Why I will never ride Amtrak

[Neal]

Try to take Amtrak to Tokyo!
I once went to europe as a non-booked (I made the arrangements with the captain) passenger on a container ship. Thats how I'd go to Japan if I ever felt the need to.

Wow, I would love to try that

 

[frj1983]

Just a quick note on timeliness:

Took CNO from Chicago to New Orleans on Saturday April 5th, arrived on the 6th 25 minutes early!

Took CNO from New Orleans to Chicago on Saturday April 12th, arrived on the 13th 5 minutes early!

Crew both ways...excellent!!

Food both ways...excellent!!

Will file a report in travelogues later this week!

 

[had8ley]

Fellow posters and guests;

There is an important aspect to railroading that many of you do not see while sitting in a siding or stopped behind a hog-lawed train. Most freight railroads run 8,000 foot, 140-150 car freight trains with only two crew members riding the engine; one conductor and one engineer. Amtrak shares the same tracks. When something goes wrong with a freight train (engine breaks down, air hose bursts, hot box detector goes off) the conductor has to walk the entire 8,000 feet of that train twice! Once going to the hind end and then back to the engines. That equates to over three miles of walking in goodness knows what kind of terrain especially up north in the winter. Then there are mechanical defects that cannot be fixed on line and the car has to be set out. The nearest siding or house track might very well be fifteen or twenty miles away. All the while an Amtrak train is barreling down at 79 mph on a stopped freight train. Today's long distance Amtrak travel is a timekeepers nightmare. I don't even wear my watch when I go on three or four day expeditions. I will look at my cell phone if I absolutely need to know what time it is.

When Amtrak came into being in 1971, freight trains had a caboose and as many as five crew members. Freight trains over 100 cars were rare. Now that railroading is a cheap means of moving bulk commodities such as coal and grain their infrastructure is almost bursting at the seams. Just look how fast the UP is trying to finish double tracking the Sunset route which should have been done when they bought the SP (1996, I believe.)

So the reality is that you CANNOT set your watch by a trains arrival no matter what the timetable says. Sadly, there were times like that but the current good fortune of the freight railroads cannot accomodate Amtrak in a timely fashion. If you're looking for almost perfect OTP you need to ride the Northeast corridor which is devoted strictly to passenger trains during daylight hours. The Downeaster is another good bet for on time performance. I hope this takes some of the luster away from your dislike of Amtrak; it's not Amtrak's fault but a sign of the times. Just look at our air travel network and you'll see where I am trying to go with this.

 

[transit54]

Yes, but I think that you're dealing with a slightly different issue here. Obviously, things come up that could delay an Amtrak train, things that simply can't be planned for. That's the case in any form of transit - by air or ground. But the issue is more the result of freight RRs inability to run Amtrak trains on time when their operations are normal. Of course I can't fault the host RR when there is a stopped freight train causing a major delay, or something of that nature. But is that really the cause of delays that can be hours long several times in a given week? And why do some RRs (BSNF, for instance) seem to have little problem running trains on time while others can almost never do so? I don't think they have an excuse for regularly running Amtrak late. The occasional incident happens, sure, but that's an entirely different issue.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Then there are mechanical defects that cannot be fixed on line and the car has to be set out. The nearest siding or house track might very well be fifteen or twenty miles away.

How slowly does the freight train cover the fifteen or twenty miles in that case?

If you're looking for almost perfect OTP you need to ride the Northeast corridor which is devoted strictly to passenger trains during daylight hours.

My experience has been that northbound Amtrak trains into BOS hardly have perfect OTP. (I think for northbound trips I've taken starting south of New York City, two out of two have been over an hour late. I suspect Metro-North may be to blame there.) The MBTA Commuter Rail system, for the most part, does a lot better.

 

[AlanB]

If you're looking for almost perfect OTP you need to ride the Northeast corridor which is devoted strictly to passenger trains during daylight hours.

My experience has been that northbound Amtrak trains into BOS hardly have perfect OTP. (I think for northbound trips I've taken starting south of New York City, two out of two have been over an hour late. I suspect Metro-North may be to blame there.) The MBTA Commuter Rail system, for the most part, does a lot better.

Part of the problem can be MN, but there are many other things that can and do affect things. And if Amtrak is even a few minutes late in arriving at MN territory, that can really impact how they get treated on MN.

As for the MBTA, to be fair it must be noted that the MBTA pays Amtrak to both dispatch and maintain the line.

 

[had8ley]

To answer the question about how fast a freight train can go to set out a "bad order" it depends on the mechanical problem. If it is a wheel bearing getting ready to shear off the dispatcher will restrict you to 5-10 mph. If it's just a broken train line then you can go as fast as the conductor can hold on. Just remember you have to come back to your train at restricted speed (20 mph or less) and make an air test before moving again.

One hour delay is nothing to the 24 plus hour delays I have personally witnessed on #1 and #2.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

UP is disinterested in running Amtrak trains on time and tends to do so at its convenience.

CSX has horrible trackage, awful safety mindedness, and seems to like dumping chemical trains on various towns and wildlife. Frankly, I'd rather they ran their own darned trains safely before they concentrate on running Amtrak fast. Naturally, doing one would facilitate the other.

 

[AlanB]

UP is disinterested in running Amtrak trains on time and tends to do so at its convenience.

I'm certainly no fan of UP, but I do have to disagree with this statement. Yes, the Sunset still has major problems. But then, so does UP freight moving on the Sunset corridor.

But UP has done a much better job with the Coast Starlight and the California Zephyr, since they made that agreement with Amtrak a little more than a year ago. Things aren't perfect, but they are doing better and do seem to be trying. In fact, on my trip last summer on the CZ, it was BNSF that torpedoed us coming east. We were on time out of Denver. And going west, we were over 4 hours early into SLC. Now granted the CZ was on a detour route due to track work in the Rockies, but UP handled us just fine.

And so far for the first three months of this fiscal year, the CZ has been on time 53.3% of the time. Last year at this point the CZ hadn't arrived even one on time. That is a huge improvement. Would I like to see it on time every time? Sure. But that's a 50% improvement in just one year, and again I'm sure that both BNSF and Amtrak are responsible for at least a few of the percentage points were the CZ was late.

By the way, the Coast Starlight has seen a 22.8% improvement over the same period, and it's track record from last year wasn't nearly as bad as the CS's track record.

So while there is no doubt still room for more improvement, it is quite clear that UP is trying to do better.

 

[gswager]

UP is disinterested in running Amtrak trains on time and tends to do so at its convenience.

I'm certainly no fan of UP, but I do have to disagree with this statement. Yes, the Sunset still has major problems. But then, so does UP freight moving on the Sunset corridor.

But UP has done a much better job with the Coast Starlight and the California Zephyr, since they made that agreement with Amtrak a little more than a year ago. Things aren't perfect, but they are doing better and do seem to be trying. In fact, on my trip last summer on the CZ, it was BNSF that torpedoed us coming east. We were on time out of Denver. And going west, we were over 4 hours early into SLC. Now granted the CZ was on a detour route due to track work in the Rockies, but UP handled us just fine.

And so far for the first three months of this fiscal year, the CZ has been on time 53.3% of the time. Last year at this point the CZ hadn't arrived even one on time. That is a huge improvement. Would I like to see it on time every time? Sure. But that's a 50% improvement in just one year, and again I'm sure that both BNSF and Amtrak are responsible for at least a few of the percentage points were the CZ was late.

By the way, the Coast Starlight has seen a 22.8% improvement over the same period, and it's track record from last year wasn't nearly as bad as the CS's track record.

So while there is no doubt still room for more improvement, it is quite clear that UP is trying to do better.

I agree with you Alan about the UP's reputation with Amtrak. Majority of Sunset Limited's route is single track and too many freight trains, just like driving your car/truck on LA freeways during rush hour. Last year while driving on I-10, parallel along the Sunset route, the contractors are putting double track. So use your patience a little longer.

