Well, overall Amtrak has more than 4,500 openings that they are actively trying to fill. I guess the rest of the opening they are trying to fill don't matter when one is on a roll to assign incompetence
Anyhow to give a perspective on how large a number that is, the total Amtrak employee strength work out to somewhere a little less than 18,000.Frankly there is one thing that puzzled me and that is what IMHO was over-downsizing of the HR department who you need to be around to restore staff levels. Apparently finally Amtrak has restored the HR department to a state where they can become effective again. Initially that was a big problem.
There were three factors working in tandem. They were (1) restoring personnel to fill positions that were downsized to stay financially afloat, and training new staff, which on even good days takes time. This was hampered by shortages in the HR department initially. (2) Scourge of the pandemic where existing staff were sidelined due to infections and quarantines. And (3) relative dearth of candidates looking for jobs who can manage to pass the drug test apparently.
The fact that they have finally started restoring train frequencies and starting to get a handle of maintenance suggests that they may be slowly sorting out that mess.
But the bottom line is shouting "Incompetence" from the rooftops does not make people competent, it just makes the shouters look foolish after a while, because of the lack of effectiveness of their act in solving anything.
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