Devil's Advocate
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Please go back and re-read the post I quoted and was actually responding to...Do you think that the SCA has time to go test everyone of some 50 seats in the sleeping car before departure? Even if they did, it's unlikely that they could have had it fixed in time before the train departed. They only come on duty about an hour before the train's departure and they have much to do during that time, like placing hand towels & washcloths in every room, something that I've never not seen done. They also have to put away all their supplies and a bunch of other things.
I didn't say the SCA's should be intimately familiar with their cars or have a memorized list of problems they can preemptively resolve with the wondrous qualities of tape and cardboard, but since Alice implied they do I explained that my own SCA was clueless to the preexisting issues in my roomette and was incapable of fixing it. Even if we were to expect the SCA at SAS to be proactive they would only need to check the rooms that are not already occupied, which is going to be far fewer than fifty seats in my experience. They don't have to go from checking nothing to checking everything, but maybe a quick checklist for rooms receiving new pax boarding in the next hour or two would be nice. If something is broken and can't be fixed then maybe the SCA could shuffle things around or give up his own room and take the broken room instead. Just a thought. My view may be that of an outsider, but it's not completely off base to prod Amtrak into retooling their processes in order to improve their customer satisfaction levels and the mindshare image that comes from them. It's not that my SCA failed as an employee, but neither did he live up to the billing seen on this forum. For those of us who can move under our own power and handle our own bags and convert our own chairs the SCA's are somewhat superfluous to our experience. Or maybe the crews I've seen are just unusually indifferent and the rest of the network is much more polished and improved. It seems like a bit of a stretch but I can't rule it out until such time as I can get enough time off to go see for myself.SCAs are aware of the foibles of their car: toilets that need frequent resets, rattles helped by cardboard or duct tape, etc., and sometimes have already taken care of these things without being asked.
I never made any claim they wouldn't tell people to get out or try to assist them in whatever adhock manner they could fathom. I simply said I don't have faith that Amtrak's emergency SOP is any good. In other words, I don't have faith that Amtrak's onboard staff is properly trained or in proper physical shape to handle a true disaster. Not every onboard employee is old or feeble or indifferent toward pax but some of them are and if you're in their car are you going to get the help you need? Maybe or maybe not. I'm going to link to a video of how one of my local trains experienced a true disaster. It covers a variety of contributing factors but the takeaway was a total CF in every sense of the word and it does a great job of encapsulating many of the issues with Amtrak's safety practices that apparently still remain unresolved. What good will a new set of rolling stock do if it's simply flung into a river every time there's another undetected kink in the rails? While railroads are getting safer in other countries here in America they're getting less safe with an ever more determined push to remove as many eyeballs as possible from our rail infrastructure by the railroads who own and operate it.Please cite a story that you've seen where the crew didn't evacuate a derailed train or lead passengers to safety.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJMOghxT0AE
Low compared to what? And why wouldn't we count grade crossings? They've been recognized as the number one concern among countries who take passenger rail seriously and are largely already addressed by ensuring there are as few grade crossings as possible. What has Amtrak done to address this?As for the number of accidents, unless you count grade crossing accidents, it's a very low number.
I might have to just concede this one as I honestly have no idea how exactly Amtrak shifts work. I'll simply keep an eye on it and if there are obvious inefficiencies that appear to have a better solution I'll address them again at that time.How do you alternate shifts when OBS work all day long? Most trains only have one cook during off peak times, and one assistant cook during peak times. They already can't handle the load with two in the kitchen, so how do you alternate shifts without hurting customer service? Most trains only have 2 SA or waiters and again they are straining to meet the demands of passengers, so how do you have shifts that would leave only 1 waiter for dinner?