Or Joe Biden’s favorite pet project, Amtrak. They manage to lose money every single year due to horrible miss management among many other issues and yet we keep throwing money at them.
Excellent point. If I were in charge, I would tell Amtrak you need to come up with a plan to improve service, reduce costs and become profitable or at least break even in X amount of time. If you can’t do that we will find someone who can.
As much as I love Amtrak and the amazing scenery you can get on some of the trips, if you can’t provide the amenities passengers want, such as decent WiFi, food, etc. No one is going to ride your train. You also need to get your labor costs in line and deal with all your unions and make the tough decisions. There is a reason why Santa Fe and the other freight railroads gave up on passenger business decades ago. Amtrak still uses that same model today in 2021 and wonders why they fail
I rode an amtrak to go to New York from NC once - it was a 24 + hour trip both times because we stopped for breakdowns, or repairs, or trees on the track.
I didn't care at the time because I was in my twenties and had nothing going on. But I would never take it now.
Trees aren’t really Amtrak’s fault if south of DC as that would be Norfolk Southern tracks they are on.
The breakdowns are 100% on Amtrak though. A friend works for them and has basically unless it is a safety issue they don’t care. Flat wheel making for a rough ride. Meh, this car normally only runs on a shuttle train. Passengers only on it for a couple hours at most, they won’t mind.
Or Joe Biden’s favorite pet project, Amtrak. They manage to lose money every single year due to horrible miss management among many other issues and yet we keep throwing money at them.
They manage to lose money every year because we keep throwing money at them.
Excellent point. If I were in charge, I would tell Amtrak you need to come up with a plan to improve service, reduce costs and become profitable or at least break even in X amount of time. If you can’t do that we will find someone who can.
As much as I love Amtrak and the amazing scenery you can get on some of the trips, if you can’t provide the amenities passengers want, such as decent WiFi, food, etc. No one is going to ride your train. You also need to get your labor costs in line and deal with all your unions and make the tough decisions. There is a reason why Santa Fe and the other freight railroads gave up on passenger business decades ago. Amtrak still uses that same model today in 2021 and wonders why they fail
I liked travelling by train. So much wasted potential consumed by regulation.
Amtrak is a fucking joke.
I rode an amtrak to go to New York from NC once - it was a 24 + hour trip both times because we stopped for breakdowns, or repairs, or trees on the track.
I didn't care at the time because I was in my twenties and had nothing going on. But I would never take it now.
Trees aren’t really Amtrak’s fault if south of DC as that would be Norfolk Southern tracks they are on.
The breakdowns are 100% on Amtrak though. A friend works for them and has basically unless it is a safety issue they don’t care. Flat wheel making for a rough ride. Meh, this car normally only runs on a shuttle train. Passengers only on it for a couple hours at most, they won’t mind.
And conveniently, there’s no talk of them requiring a negative Covid test before traveling with them
Such a smart virus. It only gets you on a plane, (despite no scientific evidence to support that) but can’t infect you on a train.