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Amtak Continues to Burn


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#11 ICGsteve

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Posted 28 August 2007 - 12:02 AM


Do you ever have anything good to say about AMTRAK??? :angry:


Sure, when Amtrak conducts passenger rail in a way that reflects on Amtrak favorably when compared to the passenger rail systems of any of the other 50 most wealthy nations. Over the last few decades that has sadly been rare. Go to Germany or Japan or France or even England and tell me how often you hear about locomotive fires on the road there. It does not happen, it should never happen. I will cheer lead for Amtrak when and if they ever start doing things well. Maybe they can't without more money, but stuff like this makes me wonder. Locomotive fires point to systemic maintenance procedure problems, very basic maintenance in fact. I don't see how this is a money problem. This looks like a management or incompetence of the front lines (in the shops) problem.

I am a "railfan" that is to say a fan of rail. I love rail travel and have been doing it for over 40 years in the states and in Europe. I love trains. I do not love Amtrak, I am not a fan of Amtrak, because Amtrak pretty much sucks. In my opinion you should save your anger for Amtrak sucking instead of directing it towards those who point out the obvious. If you are a fellow railfan perhaps you will in time come to the conclusion that America deserves better than Amtrak as it is currently conceived. To be honest, I can't quite figure out why every railfan is not Angry about Amtrak.

#12 AlanB

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Posted 28 August 2007 - 08:57 AM

Go to Germany or Japan or France or even England and tell me how often you hear about locomotive fires on the road there. It does not happen, it should never happen. I will cheer lead for Amtrak when and if they ever start doing things well. Maybe they can't without more money, but stuff like this makes me wonder. Locomotive fires point to systemic maintenance procedure problems, very basic maintenance in fact. I don't see how this is a money problem. This looks like a management or incompetence of the front lines (in the shops) problem.


Hmm, actually I think it's quite easy to see how this could be a money problem. Now I'm not suggesting that it is, or that the scenario I'm about to describe is true, but it could well explain how something like this could happen.

Let's pretend that one locomotive mechanic can check 8 locomotives during one 8 hour shift for problems, lube, and little general things. The base needs to service 24 locomotives during that 8 hour shift. Originally Amtrak employed 4 mechanics, however now due to budget cuts they only have 3 on duty during that 8 hour shift. There are still 24 locomotives that need to be checked out, but now one of two things must happen. Either 8 hit the road without any inspection at all, or all 24 get an inspection that is shorter than the necessary 1 hour. And neither choice is a good one.

Now yes we could argue for hours that management should have found another way to cut the money out of the budget, but even then the odds are that something else would have needed to slip. Maybe the parts that the mechanics needed.

Is it also possible that the fires are because some mechanic didn't do his job? Sure, I must admit that. We do see it every where in our society, workers who don't do their job and still want to collect a pay check. But most Amtrak workers are at least doing their jobs. Yes, maybe they could be a bit more excited or take one extra step sometimes to avoid a problem. But I don't believe that the bulk of the people who work at Amtrak are lazy or uncaring.

Finally in closing let me also mention one other thing. Don't try to compare US trains to those in Europe. Yes, there are many things that they do excel at over the pond. But just because you don't hear about problems, doesn't mean that there aren't. There is a well respected man who posts to two other train boards that I watch. The gentleman a US citizen has spent the bulk of his adult life overseas helping many different countries build their RR systems. He has mentioned many, many times that almost all the overseas RR's make considerable efforts to sweep their problems under the carpet.

Bottom line here being that they too have problems, they just don't talk about them and the press unlike here in the US doesn't go digging for every little bad story that they can find. Many in our press like to go bashing Amtrak, since that seems to be the political climate over here. Over seas RR's are just common place and accepted.
Alan,

Take care and take trains!

