Recent Beech Grove Tour

[lordsigma]

Did they have the funds to pay those workers while they cut back on service due to the pandemic?
20/20 hindsight isn’t going to help the current situation.

They definitely lost mechanical employees to attrition as they did a retirement incentive and a lot of people retired in general during Covid. As they had a hiring freeze for a significant period they got in a hole and couldn’t keep up with attrition. According to a statement at the board meeting by the CEO there were supposedly not any involuntary furloughs for mechanical crafts.

 

[cirdan]

Did they have the funds to pay those workers while they cut back on service due to the pandemic?
20/20 hindsight isn’t going to help the current situation.

A lot of emergency funds were being distributed. I wonder how much of it got put into the wrong priorities.

 

[Amtrakfflyer]

No matter what some funds always get put into wrong priorities. My favorite one is when a company files bankruptcy one of the first court hearings is always to approve bonuses for the management. The same management that managed the company into bankruptcy get a bonus not to quit. Kind of the same reasoning some people don’t want to see Amtrak management removed it’s takes a while to get the new management up to speed. Back on subject though, if anything in this case it might appear Amtrak wasn’t aggressive enough in spending the extra appropriations when they did arrive. I think management and the board saw the pandemic as the beginning of the end for the national network, even though the network trains were holding their own quite well compared to the other business lines. It wasn’t until Congress ordered them to run the network in its entirety that they realized their horrible blunders in planning. The old saying those who fail to plan, plan to fail is appropriate here.

We keep seeing Metrolink cars on the SWC heading to WI for overhauls. I can’t help but wonder if Amtrak is being aggressive enough trying to outsource some maintenance. Labor is scarce but cash is king, Amtrak for once in its life has cash but lacks out of the box thinking to get things done.

 

[Trogdor]

I do think it was management incompetence to lay off qualified staff for example over the Covid pandemic as it was totally clear back then that the pandemic wasn't going to last forever and that the people you were laying off were not going to sit at home twiddling their thumbs until you hired them back.

I’m sorry, but this is simply revisionist history at best. In 2020, absolutely nothing was “totally clear” about the outlook of the pandemic. In March 2020, it was “totally clear” that things would be back to normal by mid-April (I was rescheduling March/April business trips for May that year). By summer, it was “totally clear” that travel might take half a decade or more to recover (Delta Airlines, for example, permanently retired two fleets that were still supposed to fly another 5-10 years). By the end of the year, it was “totally clear” that cities’ downtowns were dead and that nobody would ever work in an office again.

If the 2-3 year outlook back then was totally clear to you, then I can only assume you’re posting this from your multi-million dollar mansion or personal luxury yacht, because anyone with that kind of foresight in the height of the pandemic (and who acted on it) would be a multi-billionaire today.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

A lot of emergency funds were being distributed. I wonder how much of it got put into the wrong priorities.

When did the emergency funds get into Amtrak's hands? And were people flockinghttps://hbr.org/2022/03/the-great-resignation-didnt-start-with-the-pandemic employers for jobs then?
And don't forget the Great Resignation, which, according to this article, had started before the pandemic.

The Great Resignation Didn’t Start with the Pandemic

Covid-19 spurred on the Great Resignation of 2021, during which record numbers of employees voluntarily quit their jobs. But what we are living through is not just short-term turbulence provoked by the pandemic. Instead, it’s the continuation of a trend of rising quit rates that began more than...

hbr.org

 

[dlagrua]

I don't know what to make of the back to Beech Grove Video but since Roger Harris was appointed president, its the first time in a long while that Amtrak is starting to talk about new equipment on the long distance routes. Coincidence? Maybe. My take on this is that perhaps the board has realized the overwhelming task of establishing new corridor routes, the legalities involved and has to focus elsewhere for the increased funding that they can receive.
As for the staffing issue at Beech Grove; this could be a nationwide issue because many people now seem to desire home based employment. Large office buildings in NYC are now vacant. Our township is hiring, the pay package is good and a job opening typically brought in thousands of applications. Now they receive about a dozen, the PD gets maybe 3 or 4.

 

[jis]

I don't know what to make of the back to Beech Grove Video but since Roger Harris was appointed president, its the first time in a long while that Amtrak is starting to talk about new equipment on the long distance routes. Coincidence? Maybe. My take on this is that perhaps the board has realized the overwhelming task of establishing new corridor routes, the legalities involved and has to focus elsewhere for the increased funding that they can receive.
As for the staffing issue at Beech Grove; this could be a nationwide issue because many people now seem to desire home based employment. Large office buildings in NYC are now vacant. Our township is hiring, the pay package is good and a job opening typically brought in thousands of applications. Now they receive about a dozen, the PD gets maybe 3 or 4.

Having funds available in and of itself can be a great motivator to think about using those funds to order stuff too.

As for management of staffing, people have very short memories apparently. When the pandemic started Amtrak went through several months when they had virtually no revenue coming in and no guarantee that there would be federal funds forthcoming. What are you supposed to do when you find that the current burn rate will put you into bankruptcy in a few months? The slight fault one could ascribe to management is that they did not have a backroom activity apparently gaming various recovery scenarios, as many of the airlines apparently did while furloughing and reducing staff like everyone else to simply stay solvent. Eventually the arrival of the federal funds changed the scenario for the better, but by then significant damage had already been done.

 

[TrackWalker]

... The old saying those who fail to plan, plan to fail is appropriate here....

Lest we not forget Rule 6P, "proper planning prevents p*** poor performance."

 

[lordsigma]

no guarantee that there would be federal funds forthcoming.

There is some fair criticism of Amtrak management out there but this statement is key. Amtrak was making very clear what could have avoided some of the things that occurred when they could have prevented the current situation. Congress declined to act.

As far as the drone footage - it’s interesting just to see what Beech Grove looks like. But absent any context or data on the status of each car and what they are working on I’m not sure one can deduce anything from what is shown.

 

[cirdan]

And don't forget the Great Resignation, which, according to this article, had started before the pandemic.

So it's not Amtrak's fault because the wave had already started prior to Covid?
This makes it worse IMHO, not better, as they knew what they were up against but still didn't develop a strategy.

 

[pennyk]

MODERATOR NOTE: Please keep the discussion and comments limited to Beech Grove and the video. General comments regarding Covid, pandemics, etc. will be removed as off topic.

Thank you for your cooperation, understanding and participation.

 

[niemi24s]

Its like a ghost town not one worker seen at all. Granted some people are probably inside but seeing no one at all just seems weird. He makes a comment in the video that it’s less busy than this time last year fwiw.

The huge employee parking lots are shown with only a handful vehicles, so that probably explains the lack of visible workers or other activity.

So while others whimper and snivel about the lack of activity, I think this video was shot on either a weekend or a federal holiday. That's my theory and I'm stickin' to it!!