ANDERSON: Contract Renewal

Suburban Station wrote:perhaps the more interesting questions is why

An interesting question that I have thoughts on, but not one for here.

I say send him back to Delta. Several people here always point to his time at Delta and how well that airline was run by him. Well it looks like his replacement isn't doing so well -

https://youtu.be/UBG91ibPJLE" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

BTW - the same YouTube travel blogger gave a nice review of the Empire Builder but gave thumbs down on the ACELA.

Empire builder
https://youtu.be/7UgIQKtLEIw" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

ACELA
https://youtu.be/ZMt6v7iqd74" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

How did this topic started to discuss whether or not Mr. Anderson would accept an offer of a new contract evolve into one addressing the strength of a police force?

Since it appears Amtrak will get another $1.9B, or thereabouts, somebody must think he's doing what they want and that he is building a railroad to serve passenger travel in markets that justify such.

While I acknowledge that the "experiential" travel community disagrees, Anderson is not the worst CEO Amtrak has had. He is attempting to build a contemporary transportation system to meet the needs of the traveling public. Directing any resources to that small segment is simply counterproductive.

He is doing a good job. For every $1 Amtrak takes in, it spends what? $1.30. Hard to run a corporation with long range goals when one is constantly going to a fickle congress to ask for more. I would not want to be in his shoes.

Gilbert B Norman wrote: It's obvious that the LD advocacy community will want him gone, for his "vision" of Amtrak does not include trains offering "experiential" service amenities

I don't think that's true if you read the recent five year plans. I think the current management actually sees "experiential" customers as the key market for certain long distance trains over passengers who use the LD trains because they are the only game in town (the passengers which are the reason they receive federal funding) and I think they see reforming the LD network into focusing on the LD trains they feel have the biggest market for "experiential travelers" and revisiting how to serve the other LD routes (Whether that is breaking up into corridors/bus bridges etc.) I think they actually see Amtrak continuing certain key LD routes which they feel have the biggest market for true long distance customers looking for the train experience and possible providing a better product on those - for example making a super California Zephyr with higher quality service but revisiting how to serve the other east-west trains as well as possibly continuing parts of certain trains (given the decent ridership of the Crescent despite the abysmal OTP, NYP - Atlanta seems to be a longer distance market that could use additional looking at) and I think they see focusing sleeper and dining cars on trains where there is a bigger market for overnight service. As an example I think they'd like to put sleepers and maybe a diner on the overnight Northeast Regional.

My biggest problem with Mr Anderson is also my problem with some other recent Amtrak heads since David Gunn's departure. That is, the nuts and bolts of running a railroad seem sadly neglected. One small example: A westbound Pennsylvanian (#43) Gets to PHL and somehow there is no diesel available for its normal engine change. (Why not? This is PHL, not West Podunk.) So it proceeds under electric power to Harrisburg where the protect diesel is switched for the electric. The engine change takes 40 minutes. Why? This used to be done in 5 to 10 minutes. The train proceeds west but it does not have enough fuel to make it to Pittsburgh, so it is forced to stop at an NS fuel pad. (Again,why didn't it have enough fuel? It is, after all, a protect engine.) So now a train that arrived at HAR on time arrives at the next stop, Lewistown, more than an hour late.
Stuff like this happens frequently. Stuff like this happens with distressing frequency. An engine shuts down on a low water alarm. Another maintenance screwup? They have to get a local fire company to fill the radiator. At least it wasn't a steam locomotive, where low water could be explosively disastrous.
Aside from the negligence and sloppiness that these kinds of incidents seem to indicate, a striking thing about Amtrak is that when anything goes wrong, the resulting delays seem unreasonably long. When an engine fails, even if a substitute is available, the failure seems inevitably to add at least an hour or two to the trip length. NJ transit, on which I commuted for some time, was not known for its excellence in responding to emergencies, but even broke, bumbling NJT seemed to deal with incidents faster and more efficiently than Amtrak.

I suppose Mr Anderson should get credit for the smooth summer repairs to NYP. But if he gets credit for that, the Cascades wreck happened on his watch. The NTSB has blamed that on egregious mismanagement of crew training.

I would like to see an Amtrak head who strongly advocates for more money for Amtrak, instead of merely trying to run the railroad with grossly inadequate funding. In the end, poor management is a serious Amtrak problem, but not nearly as serious as decades of insufficient funding.

JoeG wrote:My biggest problem with Mr Anderson is also my problem with some other recent Amtrak heads since David Gunn's departure. That is, the nuts and bolts of running a railroad seem sadly neglected. One small example: A westbound Pennsylvanian (#43) Gets to PHL and somehow there is no diesel available for its normal engine change. (Why not? This is PHL, not West Podunk.) So it proceeds under electric power to Harrisburg where the protect diesel is switched for the electric. The engine change takes 40 minutes. Why? This used to be done in 5 to 10 minutes. The train proceeds west but it does not have enough fuel to make it to Pittsburgh, so it is forced to stop at an NS fuel pad. (Again,why didn't it have enough fuel? It is, after all, a protect engine.) So now a train that arrived at HAR on time arrives at the next stop, Lewistown, more than an hour late.
Stuff like this happens frequently. Stuff like this happens with distressing frequency. An engine shuts down on a low water alarm. Another maintenance screwup? They have to get a local fire company to fill the radiator. At least it wasn't a steam locomotive, where low water could be explosively disastrous.
Aside from the negligence and sloppiness that these kinds of incidents seem to indicate, a striking thing about Amtrak is that when anything goes wrong, the resulting delays seem unreasonably long. When an engine fails, even if a substitute is available, the failure seems inevitably to add at least an hour or two to the trip length. NJ transit, on which I commuted for some time, was not known for its excellence in responding to emergencies, but even broke, bumbling NJT seemed to deal with incidents faster and more efficiently than Amtrak.

