What should the top priorities be for train advocates?

[reppin_the_847]

Since I'm from the Chicago area & frequently riding the rails into & out of Michigan (or driving), I'd want there to be a strong emphasis placed on corridor trains. Of course, the work is indeed being done on corridors such as Chicago - Detroit & Chicago - St. Louis at this present time. Try to eliminate bottlenecks and congestion as much as possible. Once Amtrak owns more of the tracks around here & adds more doubletracking, I think we can expect big boosts in OTP.

 

[Bus Nut]

I didn't see a box for "employee attitude" but there needs to be more top-down supervision. I don't think having Amtrak brass ride the LD trains does the job unless they ride incognito.

I'm not sure what you mean by "top-down" supervision. There seems to be a lot of interest (and supervision, some might call it "meddling") from the top. However, the key issue is that I believe many trains run without an OBS supervisor on board?

The thing is that ridership keeps going up so management saved money, so they don't much care about that.

As for the bathrooms, maybe more customers means more maintenance crew ... wonder how Mica could show out on the House floor about the poo crew ... of course, he'd call it something else, probably something to do with Communism, planned economies, patronage jobs, Obama, and Jimmy Hoffa, Jr.

 

[jis]

You mean any train other than the Auto Train has an OBS Supervisor anymore?

 

[NorthShore]

Instead, let me ask, How many NARP Board members never ride in sleepers or never ever eat in the diners on their rail travels?

The premium service experience partaken by NARP leaders is completely different from that of the overwhelming majority of riders on every Amtrak train.

THIS.

I rarely travel anything but coach, even on overnight or two night trips. (My EB trip in roomette last week was my first sleeper experience in ten years.) Who represents me? Even here on AU, most long distance discussions center around sleeper service riding. But half of any train, and more passengers, are coach.

If we are to take our focus to the state level and support of corridor growth, this is all the more important, as we're mostly talking about day trains in service of under 12 hours.

Focus more on the experience and concerns of the peons in the actual buckets to reach the great majority of riding customers.

 

[WoodyinNYC]

Responses to the rail advocacy poll have been posted. Thanks for your comments! http://ow.ly/CPoMK

A very nice wrap up of the various points of view. Thanks for your work on this.

 

[WICT106]

Responses to the rail advocacy poll have been posted. Thanks for your comments! http://ow.ly/CPoMK

This link works better for me: http://www.growtrains.com/responses-to-rail-advocacy-poll/