This Week At Amtrak 2005-11-22
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Vol. 2, No. 37 – November 22, 2005
- Amtrak is trying what can only be categorized as a bold and worthy experiment on Empire Service trains between Albany, New York and New York City. Amtrak has contracted with the well-known and highly visible Subway restaurant fast food chain to handle food service on the current food-less Empire Service trains as a pilot project. The trains previously had food service, operating from the New York City commissary and a commissary at Albany. However, earlier this year in a cost-cutting move, Amtrak closed the Albany commissary and put the all-coach trains over the road with no food service. The 142 mile route takes just under two and a half hours to run.
An Amtrak press release said, “The new feature will test the feasibility of vendor-operated on-board food service. … The Subway® menu will feature a selection of the franchise’s famous sandwiches, along with soups, salads, pizza, beverages, desserts and other items from the train’s food service car. A Subway® employee will also walk through the train, offering at-seat delivery to Business class and Coach passengers. …. Operating under a license agreement during the four month pilot, Subway® will pay Amtrak a portion of gross receipts. From the knowledge gained through the pilot experience, in 2006 Amtrak plans to seek competitive bids from qualified vendors. (However, a Request-for-Proposal (RFP) has not been issued at this time and no decisions have been made with respect to trains on which the service may be provided.)”
The question of Subway non-railroad union employees working alongside Amtrak union train and engine crews was not addressed.
There have been justified complaints far and wide about Amtrak food service in lounge and cafe cars. Most have centered on the food service employees, and how they take forever to open the car for sales, and then close too early near the end of the trip.
What most complainers don’t realize is that this is often the fault of Amtrak management decisions, not often the decisions of individual food service employees. Management has decreed that employees may not go on duty too early to set up the lounge and cafe cars, and also that no overtime is allowed to shut the food service down after arrival at the train’s final terminal. In other words, management made the decision that passengers must wait or do without service in order to save payroll money over the concept of good passenger service. So, will Amtrak onboard service employees be put out of a job because of poor Amtrak management decisions?
We have heard a lot of noise these past few months about how Amtrak allegedly spends huge amounts of money running food service, while operating food service at a constant loss. We don’t know if this is true because of Amtrak’s poor accounting system, including what was cited in last month’s GAO Report, citing how costs are haphazardly assigned to train routes without any real consistency or formula. Do we really know the true story, here?
On some state subsidized routes, Amtrak charges state governments tens of thousand of dollars to operate one lounge or cafe car on a route. How expensive can it be to put one employee in one car and send them on their way with a captive, hungry and thirsty audience? On long distance routes, such as the Sunset Limited between Orlando, Florida and Los Angeles, one lounge car employee during peak summer months travel can generate as much as $8,000 in gross sales per round trip. The cost of food for Amtrak (what it pays for pre-made sandwiches, Danish pastries, beer, wine, and colas among other items) is in line with restaurant industry costs, if not slightly lower in some instances due to the huge volume Amtrak purchases. Where do the exorbitant costs to run Amtrak food service come into play?
It’s not the cost of labor, and it’s not the cost of operating lounge or dining cars. It’s got to be costs assigned to food service by Amtrak headquarters. Perhaps when these costs are properly sorted out, a more factual picture will emerge.
- Video and audio entertainment is coming to Amtrak’s Auto Train via a new personal system for individual passengers. Separate from the video system found on single level Viewliner sleeping cars, this new system offers a broad range of entertainment choices.
“Amtrak Auto Train passengers can now enjoy movies, TV shows, cartoons, music videos and music all digitally pre-programmed in the unique, portable system, named the digEplayer(tm) from Railway Media® and digEcor(tm).
“The latest in personal audio-video entertainment, the compact digEplayer features a 7-inch screen, comes with headphones and weighs only three pounds with battery. The digEplayer delivers on-demand audio and video entertainment with the quality of DVDs and CDs in a fully-loaded and ready-to-play personal unit. This is the first time that Amtrak has offered passengers a personal entertainment system aboard its trains.
“The digEplayer contains dozens of movies, songs, sitcoms and children’s programs. Content will be refreshed frequently, providing passengers with a wealth of programming variety. The unit can easily be set up on a passenger’s tray table, carried to the Sleeping Car for a movie before bedtime or enjoyed anywhere on board the train. Because it operates on an 8-10 hour battery, the digEplayer is completely portable.
“… The units will be available for rental at both stations for $19 for the entire one-way trip. Expansion of the service into other major Amtrak markets is being planned. At the conclusion of the train trip, passengers may return the digEplayer to a Railway Media representative on the train or at the station.”
- Here we go again, with another busy travel season beginning with the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, which is typically Amtrak’s busiest travel period of the year. Thousands of Amtrak employees will keep the trains running, taking passengers home for the holidays, while each employees gives up his or her holiday. We thank each and every Amtrak employee who will spend this weekend working while the rest of America eats too much, takes lots of naps, and probably shops too much.
Thanksgiving, as the name of the holiday implies has many meanings, beyond the giving of thanks for bountiful harvests. We are also thankful to live in a nation with diverse opinion and the open ability to freely debate each issue.
An Amtrak press release noted, “The railroad expects to carry more than 600,000 passengers during the holiday week, as occurred during the same period in 2004. On the heaviest travel day of the year for Amtrak, Wednesday, Nov. 23, the railroad’s ridership is expected to spike at 125,000 passengers, system wide, 80 percent more passengers than an average Wednesday, when 69,000 passengers are carried.
“Over the span of the holiday week, Amtrak will carry approximately 30 percent more passengers than an average week.”
- Newspapers around the country are still carrying follow-up news items and editorials about the deselection of former Amtrak President and CEO David Gunn by the Amtrak Board of Directors. The noise and thunder seems to be diminishing. The best guess is that by the end of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, the story will have run its course and something else will replace it in the media. Anyone vaguely remember Cindy Sheehan from last summer? Who?
Also, one interesting David Gunn item has come to light through a newspaper interview. Mr. Gunn was referring to the fact that union contracts have not been settled (for six years, now, pretty shameful) and that he was of the opinion that skilled labor, such as mechanical workers, should be paid higher salaries than non-skilled workers, such as lounge and cafe car attendants.
We beg to differ with Mr. Gunn’s categorization or skilled and unskilled labor, perhaps following “old railroad” thinking. To an Amtrak passenger, a lounge car attendant is not unskilled labor. This employee is a short order cook, a waiter, a bartender, and a restaurant manager, handling cash and juggling multiple orders from passengers, all the while allegedly maintaining a good attitude and a smile. In short, this is a front line passenger service employee, that helps make the difference between a good Amtrak trip and a bad trip. By the old railroad definition this may be unskilled labor, but by any modern measurement, this needs to be a well-trained, well-adjusted employee that may make the difference between a “never again” passenger and a repeat passenger.
Add on top of that the fact that all onboard employees are safety employees, too. In the event of a derailment or other catastrophe, these employees are expected to take charge of their immediate surroundings, under the direction of the conductor and assistant conductor, and assist passengers in emergency and life threatening situations. Everyone seems to forget this critical role that onboard employees play.
- (Sigh) There is always potential for an “oops!” no matter how careful one tries to be. Last week, double numbering of items occurred in This Week at Amtrak. Thanks to the miracle of modern computers, it’s possible to write something, and then go back and insert something new above what you have written. The trick, of course, to successfully accomplishing this is to remember to renumber the old items you have displaced. Apologies to one and all who found this as confusing as this writer found the situation.
