Superliner Diner
Conductor
Full story is here.Conductor pleads guilty to misconductHAVRE (AP) — An assistant conductor for Amtrak has pleaded guilty to federal charges of stealing nearly $19,000 in passenger fares he collected.
Full story is here.Conductor pleads guilty to misconductHAVRE (AP) — An assistant conductor for Amtrak has pleaded guilty to federal charges of stealing nearly $19,000 in passenger fares he collected.
While this does sound like a good idea, it would probably only help minimally with the on-time performance. While I have ran into quite a few slow & lazy conductors (sorry to throw this term out, especially if any Amtrak conductors are reading this - I know many of you work very hard) they can usually only cause small delays which can be made up by the trains with the built in padding. As we know, most of the delays come from Omaha dispatching incompetence and lack of caring for Amtrak trains vs. their freight trains. Amtrak has tried and continues to try to "win-over" these dispatchers by providing monetary incentives to the freight railroads for good dispatching and putting the passenger trains through on time. Unfortunately, many of the freight railroads don't care about the incentives and many of them remain unclaimed every year (did someone say U.P.?). It is too bad that we could not begin a massive track building program that would double all the tracks in all locations/routes served by Amtrak passenger trains. THIS would solve our on-time performance problem. B)WoodenMike said:Maybe they should cut the Conductors base salary, and then pay a bonus for on-time performances???
The government takes land away to expand highways and freeways from ten to twenty lanes (and they think it will really help - ha!) If we had one track for each direction of train travel THAT would really help. Imagine what it would be like if roads only had one lane for two directions of travel (for ten and twenty mile stretches) and motor cars had to wait for oncoming motor cars to pass. It would be a joke, and cause huge delays for motor car travelers. That is what the railroads deal with every day. Double tracking should be the bare minimum acceptable. I would be willing to bet that at least 95 percent of the tracks traveled on by Amtrak have enough room for double tracking. Probably 5 percent or less of the tracks are in such heavily congested areas that there wouldn't be room for a second track. It needs to be done - when will the Federal Railroad Administration ever realize this? All subway and most commuter rail systems have all double tracking throughout the system, and, low and behold, all the trains usually run within a minute or two of their schedules.tubaallen said:jccollins,
I think you are probably right. However, unfortunately, in most cases, I think the problem is that there is not enough land available to build that much more track...especially in the cities. I think we would be doing well if the freight companies would just double track more of the lines we use.
I would tend to agree with that statement, most areas that I've traveled have room for double tracking. If they don't already have room, then it wouldn't be too big a deal to acquire the extra room. Most cities already have double tracks or greater. The problem is out in the country where far too much is single tracked.jccollins said:I would be willing to bet that at least 95 percent of the tracks traveled on by Amtrak have enough room for double tracking. Probably 5 percent or less of the tracks are in such heavily congested areas that there wouldn't be room for a second track. It needs to be done - when will the Federal Railroad Administration ever realize this?
I disagree with the exception being the NEC which is owned and operated by Amtrak. Since most of the tracks Amtrak operates over are owned by freight railroads who would receive a direct benefit from the aquisition of any additional property the government would not bother to exercise eminent domain over. Even in the case of the NEC I don't think the government would bother seeing their love for Amtrak.tubaallen said:We realize that... but if this was going to be for Amtrak...public transportation...it would be something the government would exploit eminent domain over. Which is why I still say it won't happen...government wouldn't do that for Amtrak.
Enter your email address to join: