This Week At Amtrak 2005-11-09
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Vol. 2, No. 33 – November 09, 2005
- United States Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta issued a press release early this week about last week’s GAO report on Amtrak financial misdeeds. This whole affair has remained relatively low key. As one influential reporter for a daily newspaper commented, “this whole report looks like a yawn; it’s not about real money, not into the billions.” Oddly, to many of us, millions of dollars still constitutes real money. Perhaps one must live outside of Washington to have that perspective about real money. U.S. Department of Transportation to Tighten Oversight of Amtrak Based on GAO Recommendations
Monday November 7, 6:25 pm ET
WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 /PRNewswire/ — U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta today announced the Department of Transportation would implement recommendations to strengthen its oversight of Amtrak in light of a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that found widespread managerial problems within the company. Secretary Mineta, who said he agreed with the GAO’s findings, also called on Amtrak to take quick steps to address the recommendations made in the November 3rd GAO report that require Board or management action.
“For the past several years, I have been urging Amtrak to clean up its act and become more accountable to taxpayers and the traveling public,” said Secretary Mineta. “I hope this report will be a turning point for Amtrak. There simply is too much at stake to let the company deteriorate any further.”
Mineta directed the Department’s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to require Amtrak to submit its plans to improve financial reporting and management practices. The agency will monitor progress on the plans and issue a new annual report to Congress on how well Amtrak is improving its financial practices, Mineta added.
The Secretary said Amtrak also would be required to demonstrate how it will improve its acquisition practices before receiving federal taxpayer grants. The FRA will award grants to Amtrak once it demonstrates that it has reformed its acquisitions practices.
Amtrak also will be required to develop and share with the Department clear measures of overall corporate performance. The Secretary said that these new measures will be used to help the Department issue annual reports to Congress on Amtrak’s progress in making needed reforms. These reports will include recommendations for ways Congress can help Amtrak reform, Mineta added.
“The American people have a right to expect more out of Amtrak, a company they have been asked to pour billions of federal tax dollars into over the last three decades,” said Secretary Mineta. “The problems outlined in the GAO report demand attention and require that we finally make the tough choices needed to save Amtrak and improve intercity passenger rail service in this country.”
- None of the above, nor the original GAO report (see last week’s TWA) are a surprise to people functioning in the real world. Any company with the size and scope of Amtrak and with the high turnover in top level staff leadership, not to mention previous rubber stamp boards of directors that blindly followed flawed recommendations of discredited company presidents, is bound to have these types of problems. For all of the efforts that Amtrak President and CEO David Gunn (the third of the Transit Trio of Tom Downs, George Warrington, and Mr. Gunn, all devastating leaders of Amtrak) made when he arrived in May of 2002 to survey the financial wreckage left behind by his immediate predecessor, George Warrington, that effort has not been enough. This is a process which will take years to complete, and a competent, professional board of directors, comprised of seasoned business titans such as the current board, to lead the process.
The reality of this process that needs to be understood is that this is not a swipe at Amtrak, but a realistic look at what is going on and an effort to help improve the company on behalf of the passengers who depend on Amtrak, the employees who run Amtrak on a hour by hour basis, and, importantly, the American taxpayer, which is constantly dunned to help pay for this snake pit of financial and management misdeeds that need addressing and changing.
To do anything less is to continue to enable Amtrak’s financial and management disease, much the same way a family member or close friend enables an alcoholic. You want the alcoholic to succeed, but yet, because you are so close to them, you allow their dysfunction and disappropriate behavior to continue because you don’t have the internal right stuff to help them stop and change course for the better.
- This is exactly what Amtrak’s sycophant echo chamber organization has done in the past few days, attacking the House Working Group that will oversee a further investigation, and continuing to deny there is a problem at Amtrak, lamely pointing out some successes in a sea of dysfunction. For an organization that always claims to be working in Amtrak’s best interest, this is a fascinating look at loyalty gone awry, helping enable Amtrak’s bad behavior instead of working to help Amtrak improve the behavior. What benefits, favors, or other things – financial or otherwise – are flowing to this organization that keeps it from looking at Amtrak realistically?
- Here’s some good news. Amtrak got out of the Clocker service business completely at the end of October. The Clockers, originated by the late, great Pennsylvania Railroad as hourly service between Philadelphia and New York City decades ago, were just shadows of themselves, with only three daily frequencies in each direction. Amtrak showed a financial loss on these trains, which were really glorified transit service. The service has been properly taken over by New Jersey Transit.
The end of the Clockers frees up 26 pieces of passenger rolling stock that were assigned to the trains. Will these pieces go into mothballs with the other 747 idle pieces of equipment as reported last week, or will the equipment be put to revenue-producing use elsewhere? Inquiring minds want to know.
- An unhappy Left Coast passenger wrote a letter of complaint to Amtrak President David Gunn, and forwarded a copy to the Los Angeles Times Travel Section and other places in Washington. This letter emphasizes many of the current problems of Amtrak (many of which are easy fixes) and demonstrates that the GAO report of last week has a lot of credibility.
“Dear Mr. Gunn:
“On July 16 [2005] I traveled Los Angeles – Solana Beach in Business Class on train 588, The Pacific Surfliner, returning on July 17 from San Diego on train 775. In both directions the train was dirty – trash on the seats and the floor and dirty windows. The southbound train was a mere 20 minutes late, whereas the northbound train the next day was well over an hour late (Imagine – a 4+ hour trip on a route that’s only 129 miles!).
“On August 8 I traveled Seattle – Portland on train 507, The Cascades. Again, the windows were so unclean I could not fully enjoy the view. This train, too, was 20 minutes late.
