Bad trip on the Texas Eagle

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I suppose it looks like I’m picking on the Texas Eagle, but the illusion comes from the fact that I rode to Texas Eagle more than all other trains combined: I live in Dallas. Though only anecdotal, my relatively limited experience with other trains suggests there has been an increase in nastiness there too. My baseline experience of 3 years ago is similar to what AMTRAK-P42 suggests, about 1 bad trip in 25. My recent experience suggests this has increased to about one bad trip in 15 or 20 with the new appearance of these occasional almost criminal incidents. Further, I agree with Amfleet’s observation about the Sunset Limited, the Texas Eagle, and other “troubled” routes, and note that things seem slightly worse on the them than on Amtrak in general. Finally, Bill Haithcoat’s remarks on the criminal character of some of the incidents has forced me to rethink my stand. I am composing a letter to Mr. Gunn, with all the names and details, today. I shall keep this forum informed. I am including, in my letter, my own experience with the Three Rivers, which is just as Amfleet Fan says, a welcome oasis in a desert of compromise. I'll suggest Mr. Gunn looks there as a start.
 
Amtrak Watcher, glad to read your last post. Glad you are writing to Mr. Gunn after all. Have a good weekend!!!! I will be anxious to hear what happens. I will not be around next week, but keep us informed of Mr. Gunn's response, etc.
 
Unregistered “scott” brings up an interesting point surrounding the “you can’t fire ‘em” syndrome. Along with the slight increase in nastiness among Amtrak employees (punctuated by the new quasi-criminal incidents), I’ve also noted an increase in nastiness among passengers as well. It seems the whole hospitality industry is plagued by unreasonable and nasty and customers and stressed-out employees these days. As someone who spends lots of time in hotels, I’m annoyed by the recent increase in shocking and stupid behavior in the lobbies and restaurants. It’s in the car rental offices, the airports, and the bus terminals too. Anyway, I am including a few episodes of particularly awful passenger behavior in my letter to Mr. Gunn, and suggesting that the crews take a more intolerant stand on unruly and obnoxious passengers while he cleans up the out-of-control behavior among certain Amtrak employees. Passengers and Amtrak employees spend a tremendous amount of time together on the long distance trains, and mutually civil behavior, which seems to be in short supply all over American society these days, needs to be actively promoted. The mere fact that things go so consistently well on the Three Rivers suggests Amtrak has a simple management problem, which can be solved with traditional management techniques. But the passengers need to calm down too.
 
Don't hold out too much hope that Amtrak is ready to launch an investigation into any of the aforementioned events. I wrote them last year about my inability to get my sleeping room porter to lower my bed on the EB one night. I couldn't even find him that evening. I explained that in doing it myself, I was stunned to find that the matress I was to sleep in was completely urine stained and odorous beyond belief.

I was paying four star prices to sleep in a dumpster.

There was never a reply to my letter. Employee tenure issues and management complacency appears to be the norm with Federal bureaucracies such as this.

Good luck,

Frank
 
I posted my carefully crafted letter of less than one page to Mr. Gunn last night. I included a few words on the dumpster-like conditions of the trains -especially the sleepers- in my concluding remarks, and as "frank" suggests, I'm not expecting much of a material reply for the same reasons.
 
Amtrak Watcher, I really can't add anything to what's already been said here about these inexcusable incidents that you and your associates, not to mention countless other passengers, have experienced. I am deeply troubled that this has, and apparently is continuing to happen, on some of our trains. I can't blame you in the least for never wanting to go near an Amtrak train again. I know I would feel the same way - there are some things you can shrug off and others that you just can't. I sincerely wish that you do get some form of restitution, but as the others have already mentioned, I have my doubts as well. Please keep us informed if you should receive a reply to your letter, and please consider continuing to participate in the forum here as you have in the past. I for one do not look forward to the absence of your informative and insightful postings to this group. And as a San Antonio residient, I was hoping to meet you on the Eagle one of these days! Now I don't know how much I'll be riding it myself.

Now I am going to diverge just a bit on the topic of this thread. My experience with Amtrak is very limited and confined to only three trains. However in light of recent happenings with the Texas Eagle (losing a sleeper and locomotive, cutback in dining car service, etc.) not to mention what I am now hearing about the crew, I wonder if in some way this is Amtrak's "black sheep" train. Is it possible that Amtrak for some strange reason wants the Eagle to fail? Is it possible that the Eagle is where troublesome employees from other routes are banished to when they can't be fired? This of course is just an idea that I pose for discussion, but what better way to generate a decrease in ridership on a given train than to cut back on the "hardware" and then staff it with the kind of crew we are hearing about. Then it's easy to justify eliminating the route. Or maybe there is no real motivation to kill the train, but in Amtrak's eyes the Eagle is a low revenue, low visibility train that they don't really care about, while they will continue to apply full support to routes like the Starlight and Three Rivers? Don't know, and maybe I am way off base for thinking that. If I were running Amtrak I would not want to put any one route above the other in that respect, no matter how low the visibility or revenue. But if true, things are worse than I thought. Any thoughts?
 
