Bad trip on the Texas Eagle

shop deals on amazon
Shop deals on ebay
Advertise with us
Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum

Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Status
Not open for further replies.
Amtrak Watcher

Amtrak Watcher

Lead Service Attendant
Joined
Oct 1, 2002
Messages
482
Location
Texas
When taking a small group of five people on a business retreat I arranged from Dallas to San Antonio on a recent Friday, all was going well until the Texas Eagle was halted for six hours in Temple, Texas by a UP derailment a few miles to the south. Rumors circulated about busing the hundred or so passengers to San Antonio who had to meet the Sunset Limited on its way California, but no news was forthcoming from the operating crew who seemed content to keep worried and confused passengers in the dark until 05:30 the next morning when the Texas Eagle finally arrived in San Antonio about six hours late. It turns out that the Sunset Limited was late getting out of Houston, so buses were not necessary. Neither the Sunset Limited passengers, nor those getting off in San Antonio were allowed to exit the train for another 50 minutes while both trains (the waiting Sunset Limited and the northbound Texas Eagle scheduled to depart to Chicago at 08:00 on Saturday) were bumped around and reconfigured with everyone aboard. None of the passengers or the service staff were happy about the additional 50-minute delay, but the operating crew snapped back with comments like the one I heard from the conductor, “If you people don’t like the way I run things here, then I suggest you find another method of transportation in the future.”

My clients were so upset with their first experience with Amtrak, that they opted to fly back to Dallas. Assuming people simply get tired and upset, I stayed with the train. My trip back to Dallas on the Texas Eagle the following Sunday found me in a coach car with about ten other passengers. I took the liberty of spreading me, my laptop computer, and sundry papers across two seats. About two hours into the journey, the attendant came by to ask me “what the hell” I was doing. I explained that I was “doing my work.” He angrily replied that I should confine “my junk” to the seat I was assigned, which I promptly did even though there were less than a dozen seats occupied in the entire car. Another hour passed when the attendant returned to tell me that my “constant working” was “distracting to vacationing passengers,” and that if I had “so damned much work to do, I should consider flying to Dallas instead of taking the train.” I was completely stunned by the remark, packed up everything, got off the train in McGregor, took a cab to Waco, and took the bus back to Dallas.

It seems that Amtrak staff has finally convinced even me to abandon the trains forever.
 
I'm sorry that you experienced such a horrible trip on Amtrak However, abondoning trains forever is not a way to approach such a bad experience. What you really should do or should have done is taken down the employee names (the conductor and coach attendant) and sent them in with a story describing the situation to costumer services (or call them first, then send a letter for double action). It has been known in the past for action to be taken and employees given warnings. If you do not have the names of employees you can certainly tell customer services the day you were traveling, on what train, from where to where, and the position the employee was working. With that they can probably track back right to the exact worker. Obvioously these crews are just tired of UP's derailments and poor dispatching, which have been delaying both the Texas Eagle and Sunset Limited for up to 16 hours this summer (both trains have near a 0% on-time record). The Texas Eagle has also experienced major cut backs from Amtrak and I don't think it has been known to have a good reputation.
 
I have, indeed, done exactly as Amfleet suggested, both by telephone and letter. I even had the foresight to take down all the names. I’ve clearly noted the stress in the crews the recent cutbacks have brought throughout the system these past few months, and have wondered when the whole system would finally start to come apart. I suppose this latest incident was so bizarre that it indicated the point of no return; the point when the crews and staff would turn on the passengers who were doing nothing more than sitting quietly, and the point when even the loyal passengers would not return.

I remember my father telling me about his experiences with U.S. passenger rail service just before Amtrak was formed. It got so bad, he said, that it seemed the railroads were deliberately driving their passengers away in a disparate move to get out from underneath government rules that forced them to run trains they didn’t want to run… unless those trains could somehow have no passengers.
 
What you experienced is totally and completely inexcusable.I hope you do write a letter ASAP detailing all the rude comments.

I think the treatment you recieved on the return was perhaps the worst since it seemed much less provoked by the circumstances---going down obviously the crew was mad at the delays, etc. But not being allowed to spread out and work with only 12 passengers in a huge superliner coach is beyond ridiculous. And somebody (besides us here on the forum) should know about it.

Please don't throw in the towel, yet.
 
There has been lots of discussion in this forum about Amtrak’s future: would the subsidies come up to a sustainable level, would the states come to the rescue, could services, routes, and schedules be made more attractive, could new equipment be purchased and old equipment refitted? But like many institutions, death comes slowly. I’ve never seen a service organization come back to health on the backs of the work-a-day staff.

I am a physically small person who even though I am healthy, looks frail and fragile. My diminutive stature has forced me to be a passive person all my life sitting quietly avoiding conflict at all costs. As I explained in my letter to Amtrak management, I feel the service crew, tired of the stress and frustration, attacked me because I was an easy target. I feel that way, and will be avoiding Amtrak in the future to avoid further attacks. The anger of hundreds of passengers enraged by the haughty remarks from the conductor on Saturday morning was bad enough. The personal attack on me Sunday morning during an otherwise uneventful trip was more than enough for me.
 
