And you'd have to rattle the Chief out of his room first. Probably the reason the jobs got cut off.
Actually like everything else Amtrak, and pretty much everything else in the world, there were good and bad COB's. I met two excellent ones that quickly spring to mind. One was a very nice lady on the Capitol Limited on one of my first LD runs on Amtrak and my first run on the Capitol and the first time I was arriving into Chicago by train.
This lady was all over the train, checking on people, doing things that needed to be done, and making announcements. I found out about the Taste of Chicago, which just happened to be running on the day I arrived into CHI thanks to her announcement. I wouldn't have even known about it, much less where to find it, but for her.
And then there was the COB on the Silver Palm years ago, another excellent manager. I was boarding at the Hollywood, Florida stop at a point in time where major work was being done to support Tri-Rail's expansion. For this reason, unlike normally, they couldn't platform the entire train at once. I stood where I was supposed to stand, only to have the lone sleeper slowly roll past me. So I started chasing after my sleeping, walking about 3 or 4 car lengths until I could go no further due to the construction fence.
I then had to race all the way back to where the coaches had finally stopped rolling my luggage and my laptop. The conductor took my ticket and then the attendant tried to assign me a seat. I wasn't a happy camper by that time racing up and down the platform in the Florida heat. So I’m sure that my response to him wasn't all that polite, especially since I was now hot and bothered and still had to walk through 2 coaches, the lounge, and the diner to get to my room, while hauling my stuff.
I don't know where the COB was in all this, but he either must have seen me and/or heard me, because not 10 minutes out of HOL, he came by my room to apologize for the mishap and to explain what had happened. He was most gracious and apologetic and technically it wasn't something that he could have controlled nor was it his fault. He somehow even cajoled the conductor to come by my room and apologize for his mistake.
The COB told me that they had rehearsed the stop before leaving Miami and reminded the conductor that they had to make a double spot in HOL. But the regular conductor was out sick and this guy was a replacement who while qualified on the route, wasn't quite up to speed on things apparently. Remember that I said the sleeper rolled slowly by me? Well the engineer remembered the double spot, and he was waiting for the conductor to tell him when to stop. The conductor never did, at least until the coaches were properly positioned.
I saw that COB several more times during my journey and he even performed some magic that night in the diner, making one of my bottles of wine disappear from my bill. To this day I still don't know if he had the power to actually give away that bottle, or if he took the money out of his own pocket.
And then there is the other side, I have been on trains where I never even saw the COB except when they came out of the crew dorm to eat their meals. Thankfully I only met two or three of those. Most at least came out and did something, and then of course there were the truly outstanding ones.