WASHINGTON, D.C. — Been ridin’ the rails lately — two round trips to New York in the space of 10 days. To accomplish them, I chose three classes of Amtrak service at four times of day, according to an editorial written by Bob Levey in the Washington Post.
That (plus 30 years of regular Amtraking) makes me something of an expert in what the endangered railroad does well and doesn’t do well.
The other day, while whooshing through the pre-dawn precincts of northern New Jersey, I pulled out a pad (always dangerous) and began to scribble (even more dangerous).
Here’s what I had written after an hour or so:
Dear Amtrak President David Gunn:
You have the toughest job in America next to whoever sells bikinis to Eskimos, so let me begin with sincere wishes of good luck. As you know, you need it. As you also know, you haven’t had it.
But as I hope you’ll soon know, it ain’t about luck, David. It’s about cracking the hammerlock that the airlines have on service, or at least the perception that they deliver it best.
You deliver service, too — lots of it. But you can deliver it far better and far more often, without running up a mountain of new debt. Permit me to throw a few ideas into the mix.
First, on-time performance.
Nothing sours a customer more lastingly than being late — unless it’s being very late. And nothing presents as clear an opportunity for you to improve along the Northeast Corridor.
When weather or mechanical problems make a plane late, I never hold it against an individual airline, or the air travel system in general. But when an Amtrak train is hugely late because an engine breaks at Union Station and you can’t find a substitute quickly, I have to wonder.
In this instance, your railroad apparently didn’t test the first engine until 10 minutes before departure time.
Yes, it was early Saturday morning, and dayside crews were just reporting to work. But that doesn’t change the result: a delay that grew from 30 minutes to 55, caused tension and nearly made me late for an appointment. You should redeploy inspection crews to make sure you’re never late for preventable reasons.
Then there’s food.
What you serve aboard your trains is tired and unimaginative. It’s Danish pastry made by someone who’s obviously not a Dane. It’s institutional coffee that tastes institutional.
People happily spend $3.50 for coffee-plus-milk (as long as some marketing genius calls it latte). They consider $1.50 for an apple a bargain.
So why not overhaul the food service, or subcontract it? If I could find a good bagel aboard a Metroliner, and not the bagel-shaped piece of Wonder Bread I bought the other morning, wild horses couldn’t keep me from coming back, and back, to the cafe car.
Next, discrimination against the frugal and the poor.
Two of my four recent trips were aboard the Plain Jane Amtrak train. Not an Acela Express. Not a middle-range Metroliner. Steerage.
Makes more stops. Takes a good bit longer. Costs significantly less. The right choice if you’re not made of money, not in a hurry or both.
Both Plain Jane runs were late by almost an hour. But my New York-Washington journeys aboard an Acela Express and a Metroliner were both on time to the second.
Could it be, Dave, that you are much more careful not to make the suits and the CEOs late?
No, I can’t prove it. But when I walked around an 11:05 p.m. Plain Jane departure from Penn Station, I didn’t hear any cell phoners doing deals. My fellow passengers were students, sailors, grandmothers. Clearly a constituency that probably wouldn’t call a congressman to report poor performance.
But when I walked around the 2 p.m. Acela departure from Union Station, you’d have thought I’d wandered into the board room by mistake.
One cell phoner was screaming commands at a lawyer. Another was lobbying a senator and dropping the VIP name loudly. Not a constituency you want to annoy, especially if they have ties to Capitol Hill, where Amtrak’s fate hangs precariously.
A great editor once told me, David, that you are only as good as you are on your worst day. Amtrak needs to work harder to avoid laying its worst days on its lowest-income customers.
Finally, information.
I want much more of it. All that’s available. As soon as possible. No fudging. No hedging.
When I boarded a 6 a.m. Metroliner out of New York, I noticed a conductor standing on the platform. I asked her if the cafe car was open yet. She said it wasn’t.
I asked when it would be open. Her reply:
“Maybe a few minutes. Maybe longer.”
This conductor has a big future in politics, doesn’t she, Dave? Maybe we can buy her a birthday membership in Obfuscators Anonymous.
I would have been happy if the conductor had simply said she didn’t know. But I’d still be wondering why she didn’t. Is it really unexpected that a 5:50 a.m. passenger would want to know how soon coffee will be available? Any conductor working that run should make it her business to know the answer well ahead of departure time.
Please don’t consider any of this a threat, Brother Gunn. I’m a train guy through and through. I’d never go through 60 minutes of annoying security checks and lines so I can fly to New York for 40. The New Jersey Turnpike? My stomach lining couldn’t take it.
I love to hunker down with a book, a bag of carrots and the strong prospect of a nap. But you could cement my loyalty and make my smile permanent, not occasional. Here’s hoping you do.