I am very sorry to hear that this happend to you. People like this, that work for Amtrak, really give Amtrak a bad rep. I dont understand why people would work in a job that they would hate so bad, that they would need to snap at paying customers. It seems to me that they are not really doing their job. It sickens me. :angry:

I hope you will give Amtrak another try though, as this type of experience has only happend to me twice out of 56 Amtrak Trips, but never this bad.
 
Quite honestly, I dont blame you if you don't ever travel on Amtrak again after your experience on the return trip. What was the response when you called customer service?

When I reported an overly rude employee in Chicago, my travel partners and I received a 10 dollar credit towards future travel on Amtrak.

Guys, just wondering if there is a way of notifying Gunn of this extreme level of rudeness instead of doing a dance with a customer service department that does not seem capable of responding appropriately to such events?
 
Got a well-trained (in a customer service sense) ear on the phone, and my letter got me a form letter, 2 free drink coupons (also good for alcohol up to $5.25), and 2 space-available upgrade coupons (discount code H174 on upgraded seating accommodations; not good for sleeper upgrades). All 4 coupons expire on February 29, 2004. Contacting Mr. Gunn is, in my view, useless. Since I've recently seen other passengers suffer even worse than I had to endure, I'm sure he is aware of this kind of thing, and is frustrated with them. The current situation demands cutbacks, but angry staff lashing out at paying customers is merely one of the results of cutbacks. Too many people cling to jobs they hate, because they become a slave to them (the pay, the benefits, the routine, etc.). People hate change. People will put up with an amazing amount of crap to avoid having to move, or the uncertainty of looking for a new job.

I pitched the coupons in the trash, as I'll not be using them.
 
Amtrak Watcher said:
Contacting Mr. Gunn is, in my view, useless.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't say that. I know that Mr. Gunn is one of those people who does take time to read letters from people, and respond to them. I think his view (this is my view too) is that he can't be everywhere, see everything, and know all the problems passengers and employees alike face. In my opinion letters to Mr. Gunn produced the fifth coach and second full time attendant on the Silver Meteor, menu changes have resulted because people wrote letters to the top and said, "We don't like this, this needs to change." A successful company is one that gets feedback from their customers so they know what they are doing right and wrong.
 
Write him a letter, I would address it this way

David Gunn

National Railroad Passenger Corporation

Washington Union Station

60 Massachusetts Ave., NE

Washington, DC 20002
 
You can address your letter to Mr Gunn at 60 Mass Ave., NE; Washington, DC 20002. He reads every letter sent to him and provides a personalized reply via his secretary.
 
THANKS, THANKS, THANKS. :D :D :D :D

I will add this information to my contact's list now. I want to help Amtrak improve, rather than just complaint and get a fefund or credit for future travel. I think this info will help address serious issues of rudeness on the part of some Amtrak employees. Obviously, I will use discretion as to what I write to him about.

Steve
 
Sad that this happpened especially since Amtrak Watcher seems to be a regular rider of this route for business purposes (at least this is the impression I got from previous posts) it makes absolutly no sense to treat any customer this way, totally unacceptable.
 
Interesting thread...I have met many people in business that have been physically small, but very powerful in getting things done, and changes made. Let's not forget how Southwest Airlines has become a company to admire, and maintained constant profitability. It is because of their people, and the leadership of founder (now retired, but the culture remains) of Herb Kelleher. If you wrote a letter to Mr. Kelleher at Southwest, you would, and probably still can, expect a personal reply to your issue. I think Mr. Gunn has somewhat the same kind of thinking. A company must listen to it's customers. The kind of rude Amtrak employee's mentioned in this topic should be rooted out, and terminated. We all have bad days, late trains, or whatever. We don't take it out on our customers, or families. If you don't like your job, you will never be good at it. Good luck and get that letter sent to the top man ASAP.

Wb
 
I did not write directly to Mr. Gunn, because I think he already knows what is going on. I think this, because there have been so many of these kinds of incidents recently, and if I’m seeing so many, there must be many, many more. An account of my relatively minor episodes would add nothing to the other letters he is already getting; letters describing much worse. Here are two examples I’ve seen.

One recent event was when I was in the last coach on the southbound Texas Eagle that stopped, an hour late, at its Taylor, Texas stop for what seemed like an unusually short time, perhaps 20 seconds. The train continued on its way to Austin only to stop about 10 miles south of Taylor, in the middle of nowhere, for 10 minutes, and then back up all the way back to Taylor. While backing up, I made my way up to the lounge car passing through another coach car, where I heard crying and yelling at the bottom of the stairs. I made my way down to see what was wrong. There I saw the attendant and the conductor yelling at a very old lady who evidently missed her stop at Taylor. Judging from the way she was standing and the yelling from the crew, it seemed she was still recovering from a full hip replacement or something else that had her in the lower level seats. She was evidently too slow to get to the door at her stop at Taylor, and was being thoroughly scolded for being the cause of the additional delay. The attendant was yelling “old retard, old retard, old retard…” over and over. She was crying bitterly and shaking. In my usual cowardly way, I said and did nothing.

