Savannah vs Ft Laudrdale Baggage - Two different Amtraks?

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On our outbound trip from Savannah to Ft. Lauderdale, we checked one bag a day early and the second on the trip day. The first one went out on the Star (unbeknownst to us) and the second on our Meteor. Upon arrival in Ft Lauderdale, the first was missing. The Ft Lauderdale reps were unfriendly, rude and downright unhelpful and we only found out on our own that the earlier Star was running late and had our bag. The agent made it clear to us that Amtrak would make no effort to even get it to our hotel or anywhere else if it was very late. We would have to come back to pick it up (we were taking a cruise the next day). Nasty person with a customer-noservice attitude.

On the return, we checked both bags a day early. They went out on the Star that same day so were in Savannah before we left Ft Lauderdale. Before departure I got a nice personal call from the Savannah agent telling me the bag was there. I told him we were going on the Meteor and would pick it up on arrival. He told us that would be no problem. Later, another Savannah agent (the evening person) nicely called to tell us the same thing and I told him we would pick it up on arrival. He said he checked the manifest and we were not listed. I told him we must be as we were on the Meteor near Jacksonville at that very moment. He apologized as he had only checked the Star's manifest and now he did, indeed, saw we were coming. He told us that to save us some time, he would put our bags on his car when he went to pick up the others from the Meteor so we wouldn't have to wait until he had given out those bags for him to go back to the office to pick up ours.

Another example of the two Amtraks. The Savannah people made two calls to me, were the nicest and friendliest people and offered help. At FTL, they could care less.

Another note (and I will write Amtrak on this). While at SAV waiting for the outgoing train, a couple were checking FULL bags. One was overweight. I've seen agents suggest to customers that the customer try to rearrange items to meet the limit. Not this guy! He came out, carried their bags over to the benches and did most of the work moving items around for them! He then carried the bags back and checked them in. This was not more than 10 minutes after another agent had helped another elderly couple move their bags from one part of the room to another. Wow!

BTW, parking overnight (14 days for us) is still free in Savannah.
 
What was the purpose of checking your bags on trains that you weren’t going to be traveling on?

Yeah this seems the real issue here. I understand checking a bag ahead of you if you're doing something like PVD-FLL, where PVD-NYP just has the one train a day that handles baggage. But checking in advance at a station like Savannah sounds like a mistake waiting to happen.
 
What was the purpose of checking your bags on trains that you weren’t going to be traveling on?
I did not. it happens that the next train out was the Star in both cases so Amtrak put it on those trains. Their choice. It wasn't a problem for me.

The only problems for me i

1) Is that the attitude of the FTL people was"we don't care; we are not going to make a big effort to find out where your baggage is; if it's lost, it's your responsibility to come back to the station and pick it up." Note that when a bag was left in the baggage car by Amtrak on a train to Delaware and then returned on a later train from Philadelphia, Amtrak delivered it to our hotel later that evening at no cost to me.

2) Amtrak makes no attempts to relate bags to passengers, to reservation, to train or to location. They haven't invented barcodes yet. They should. On the outgoing trip, they would have know it was on the Star (the delay was after SAV). On the return, the agents in SAV would have known we were on the Meteor and would not have needed to call. Amtrak's baggage policy is twofold - Hope and Pray and, if the agents feel like it ala FTL), put all the burden on the passenger to make up for Amtrak's failure to pray hard enough.
 
I don't think HE checked the bags on a train he was not going to ride. That was Amtrak's doing, which is not unusual.

Airlines will do the same thing. I have had luggage checked in shortly before an earlier flight to my destination departs. That luggage somehow got on that flight. The luggage arrived before I did. When I was waiting for it to appear at baggage claim and it didn't: that was a blood pressure rising time until I saw the luggage in the Baggage Service office.
 
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