I wonder if in some way this is Amtrak's "black sheep" train. Is it possible that Amtrak for some strange reason wants the Eagle to fail?
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Randy Jay, that's an interesting theory, and I ride the TRE train every day by the Texas School Book Depository in downtown Dallas.

Seriously, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) is one of Amtrak's top Congressional supporters. Amtrak must must want success for the Eagle in order to appease a powerful voice on the Hill. Amtrak Watcher, have you thought about cc: the Hon. Kay Bailey on your Eagle travails? I'll bet she has Dave Gunn's private phone number.

Such super-shoddy customer service is unconscionable and inexcusable.
 
I think the Eagle is a case where Texas would like to have the train and so would Amtrak, but for the amount of riders the train recieves it just isn't worth it for Amtrak. The Texas Eagle has been on the same plate for years, should it be thrown out the window or should it stay. This certainly will put stress on the employees, but not to the point where they treat passengers like crap.
 
Does anyone know if Amtrak uses "plant" (ie. fake customers) passengers the way retail chains evaluate service? When I worked retail, I would occasionally get "evaluated" by a plant who would come to my cash register needing help or disputing prices/tearing off pricetags, trying to buy items individually that are supposed to be sold as a set, etc. to see how I handled the situation, continued to smile and tried to be helpful. A report would go to my supervisor and into my file.

I was wondering about this because I recently received a form in the mail from some clearinghouse Amtrak uses asking me to evaluate a recent Amtrak trip. Although I was really glad to provide input, I felt a little cheated in that it was only check boxes for excellent/satisfactory/OK/poor. No real way for me to comment. Given the widespread incidents reported in this thread on the Eagle, I believe Amtrak should use planted customers. Perhaps the unbelievable behavior exhibited by the crews would stop if there is the possibility that the passenger with special needs really is there to do a report on them.
 
ELNewBranch said:
Does anyone know if Amtrak uses "plant" (ie. fake customers) passengers the way retail chains evaluate service? When I worked retail, I would occasionally get "evaluated" by a plant who would come to my cash register needing help or disputing prices/tearing off pricetags, trying to buy items individually that are supposed to be sold as a set, etc. to see how I handled the situation, continued to smile and tried to be helpful. A report would go to my supervisor and into my file.
I was wondering about this because I recently received a form in the mail from some clearinghouse Amtrak uses asking me to evaluate a recent Amtrak trip. Although I was really glad to provide input, I felt a little cheated in that it was only check boxes for excellent/satisfactory/OK/poor. No real way for me to comment. Given the widespread incidents reported in this thread on the Eagle, I believe Amtrak should use planted customers. Perhaps the unbelievable behavior exhibited by the crews would stop if there is the possibility that the passenger with special needs really is there to do a report on them.
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There is the Amtrak Customer Advisory Committee, but I have no idea how widespread they are.

http://www.amtrak.com/about/acac.html
 
Thanks, Anthony. That's good to know. I should have jotted down the names of the crew immediately after that trip and written a letter, because the service was excellent on my trip. I didn't think the "excellent" check box did it justice, particularly in the case of my conductor. :)
 
Does anyone know if Amtrak uses "plant" (ie. fake customers) passengers the way retail chains evaluate service?
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To answer your question, yes Amtrak does use spotters on various trains. Employees generally do not know who is a spotter, but they might figure it out after the spotter has ridden a couple of times. The spotter can bust employees on anything from bad customer service, to rule violations and anywhere in between.
 
I thought about sending a copy of my letter to Mr. Gunn to Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, but especially since there are some really good trains in the system (Amtrak clearly knows how to run railroads), quickly decided against it; the problem appears to be an internal management issue. The “black sheep” suggestion from “RandyJay” is intriguing since it resembles what seemed to be official policy in some railroads just before Amtrak came on the scene. A little bit of thought tells me a “black sheep” train policy is probably not real, since some of the crews I’ve recently seen on the Texas Eagle have been superb. It doesn’t make sense to try to kill a train with only occasional bad crews intertwined with really good ones. What’s lacking is consistency.

I explained in my letter that there appears to be more consistency in some routes, notably the Three Rivers. I also noted the apparent decrease in civil behavior among passengers, and wondered if this might be caused by nasty crew behavior, or if nasty crews come from rude and obnoxious passengers. I don’t know. I concluded by suggesting that giving all the mattresses in the sleepers a good turn through a washing machine and scrubbing the coach seats might raise the general level of civility. I went on to explain that before I decided to abandon Amtrak, I was careful to “dress up” on my frequent trips with Amtrak. Things like dressing up (instead of some of the awful and disgusting examples of dressing down I’ve seen among some passengers), and keeping things clean have amazing and beneficial effects on behavior.
 
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