Another recent incident found me in a sleeper in central Illinois on the northbound Texas Eagle, which looked like it was going to be about 4 or 5 hours late into Chicago. A young married couple new to Amtrak in the standard bedroom across the hall from me finally got the attention of the conductor to ask, in urgent and worried voices, about their connection to the Lake Shore Limited at 7:00 p.m. that night. The conductor replied, “I wish you would stop asking me these stupid damned questions. I don’t know what the hell will happen with your connection,” and went on his way. Even though I had no authority to do so, I apologized to my fellow passengers on behalf of Amtrak, and offered my view of how things might work when we finally arrived in Chicago. They made their connection with plenty of time to spare.
 
Amtrak Watcher, please, these things you report are CRIMINAL not just bad manners, esp. the way the the elderly lady with a possible hip replacement was treated. Please DO cc: Mr. Gunn directly. Maybe everybody thinks as you do that he "surely knows" when maybe he does not know as much as we think.

If you don't want to do it for yourself, think of that old lady, what if she had been somebody close to you...................also, the way you were treated for spreading out your work in a huge superliner coach with only 10-12 other people was pretty close to criminal as well.
 
Reading about the experiences is making me sick. I do have a question, however, about the elderly lady with the hip replacement. Is it not the responsibility of the conductor to know what passengers are scheduled to get off/on at a given stop? Even when I have traveled in coach and knew very well where my stop was the conductor or a car attendant would remind me that the "next stop is your stop."

And another question. To whom dose the car attendant report? If these attendants are behaving in this way it is an indicatioin that the entire train crew is allowed to behave this way and thus the person at the top needs to go (in addition to the attendant) for allowing this type of behavior. This type of outrage has to be encouraged to get to this point.

I have had two trips on the Texas Eagle, one in coach, one in a sleeper. The coach experience was not positive--took a group of HS students from Dallas to San Antonio and the attendant apparently didn't want to bother with us and wasn't afraid to tell the students how he felt, but the guy didn't even have the guts to look at me when we passed in the aisle. He knew what he was doing was inappropriate. It didn't sit well with the students, many of whom had never been on a train before and most likely after that experience won't ever again. Interesting side note, the train was exactly on time both ways! What a rare occurance. I was so worried that it woudl be running late with all these HS students bitching about it and their parents waiting at Dallas for the train to arrive. At least I didn't have to worry about that.

My second trip on the Texas Eagle was in a sleeper from Dallas to St. Louis. On my departing trip I had a wonderful sleeping car attendant, very helpful. On the return trip the attendant wasn't helpful at all and apparently was more interested in talking with her friends than helping passengers. I was so mad that I didn't tip her on the way out and made it very obvious that I was unhappy with her service. The dining car service on both of these trips was not good either. In fact, on the departing trip one of the table staff got very loud when he was expressing his opinion to a customer about the future of Amtrak--obviously concerned for his job--but he kept saying very loudly that he could get a job on the spot at any Chicago 5-star restraunt because he was a good waiter. I wish he had gotten that job before he got on the train!

All this to say I think the Texas Eagle has a sick crew that needs to be eliminated as a group and new "management" put in place. This is the type of stuff that Amtrak does not need. Can anyone on this list get these loosers a job at one of the airlines? That is where they belong!
 
If I EVER saw an attendent on a train yelling at an old lady and calling her a retard like in Watcher's post, I dont care I would have just attacked the guy and just let loose on him, I dont care if I get thrown off the train because I CAN NOT STAND guys like that. I would have tossed HIM off the train, but your right that was COMPLETELY wrong and calling an physically handicaped old woman that, uggh man I hope he is going to get or has already gotten fired :angry:
 
I can certainly agree with the original poster on this subject. I took the TX Eagle from CHI to DAL and back last month in a standard sleeper.

I can definitely say the crew on this train is lackluster at best.

When you're afraid to approach a crew member, you know it's time to get rid of them.
 
The car attendant reports to the Lead Service Attendant, if there is one. It was also the responsability of the car attendant to make sure that she detrained and help her if she needed help.

I suspect that the conductor read the riot act on him, so he took it out on the poor old lady. What I don't understand is why the conductor was also yelling at her, nor why he didn't tell the attendant to be quiet. :angry:

The carryby is the attendant's failure. It is his responsability to be at that door and to make sure that all passengers who were supposed to detrain, did so before he gives the ok to the conductor.
 
the old woman who'd been accosted should have sued the Amtrak employee and Amtrak for emotional harassment. How incredible! My condolences to Amtrak Watcher. I wouldn't stop riding the trains (except for the Texas Eagle) though.

These examples show why it's imperative that Amtrak unload those unhappy, negative employees. It's absolutely bizarre to me that ANY company in the United States cannot fire employees who fail to do their jobs. You always hear, 'you can't fire em'.

The hell you can't! The pink slips need to go out to quite a number of sour employees. To the majority, the fine, selfless, positive employees, more kudos and another raise!

Scott
 
These inept Amtrak employees who can't do their job should be required to retrain aboard the Three Rivers with the staff of that train as their drill instructors.

I can't say enough good things about the onboard staff on the Three Rivers. This crew is adequate to staff the American Orient Express, that's how good they are.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest posts

Back
Top