 

[the_traveler]

I'm certainly no fan of UP ...
And so far for the first three months of this fiscal year, the CZ has been on time 53.3% of the time. Last year at this point the CZ hadn't arrived even one on time. That is a huge improvement. ... But that's a 50% improvement in just one year, and again I'm sure that both BNSF and Amtrak are responsible for at least a few of the percentage points were the CZ was late.

I'm no fan of UP either.

As far as the OT performance, it may be 53.3% but that is with 3 hours of padding! What would the OT performance be if not for that padding? :huh: (I bet it would be closer to 0% than 53.3%!)

 

[AlanB]

I'm certainly no fan of UP ...
And so far for the first three months of this fiscal year, the CZ has been on time 53.3% of the time. Last year at this point the CZ hadn't arrived even one on time. That is a huge improvement. ... But that's a 50% improvement in just one year, and again I'm sure that both BNSF and Amtrak are responsible for at least a few of the percentage points were the CZ was late.

I'm no fan of UP either.

As far as the OT performance, it may be 53.3% but that is with 3 hours of padding! What would the OT performance be if not for that padding? :huh: (I bet it would be closer to 0% than 53.3%!)

That is true, the run is three hours longer. However, that was part of the agreement between UP and Amtrak. UP asked for and received that concession while they work on the problems that have been delaying Amtrak. They are gradually supposed to start returning those three hours back to Amtrak, with the train returning to it's original schedule IIRC in three years from the date of the agreement. It might be four, I'm not sure and one year has already come and gone.

And the fact that those three hours weren't just gobbled up, like happened to the 10+ hours on the Sunset, I see as a positive thing. This to me means that UP is make an effort to honor the agreement with Amtrak that gave them those three extra hours, and they are trying to get Amtrak over the road as best as they can. Had OTP remained at zero, despite adding those three hours, that would be a problem.

Besides, we don't know where all of the delays occurred. For all we know, UP's record might be holding at 80%, with Amtrak and BNSF having accounted for the other 30% or so of lateness.

 

[the_traveler]

UP's record might be holding at 80%, with Amtrak and BNSF having accounted for the other 30% or so of lateness.

80% + 30% = 110%

Now you're starting to sound like a politician! :lol: :lol: :lol: (Well, they do want Amtrak to give 110% with less funds! :lol: )

 

[AlanB]

UP's record might be holding at 80%, with Amtrak and BNSF having accounted for the other 30% or so of lateness.

80% + 30% = 110%

Now you're starting to sound like a politician! :lol: :lol: :lol: (Well, they do want Amtrak to give 110% with less funds! :lol: )

Um, no. 53.3% + 30% = 80%, give or take the 3.3%.

Or if you prefer, 80% OTP from UP - 30% lateness by Amtrak and/or BSNF = 53.3%

 

[Guest]

Wow Katie, I tried to read every post before I put in my 2 cents, since I didn't want to repeat anything again, but by the third page I realized I was of the tiniest tiniest minority that would offer you empathy for your experience rather than EXCUSES and repetitive EXPLANATIONS and incessant COMPARISONS to the airline industry and gasp even ACCUSATIONS and SUSPICIONS of your MOTIVES.

No wonder the number of members doesn't swell on this site and no wonder why I don't enter my name. Folks, this is a site not to just praise the glories of Amtrak, it is also a place where people should be able to vent about their experiences. Why do you instantly ATTACK? For heaven's sake just read the post, imagine her feelings. Don't judge and don't compare and if you are going to give suggestions do so in a gentle and mannerly way. In order to survive, Amtrak needs to recruit new ridership. When experiences like this happen, the ripple effect can be great. So instead of trying to defend the non defendable, lend your ear, and constructively inform someone who is lodging a complaint that maybe in YOUR experience her situation was extremely unusual and just maybe, maybe, if she would attempt to ride the rails again, she can enjoy the excellent and consistant service and on-time performance that you all seem to have had.

