Wish Amtrak would tell you what changed when they call or email.

[SteveSFL]

A few days ago, I got an email from Amtrak with a new eticket followed closely by an automated phone call. The phone call mentioned a schedule change, but I had to compare my old ticket to see that the Meteor will be departing 5 minutes earlier from Washington.

Today, I got another email with a new eticket. Only by comparing with my old ticket did I see that they changed me from room 23 to 17 on the Texas Eagle.

I wonder how much trouble it would be for Amtrak to specify what has changed when they email or call. For example, the call would say, "Train 0097 was previously scheduled to depart Washington at 7:30PM. The train will now depart at 7:25PM."

 

[Mystic River Dragon]

SteveSTX,

This happened to me recently, too--I got an email with a new ticket, but that was it. No phone call or other explanation. When I compared the tickets, it was just that the Meteor leaves 10 minutes earlier. (I wasn't really worried--it was for my return trip, and if it didn't work, I would be happy to stay on vacation longer! )

Oddly, though, something similar happened a while back (a year ago at least), and I got two phone calls (no new ticket) to tell me that the Silver Star would be arriving at my destination 10 minutes early, something I really didn't need to know! (And, of course, in reality, it didn't--it was a few minutes late.)

 

[SubwayNut]

Amtrak has sort of done that for me. The worse were a series of small schedule change phone calls from Continental Airlines for an upcoming reservation that kept waking me up back in 2010! (I was living in Colorado at the time but I assume they were basing their call time on my New York Cell phone).

 

[Thirdrail7]

Perhaps the parameters of the automated (a key word) phone call do not allow for specific messages at this point?

 

[wjh2]

About a month before I was to begin my first Amtrak trip last April, I received an automated phone call about a schedule. Again no explanation of what was changed. As it turns out, the Capitol Limited had an earlier arrival time into Washington, D.C. I remember the phone call saying if this was an inconvenience that I should contact customer service. The only thing that inconvenient was less train time.