will just continue in one way or another. I'm not talking about insulating them from accountability and transparency. I'm talking about not tinkering every fiscal year with the mission statement, and budget parameters.

As long as Amtrak is funded by a line in an Appropriations Act, all of this is a pipe dream.