I have traveled almost every long distance train on this system and countless times on the Northeast Corridor Line. I travel almost monthly on Amtrak (not just a casual or infrequent rider). I can attest to having some unbelievable and terrifying experiences that were in large part due to some failure of Amtrak's personnel. However, for every bad, there has been a good and I continue to ride the rails because I believe this type of transportation is necessary for this country and I want to support it. I write letters and complain when it merits it and yes I even write and praise an employee who deserves it. I have also met (hundreds?) of first time riders who regrettably had a bad experience and did say that they will never return.

If you truly want to support Amtrak and the rail system of this county, than you would not beleaguer the first time riders who have had bad experiences. Afterall, they are the ones who could eventually become lifelong rail fans.

 

[transit54]

Well, to be honest, we're not Amtrak. It's Amtrak's job to apologize. It's our job to explain. If the OP wanted compensation from Amtrak, an apology, or something else, then she needed to go to Amtrak (and IIRC, she did).

What else do you expect us to do? We're really not here to be Amtrak's customer service team - we're here to discuss the aspects of Amtrak service, and provide advice and assistance.

I agree completely on the attack aspect, however, but I recall little of that going on. My previous discussion about dealing with customer service personnel made it clear that it wasn't directed at the OP, but I was just commenting in general how about my own experiences of how I'm approached by passengers.

There's really little more we can do except deconstruct what happened, explain some of the reasons why it did, and suggest that while Amtrak encounters the difficulties common to any other form of transit, the vast majority of our experiences have been positive.

 

[AlanB]

And if you thought guest that what Katie got here was harsh, thank god she came here first, rather than say Railfan.com or some of the other major sites. Katie would have needed a flack jacket and a pith helmet to survive the collatoral damage that would have occured there with her post. And that's assuming that they didn't delete her post outright figuring that she couldn't possibly be telling the truth.

Here at least most of those responding gave her the benefit of the doubt on most of what she said, although there were a few things like the "crews just parking trains on the tracks to get overtime" that even I had to respond to.

As for this site, it's primary purpose is to provide a place for people to come and ask questions about Amtrak and get answers to same. That was the reason behind the owner's creation of this site. Everything else is secondary and icing on the cake.

Next, maybe you should try joining. After all you don't have to give your real name. And as a member, A) you would be taken more seriously; B ) might have some influence on the direction of this site.

Finally, I'm not quite sure what your definition of swelling is, but I'm quite happy with the fact that we've gained 233 new members so far this year.

 

[Guest]

Advice and assistance? And where in my post did I mention that you were supposed to be the complaint department? There have been 60 plus responses for the initial post and here are some interesting quotes from the first 15!

"Bad things happen, but hey, Amtrak was willing to pay for a hotel room." Has a nice sympathetic ring to it, especially for an inexperienced rider who is 17 years old.

"Instead of walking, there are these things called taxi cabs." Nice sarcasm, really sets the tone for the rest of the response.

"Maybe a good "chill or time out" is in order to get over it and go forward. Say that to your mother or 17 year old daughter when they run into some trouble.

"Sigh....gripe, gripe, gripe." Wow, another understanding member that will surely get her to try and ride the rails again.

"I don't care if I miss a guaranteed connection. I miss it. I miss it." Hey poster it is not about YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She cares and so might others. Especially when you might not have extra money to shell out for something so unexpected. How many credit cards did you have at 17? And trust me, having had quite a few "hotel arrangements" made by Amtrak for missed connections, you were lucky to get a bagle and a taxi for a 24 hour stay.

"Having worked in downtown Chicago, I walked around at 2 a.m. many times." EXCUSE ME? You're telling that to a 17 year old? Luckily a woman posted that this was not a good suggestion and he eventually concurred, but this is good advice? Several years back, we were delayed at Chicago Union Station for hours and the place was almost empty, when one of the passengers waiting on the Lake Shore Limited decided to go on a walk. She was accosted by a gunman at the doors of Adams Street and had a pistol pointed at her head and was molested. She was 18.