#13 ICGsteve

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Posted 28 August 2007 - 08:57 PM

In my opinion the failures that cause fires are failures that developed over a period of weeks or months. Fires are not cause by failures that develop over a few trips, and are not noticed on the turn. Mechanics are through the locomotives for one reason or another on a regular basis, if they are any good they will instinctively notice stuff that is wrong that might be a fire hazard. They will notice a leak that is in a wrong place, a smell that it not quite right, a sound that is off, even if they are only walking through for some purpose totally unrelated to where the problem is. There is little doubt in my mind but that in most cases where we have a fire multiple mechanics either knew or should have known over the weeks and months previous that the unit was at risk, but nothing ever got done about it. Also, engineers, even Amtrak engineers, have some basic working knowledge of how their equipment operates, when something is going on that might point to a major problem. Engineers spend a lot of time with these locomotives, they know what is normal and what is not. If Amtrak has the proper procedures in place there is in the culture a mindset that compels the engineer to notify someone, and for the one who is notified to take the information seriously. The mechanics will get many reports that don't worry them, that are not a cause for doing even minimal investigation, but others should ring an alarm in somebodies head and motivate them to go down or send somebody down for a peek. These rash of locomotive fires over the last 18 months is only a money problem if the problem has been noticed, the shop people have been notified, the managers want to fix the problem, and they get told no because there is no money to do it. I seriously doubt that this is what is going on. I have noticed now several reports where it is claimed that Engineers notified their chain of command about a potential problem with their locomotive but where over the coming weeks nothing is ever done about it. If Amtrak is not fixing known problems that in time turn into locomotive fires then it is guilty of gross stupidity. One locomotive fire will cost Amtrak big time on the short term bottom line (lost capacity, extra employee time, charges by emergency agencies and railroads, alternate transportation) as well as long term on the bottom line as people hear these stories and swear off Amtrak. They also erode Employee morale, public confidence, and what remains positive about the Amtrak brand after years of neglect. We would need to get the insights of insiders to confirm my suspicions, but I believe that these locomotives fires are the result of a cultural problem at Amtrak, one that has nothing to do with money. This if true is damning of Amtrak as an organization, which is why I am a little hot about all of these fires.

Edited by ICGsteve, 28 August 2007 - 09:23 PM.


#14 jis

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Posted 01 September 2007 - 11:21 PM

It is a well known fact that employee morale at Amtrak is quite low, and that is unlikely to get fixed unless Amtrak and Congress can create a climate where employees have a Union contract in place, that is reasonable. Absent doing something about fixing such well known problems we can all keep collectively carping all we want and nothing will change, other than perhaps our collective blood-pressures. Actually I think the fact that Kummant is trying to get a contract in place with the Engineers' union is a step in the right direction. If Amtrak employees had contracts like their European brethren do (the French and Germans basically get set up for life as I understand it) and if Amtrak had funding like its European counterparts do, I would be very surprised if its trains did not run as efficiently as the European ones do.

#15 ICGsteve

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Posted 02 September 2007 - 03:07 PM

You speak truth JIS, throwing money at Amtrak would make running Amtrak easier and make Amtrak better, and if you take offense to words "throwing money" please remember that I am the one who thinks that Amtrak should be funded at around $5 billion a year. However, at the end of the day organizational leadership is responsible for establishing and maintaining the culture with-in the organization, and for morale with-in the organization. Lack of money is an obstacle for the leadership to overcome while putting the culture and morale to rights, but it does not doom the project which is why I say that problems caused by a cancerous culture and/or poor morale are not problems caused by lack of money. It has always been easier for Amtrak leaders to blame money problems caused at the political level for culture and morale problems with-in Amtrak (no doubt even to themselves), because when they believe this then they are off the hook and don't need to fix the problems. Several Amtrak CEO's in a row have ditched their duties to look after the well being of Amtrak as an organization, they have said and thought that it is Washington's fault, and washed their hands of the stink. I wish that someone would hold Gunn's and Warrington's toes to the fires, ask them why it had to be that Amtrak cultural and morale problems were caused by the political leaders when I venture to say that every Poly/sci expert will point out that adversity is one of the best tools for building culture and cohesion with-in a group. Leader after leader all through history has created adversaries for the sole purpose of building up their organization, society, group. Anti Amtrak Presidents and care not Congress's should have been a tool for the strengthening of Amtrak as an organization, they are not the reason Amtrak culture and morale sucks. The culture and morale suck because a series of Amtrak CEO's have not done their jobs. For whom ever accused me of always bashing Amtrak: I have said that in my opinion all signs are that Klummant gets it and is trying to fix the underling problems that have hobbled Amtrak for nearly two decades now. Note: multiple language mistakes have been fixed...I was in a rush when I originally posted.

Edited by ICGsteve, 02 September 2007 - 08:54 PM.





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