Tuesday afternoon rail news:
— With William Flynn set to take over Wednesday as Amtrak president and CEO, outgoing CEO Richard Anderson sent a message to employees today thanking employees for their efforts during his tenure and in the face of the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak. Anderson told workers, “We are in a position to protect Amtrak jobs right now because of everything you have done together in recent years. You did the hard work as professionals over the past several years to grow revenue and ridership to record levels, with our highest customer satisfaction levels in history. … There is no travel company in the U.S. as well positions as we are to get through this crisis and come out stronger on the other side.” Anderson, the 12th president/CEO in Amtrak history, departs after 34 months in charge, including five months as co-CEO beginning in July 2017.
— Amtrak, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, NJ Transit, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey are launching a “#SoundTheHorn” campaign to honor essential workers during the COVID-19 outbreak. They and other ferry and bus operators will give two 1-second horn blasts on Thursday at 3 p.m. EDT to honor medical care workers, first responders, transportation workers, grocery employees and others who continue to work. The agencies involved estimate there will be nearly 4,400 trains, buses and ferries in service to sound their horns in the salute. A full Amtrak release on the event, with comments from officials of the agencies involved, is available here. Canadian Pacific launched a similar salute to medical workers with its locomotive horns earlier this month [see “Trains News Wire Digest for Saturday, April 4”].
— The Oklahoma Railway Museum is purchasing two passenger cars from Farmrail Corp. for use on its Polar Express excursions. The two cars are circa-1950 cars built for Canadian National as 76-seat coaches and refurbished by Farmrail, operator of two Class III railroads in Western Oklahoma, in the early 2000s with modern electrical and heating/cooling systems for use in excursion service. The cars are expected to be moved to the museum in Oklahoma City in spring or summer 2000.
DPM must be spinning in his grave with this typo! “…The cars are expected to be moved to the museum in Oklahoma City in spring or summer 2000…” Must be a neat trick for a museum train movement to be made twenty years ago!
Do we get to read the employees’ farewell wishes to Anderson?
Anderson did what any effective CEO should do. He made significant changes to position Amtrak as a business, which was the original intent. Hopefully Flynn will continue his initiatives, as well as implement others.
The time to view Amtrak as a welfare agency on wheels is over. Ultimately, it should be privatized. There are numerous ways to make that happen that would benefit the country and its taxpayers.
Mr. Anderson : We thank you for you service, now don’t let the door hit you in the back on the way out!
Anderson – good riddance to bad rubbish!
Most Amtrak employees would never recognize him because he was never seen out on the property anywhere. And his method of counting passengers is bogus. Anyone traveling who had to change trains was counted as a passenger each time they changed trains. One person going from New York to San Diego could have been counted as a passenger three, four or more times, depending on the route they took.
“Highest customer satisfaction levels in history.” Really? Based on what surveys or analyses? Next question – Can anyone verify that Anderson ever rode one of his own trains? Just askin’