"I find this interesting that this was your first set of posts here (at least under this name)." Wow, suspicion from the get go. What? You think she is making it up so that you have things you can fire back at her. Considering that most of the members have trouble listening to valid complaints, I doubt this would be a forum to set up a propaganda attack. The only attack throughout this whole posting has been from members. Frankly, it's sad.

 

[Guest]

To AllenB-

Your responses and insights are always welcome, and I appreciate them. But I am disappointed that you defended the responses here to Katies' complaints by resorting to comparing how her statements would have fared in different forums. We are not talking about other message boards. We are talking about this one and how your members and guests reacted to it. Let's focus on the issue at hand. You don't know if she would have been butchered on those other sites, it is just your opinion. Since she didn't post, (or we don't know if she did) so how are you so sure and why would you stipulate that as truth if it didn't happen?

Frankly, who cares. Her statement was in this forum, and your members fell short. Yeah, that you have 200 plus new members. I just hope that they have a better outlook, and that they can give better advice.

 

[Guest]

Guest Guest,

You sound like you may be Katie's mom. There were several unanswered inconsistencies and inaccuracies in Katie's posts that it made it difficult to answer her objectively. If you hang around this board you'll find that most of the answers make sense in light of what information is provided to those who respond. The tone may go up or down with the holidays , the age, the experiences or whatever but this is a very reasonable group. Recognize that the board seems predominantly men and their responses relative to a female's safety issues may not seem relevant. But the rest of the story has to make sense (or details provided) to get the best answer.

Jody

 

[Green Maned Lion]

"Bad things happen, but hey, Amtrak was willing to pay for a hotel room." Has a nice sympathetic ring to it, especially for an inexperienced rider who is 17 years old.

We can pretend to be operating in a vacuum, if you'd like. In that case, Amtrak is an awful company incapable of doing anything right and should be chucked off the face of the earth in favor of the New York Central in the 1930s. However, if we choose to be more realistic, we can instead consider that Amtrak is not the only transportation company in the world.

How would it be different if she had been dropped off in Atlanta by one of the Airlines after missing her connection? Would she have been offered a hotel room? Would they have offered a bus? Another flight? What, madam, would they have done that would clearly surpass Amtrak's handling of this?

"Instead of walking, there are these things called taxi cabs." Nice sarcasm, really sets the tone for the rest of the response.

Yes, I'm sarcastic. I think dropping Amtrak as a form of transportation because of its failures, based upon an apparent belief that other modes of transportation don't have them, calls for a degree of sarcasm. You are free to disagree with me. If the worst monetary loss I'd experienced due to inept airline handling of problems was a taxi ride to a hotel the airline paid for, I'd probably still be flying.

"I don't care if I miss a guaranteed connection. I miss it. I miss it." Hey poster it is not about YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She cares and so might others. Especially when you might not have extra money to shell out for something so unexpected. How many credit cards did you have at 17? And trust me, having had quite a few "hotel arrangements" made by Amtrak for missed connections, you were lucky to get a bagle and a taxi for a 24 hour stay.

I carried a gas credit card, and usually a small amount of cash. However, when I go on a trip a thousand miles from home, I made a point of either bumming my dads credit card in case emergencies came up, or carried a nice sized wad of cash for same. Unlike Katie, regardless of whom I took from A to B, I expected problems.

"Having worked in downtown Chicago, I walked around at 2 a.m. many times." EXCUSE ME? You're telling that to a 17 year old? Luckily a woman posted that this was not a good suggestion and he eventually concurred, but this is good advice? Several years back, we were delayed at Chicago Union Station for hours and the place was almost empty, when one of the passengers waiting on the Lake Shore Limited decided to go on a walk. She was accosted by a gunman at the doors of Adams Street and had a pistol pointed at her head and was molested. She was 18.

I do not live in Chicago, and god forbid I ever do. It is one of the most dreary and boring large cities I have ever visited. The only redeeming value the place seemed to hold was good pizza. I have, however, walked around so-called bad areas of New York at night. I've seen younger women walking around too. I presume they have the wisdom to carry some manner of self-defense system with them. I also assume they have the wisdom to keep aware of their surroundings. I've noticed numerous examples of same giving me hairy eyes, probably because of my size and unkempt appearance.

