Passenger Trains > While we are talking about Amtrak and Money

Just got off the phone with a long time Amtrak train service employee...  Great conversation.  Interesting points that he conveyed.

Service Cutbacks - Rewards and Ramifications

$11 Million in bonus incentives to Amtrak's top 200 managers.  Not for service improvements, for fixing equipment or for increasing ridership... but for them to find ways to save money. And then poor ole Amtrak says the mean ole Republicans won't give them enough money.
Only one waiter and an LSA on a long haul train....  
$2.00 for any beverage in the diner...  Let's see for breakfast $2 for orange juice, $2 for coffee...wow, I just drank $4.00.  If the LSA can't account for the cup, they have to pay full retail.
If you want a slice of cheese on your burger, it's an additional $2.00
If you want a salad with your dinner, you dinged for that too..
Apparently, some of these managers tried to have one coach attendant for every three coaches until the FRA stepped in and said "nyet."

Then they wonder why ridership on the long hauls is going to heck in a breadbasket.

Just a commentary on reality.

Wow! These AMTRAK managers could all get jobs at CSX. What do they call it? "Drive To 65." Don't even get me startyed on AMTRAK. No Las Vegas train, abandond line to Phoenix so no direct service to 9th largest city in US. No east west service from Dallas to southern California. Just think of the possibilitys there.  I'm sure many of us here could go on and on. When you have non-railroad people running a railroad, this is what you get, another Post Office.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/15 17:56 by HardYellow.

 Is this just for Coach people not sleeping car people?? Because my Big sleeping car trip starts on June 12,2015. Or is this talk now, that what Amtrak wants to do later date??

Unless you are in the sleepers on the Silver Star, meals are 100% included in your sleeper fare...except alcoholic beverages.  I just finished a 5800 mile AGR redemption trip with 4 nights in sleepers and all dining car fare was free...even on the Cardinal (although it was mostly nuked meals (but tasty) on the Cardinal).  Those in coach that I dined with paid $2 for beverages, and $3 for a salad, if they wanted one.  Everything except dinner rolls is ala-carte for coach passengers. 

Of course, the downgrades in 'first class' over the past year are now fully in place.  Nothing but juice and coffee (for 3-4 hours) and maybe some ice in the sleepers.  Freshly cleaned, bagged blankets on the Cardinal, surprisingly clean blankets on the Lakeshore and Texas Eagle.  I asked the attendant on the Eagle and he said they change out blankets every 2 or 3 trips.  Previously, it was more like monthy or slightly longer, I think.  In the diner, the stainless flatware is rolled in cloth napkins...and they come pre-rolled in plastic bags of perhaps 50 per bag.  Table 'cloths', -if- used, are tear off paper 'tablet' style.  Everything else is single use plastic plates, cups, glasses, etc.  If history repeats itself, it'll all come back to cloth, china, glassware, etc, in 3-4 years or so.

Don't forget no service within a two and a half hour drive from Nashville, metro area of 1.7 million with an NFL franchise and hordes of tourists.  Our last train was the Floridian in the late 1970s.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/15 20:24 by Vandyfan.

The $11M bonus really gets me. Bonuses are always based on increasing performance incentives. For Amtrak this should be ridership, revenue,and customer satisfaction.

Amtrak should start caring about the Long Distance trains and figuring out how they can get extra revenue, not cut costs. I like VIA's model of "touring" and "economy" class passengers. And Amtrak could do that for one sleeper or coach per LD train.  

What is it that folks don't get?  Congress pulls the strings on Amtrak and there's only one thing the Mica led crew want...put Amtrak out of business by squeezing it to death.  You want management at Amtrak to care about LD trains when the Congress clearly doesn't?  In fact, they're clearly hostile to it.  People are all upset about china and tablecloths and salads when the system is being crushed between the "hate Amtrak" Republicans and the freight roads that don't want passenger trains running on their tracks!  I really don't get it, wake up.

Yukon, does Amtrak really have 200 managers? That seems like a big number for a smallish company.

Marty Bernard



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/15 23:48 by MartyBernard.

MartyBernard Wrote:
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> Yukon, does Amtrak really have 200 managers? That seems like a big number for a smallish company.
>
> Marty Bernard

I think you'll find Amtrak has roughly about 17,000 agreement covered employees and 3,000 non-agreement employees(a.k.a. management), running the gamut from secretaries in legal department to the CEO.  The distinction is who are those "top 200," or whatever other number you want to draw the line at.

Many private companies (e.g.,BNSF or NS) and government agencies have "pay for performance" annual management bonuses which are often but not always based on an individuals contribution to the bottom line.  At one time the NS annual bonus was based 50% on the overall company performance and 50% on the individuals performance.  The bonus percentage of a managers base salary is normally greater for those who have greater responsibilities, e.g., the percentage for a division superintendent would be greater than for a road foreman.
$11M in bonuses is about $55K on average.