“The above two incidents are mere starters for the entree that was my ride on train 11, The Coast Starlight, boarding in Chemult, Oregon, on August 13. The accommodations (Roomette No. 3, Car No. 1132) on this train were filthy – bordering on unhealthy, I’m certain. To emphasize my point, I have enclosed the following pictures:
“- Carpeting and door track in my Roomette: there were stains on the carpet and a gum-like substance – along with a used toothpick – in the door track (there was also a used toothpick in the crevice behind my pull-out tray table in the room).
“- Stairwell in my sleeping car: Please note the dust, dirt, and stains. One better keep their shoes on or buy new socks after this trip! Greeting your first class passengers at the top of this stairwell were giant cardboard trash cans – quite full, I might add.
“- Bathroom sink, upper level restroom: Please note the colorful ring of mold around the sink. Mr. Gunn, this is where I was to brush my teeth! Would you?
“All three sleeping cars on this train smelled like diaper hampers, and the outside windows were – a hallmark of Amtrak travel – dirty enough to detract from the enjoyment of the scenery. I literally felt unclean riding this train. I attempted to use the communal shower on the lower level the next morning, but changed my mind when I found a room with standing water (representing how many passengers’ showers, once could only guess) and two bags full of dirty towels. You can be assured that the locker room at my gym is kept in better shape, or I would be canceling my membership.
“The train was 3 hours late arriving Chemult – and kept getting later. I can understand you’re somewhat at the mercy of the freight railroads when it comes to timekeeping (though my patience with this excuse has worn thin over the years – it’s your job to figure that issue out, not your client’s obligation to be continually inconvenienced by this excuse). What was most frustrating, however, was the lackadaisical attitude of Amtrak’s own employees that compounded this delay. At no station was there a sense of urgency or dispatch in helping to make-up time. That apathy, Mr. Gunn, is translated as complete disrespect and disregard to the very clients generating the revenue you so desperately need to survive.
“I run conventions and tradeshows. If my show was in danger of not opening on time, heads would be rolling and I and my entire staff would be running around like madmen to ensure that our 1,500 exhibitors were getting what they paid for: an on-time opening and attendees through the door at 10 A.M. Your staff mopes and shuffles. I would welcome the opportunity to discuss with you the poor planning I witnessed at Oakland-Jack London Station – 10 minutes could have easily been shaved off of this train’s tardiness.
“In the end, I decided to call a good friend in Monterey and – with a bribe of a nice lunch – he picked me up in Salinas. I abandoned ship, he drove me to San Jose, and one hour and $104 later I was in a taxi riding home from LAX. Southwest Airlines – the perfect antidote to The Coast Starlight. I was at my kitchen table by 9 P.M. reading my mail – well ahead of the post-midnight hour when the pride of your fleet limped into Union Station.
“In closing, your ad for The Coast Starlight shows a breezy couple riding in chaise lounges on its roof – enjoying the scenery of a sunny day – with some teaser like ‘There’s a place on the coast you’ve always wanted to be.’ Mr. Gunn, that place is home, relatively on time, after a ride on a clean train. If you can’t provide that, you might as well call it a day.”
This is what the Amtrak apologists and cultists so zealously defend? This type of dysfunction is acceptable in this modern world? These type of problems are pure management problems, not budget problems. The blame cannot be placed anywhere except on Amtrak.
In the 1990s, The Coast Starlight was Amtrak’s great, successful experiment in high end travel when Brian Rosenwald and his team created the first class Pacific Parlor Car and other onboard amenities, some of which are now being touted on the new and improved Empire Builder experiment in first class service.
The Los Angeles crew base turned out the best crews on Amtrak, which spilled over to the Sunset Limited and other trains, often staffed with former Starlight employees who not only knew their jobs, but were happy to do them.
Why has so much changed? Who is responsible? Who has allowed this to happen?
- It seems like fun: the Amtrak Police Department has ordered 20 Segway scooters to improve mobility of its force and provide better patrolling. These are the same scooters the Segway manufacturer provided former President and Mrs. Bush for use at their Maine summer home (and the same scooters that current President Bush was unable to navigate and fell off).
It will be interesting to see some of these burly Amtrak Police officers scooting around on these contraptions. No word yet on whether or not lollipops are banned from the mouths of officers while riding the new scooters.
- Any time there is a political hiccup regarding Amtrak, someone always jumps to the conclusion that Amtrak President David Gunn is on his way out the door and going back home to his farm in Nova Scotia. This silly process usually starts the day after a new Amtrak president arrives in Washington, and keeps going until the incumbent does leave, for whatever reason.
Since Mr. Gunn is about 20 months away from his 70th birthday, the rumors have taken on some intensity and, in the process a lot of silliness. One of the latest goofy rumors is that the Washington powers-that-be conservatives are enamored with a former, very liberal Clinton administration Amtrak board member that the conservatives couldn’t wait to leave Amtrak. Such idiocy makes one laugh, but at the same time cry because some people actually believe and repeat this nonsense.
The only Amtrak president to be forced on the Amtrak Board of Directors in recent history was Tom Downs, the former head of New Jersey Transit before he came to Amtrak in the mid 1990s. Mr. Downs lost his position because of a political change in the New Jersey statehouse (a normal occurrence) and his was “taken care of” by his political buddies in Washington. The board had already selected an unannounced replacement for the late Graham Claytor, but at the last minute was told to pick Mr. Downs.
Today’s board is the mechanism for selecting a new president when that need arises. The board accepts applications for the job, conducts interviews, and votes on a new president. This is not a White House appointee as is often wrongly quoted about Mr. Gunn. He was selected in 2002 by the outgoing majority Clinton board, not selected by the White House and imposed on the board.