As I said though, m'am, they have these things called taxis you can use to avoid such things.

 

[transit54]

To agree with Alan and further expound on his post, Katie did come onto the forum with a hostile attitude towards something that most people here support very strongly. I don't think its unreasonable that you'd see some of the responses that you quoted considering the fact that she stated: 1) She only traveled Amtrak once and will never travel again, 2) She made blatantly false assertions about certain Amtrak practices.

1) There is nothing that bothers me more when people do this. They try Amtrak/an airline/a transit system once and claim, based on a single poor experience, they will never ride it again. This especially bothers me in regards to delays and chance occurrences such as missing baggage (which is mostly where I see it in the airline world). For instance, people come up to me occasionally and say, "I was delayed on your airline for X hours, and it sucked, and I'm never going to fly it again" as if we're the only airline that delays occur to, and every other carrier is somehow more reliable. People do the same thing for Amtrak. Now, I understand if you've taken my air carrier or Amtrak several times, and just every time have had a bad experience. At that point, it's probably best to find another method of travel (or just stay home). But to acknowledge that things can't come up during transportation is ludicrous. I've never, ever heard someone say, for instance, "I got a flat tire today! I'm never going to drive again!" That's the same as writing off all future train travel in the US based on a single experience. When I'm at work, I try and win these people back, placating them with vouchers, refunds, new bags, kind words, or whatever will help the situation. But here I call it as it is.

2) As someone who's done a fair amount of reading on Amtrak and the subject of train travel, I've never even heard some of Katie's assertions, such as that trains purposely sit on sidings for hours due to greedy crews. It's one thing to come on here and suggest certain ideas, ("I've heard that...is this true?") but to state them as fact, especially as someone with very little knowledge of Amtrak is bound to irritate some people, myself included. As much as you may argue Katie was "attacked" by members of the forum, I feel a method of transport I feel very passionate about (Amtrak travel) was attacked by her with her assertions about their operating practices. It's one thing for her to recount her negative experience, but you'll see an entirely different reaction if someone is going to try and prop up blatantly false accusations like that. At the same time, I feel the response was measured, civil, and informative. As Alan pointed out, there are a lot of other forums where this would not have been the case.

 

[Guest_yERRY_*]

Sorry, but my vote goes with the plaintiff. Some of these defenses being thrown around justifying the customer service meltdown are beyond ridiculous.

I love riding the train, have done so 48,000+ miles and enjoyed almost every mile, but if any of my nieces ran into that kind of difficulty, I'd be in my truck in moments and down the road, and pull them off the train (or out of the station) at the first place we could possibly meet. And yes, I've made that trip before-- drive all night, back home by 4 AM, and up again at 6 to go to work. I love them dearly, far more than any F40 or named sleeping car.

And just because you don't like the message, it doesn't mean the messenger is lying. I've gone out of Chicago on the last train out a dozen times or more (Three Rivers and Cardinal), and quite frankly, there are several late-night staffers there that seem to be hell-bent at making sure everyone knows that their being a passenger is interfering with their job. Also, some of you have clearly shown great ignorance of just what exactly the Adams/Canal/Jackson area is like THAT LATE at night. A young female going up those Adams Street steps alone at that time is just plain wrong, and no sarcastic comment can make it right. While better patrolled than most stations in cities, there are far too many turns, corners, columns, doors and dead-ends to be successfully wary of that late. And I'm saying that after teaching two years in an inner-city Washington, DC neighborhood that none of you would dare walk through in daylight.

And the ad hominem attacks (avoiding the issue by attacking the person instead) aren't showcasing much comaraderie nor is it encouraging the traveler to take the train like is claimed. In one post, it's her fault for being a naiaeve traveler, and in another she's suspicious because of too many details. This isn't court; she doesn't have to detail every moment in minutea.

And what issue is it whatsoever if she's posting as a guest or not? The question that begs to be asked is that if registering doesn't require even a real name, then how can it possibly establish any real legitimacy? Obviously, a Guest post saying "I road the AMterk and gotted dead when it rekked" is bogus, but registering doesn't install a truth filter; i can easily pull up over a hundred posts that are just plain dishonest (different from being wrong).

Good friends went Chicago to Grand Canyon last week with three boys; they had a great time, raved about the ride, slept in Coach quite well, loved the food, and were late a total of 35 MINUTES. . . TOTAL. But their experience doesn't disprove the experience detailed here, and it doesn't make the bad experience okay, nor does it excuse it.

Anyone remember the Trains article written during the early years of Amtrak, "A Train Full of Fools"? That was a bad one-- I have a copy of it somewhere-- and the last thing Amtrak needs now is something like that written by some Newsweek reporter experiencing something similar. Or worse, like being brushed off only to become a crime victim.

 

[Guest_Yerry_*]

Oh, I get it!

Since she's wrong about crews standing trains still just to earn more money, then none of this ever took place. yeah right; like anyone having this kind of first impression is going to hear that story and NOT believe it, given the experience at hand.

How many posts here claim trains are many hours late?

How many posts here claim refund vouchers were too inconvenient to be useable (and therefore worthless)?

How many posts here complained about the "tough luck, buster" attitude with the Coast Starlight landslide?

And how many of those posts were made by those who love to ride trains and would do so at any opportunity?

If we're supposedly encouraging train travel, wouldn't a far better set of responses go something like, "Wow, that's terrible! I'm upset and wrote Amtrak myself! But you know what; my good experiences outnumber the bad ones by a 20-to-1 margin, so why don't you try it just one more time, like on a shorter day trip, etc."

And there's only one chance for a first impression, and her first impression with Amtrak was one of the worst first impressions I've ever come across. Amtrak could have handled it better without much effort. And her first impression here didn't go over to well either. Like any rookie stumbling over this thread is going to trust any "sunshine letters" here.

 

[transit54]

I'm not defending the poor customer service here. I've said elsewhere that Amtrak needs to revamp its customer service, and needs to do so sooner rather than later. You are absolutely right there is no excuse for that, and I have no personal tolerance for poor customer service and have certainly experienced it on trains I have ridden. I think most people adequately expressed that in this thread. How Amtrak can go about changing that issue is a long topic for another thread.

Here's the main points that I see about the case:

1) Inbound to CHI, the OP experienced poor customer service regarding the train's delay. Absolutely inexcusable, as I've said above. Not much more that can be said on that, unfortunately. Amtrak did issue vouchers as compensation (which I would say is reasonable based on parallels in the air industry)

2) The OP's original Amtrak train was late, causing her to miss her connection. The cause of the delay was outside of Amtrak's control.

3) As per Amtrak's policy, they offered her a hotel room at their expense. If she had flown any air carrier, this would have not occurred under any circumstance, which is an important difference that should be acknowledged.

4) The OP was uncomfortable walking to the hotel. IIRC, she refused to do so, but she did not ask Amtrak to pay for a cab to get her there safely.

5) An hour after the hotel had been offered, Amtrak arranged a bus. As mentioned in this thread, it is not easy to find a bus and driver on immediate notice at 1 AM. However they did so, but the driver had incorrect or incomplete information as to where he needed to go.

6) With the OP's help, the driver got to Detroit, where the OP had to wait in an unsafe area for 45 minutes. Unfortunate, but I'm not sure what could have been done differently at this point.

I think the main point of many people's posts here was that if the OP had been flying, she would have ended up out of luck in some airport with no accommodations.

What did Amtrak do wrong? #1 clearly, which has been addressed to the extent it can, and in #4, they should have offered a cab upfront, rather than relying on the OP to ask. However, since she didn't ask, they also didn't deny her one. #5, they should have provided more complete information to the driver, or otherwise ensured he knew how to get where he was going. Had #4 been addressed, this likely wouldn't have been an issue.

The other difference between you and the OP, is while you acknowledge the unacceptability of the situation, you also wouldn't write off the entire national rail network because of it.