I suppose Mr Anderson should get credit for the smooth summer repairs to NYP. But if he gets credit for that, the Cascades wreck happened on his watch. The NTSB has blamed that on egregious mismanagement of crew training.

I would like to see an Amtrak head who strongly advocates for more money for Amtrak, instead of merely trying to run the railroad with grossly inadequate funding. In the end, poor management is a serious Amtrak problem, but not nearly as serious as decades of insufficient funding.

I am not sure these are money issues. Not having a diesel properly fueled or available for a daily run seems like general incompetency. Money doesn’t fix a culture of not having your act together.

Especially if you don't work for Amtrak, it can sometimes be impossible to categorize an incident as resulting from human errors or from lack of money. In my example of the Pennsylvanian, was there no available engine at PHL because someone screwed up or because Amtrak lacks the money to buy enough engines? In Harrisburg, are they just sloppy or are they short handed so no one was able to make sure that the protect engine was fueled? I also don't know if Amtrak locomotives fail at greater rates than freight locomotives. If they do, is is from sloppiness or from brokeness? Is there any way to get information so these questions can get answered?

It's funny how you guys think Anderson is responsible for things like engine assignments, on time performance, safety culture, etc...

Amtrak's problems are in its middle to senior management, and it's going to take time to wash those people out. You can't take them all out at once and expect to be able to keep things running, but you can take the Jack Welch approach and trim the bottom 10% of worst performers immediately, replace them, and try to salvage what you can from the remaining 90%. As soon as the first batch of replacements are in place, you can look at replacing those who couldn't adapt to the new culture. We've seen this happen in airlines multiple times in the last 30 years, so I do know it can be done right (e.g. Delta, Continental and United) and it can be done wrong (American, US Airways).

Where Anderson has value for Amtrak is in restructuring the upper management and putting people in place who can make the tough decisions on who has to go. Someone already noted that Delta is doing well without him. That's because he put the right team in place before leaving. Hopefully he can do the same at Amtrak.

If they're losing less money than they were five years ago, something's working.

Corridors? That's a state responsibility. Amtrak can focus on them, but if the states aren't funding them, you won't see growth, and most corridors are in Blue states who are broke.

If you are the CEO you are responsible for everything. If your managers don't perform, retrain or eliminate them.
Jack Welch has proven to be a terrible example. Look at the decline and destruction of GE under his methodology. Maybe the first time you fire the worst-performing 10% of your managers you come out ahead, but soon you are cutting meat and not fat. i worked for a company that tried the Welch approach. Morale tanked and there was no visible improvement. Managers did stupid things to try to improve their short-term results. In most companies, it is likely that most employees are competent. if that isn't true, it's hard to see how the company stays in business.

Amtrak seems to suffer from bad leadership, leading to, among other things, a bad safety culture and many operational errors and problems. The fact that they lost less money recently than previously only shows that the leadership is not spending enough on a state of good repair. No one is really demanding that Amtrak show a "profit." Instead, what is wanted is a well-run railroad.

Forgetting the controversial "vision things" of Mr Anderson's approach to long-distance and food, what can we measure objectively? How are things going at the nuts-and-bolts level, regarding safety culture and quality of training? Have they started to turn around? Does anybody have visibility into whether he is promoting good people? Financials are harder because they are often fudged.

BandA wrote:Forgetting the controversial "vision things" of Mr Anderson's approach to long-distance and food, what can we measure objectively? How are things going at the nuts-and-bolts level, regarding safety culture and quality of training? Have they started to turn around? Does anybody have visibility into whether he is promoting good people? Financials are harder because they are often fudged.

This is the big point here. Financials are nothing if it turns out Anderson's just wasting money and not increasing the bang-for-the-buck. And right now, the biggest bang-for-buck improvement is in safety and training. I won't be surprised if PTC is part of it, but I'd be concerned if cash for saftey & training is being used to install PTC instead of... you know... actually TRAINING engineers and conductors.

Along with my thoughts on two one-year extensions, I want to see what Anderson orders for regional cars. He seems to want to throw the doors wide open to ideas from around the world, MUs and trailers both, and the speed in which those cars come online reliably will determines how his customers finally think of the man.

Amtrak funding has increased, Amtrak now has to invest it wisely and show it is using it well. what anderson appears to be doing is preserving the system by using it for MW equipment to improve the railroad, PTC investments, ADA investments, and equipment replacement. that is a irrational approach given that amtrak can't assume funding will stay robust. he seems to believe congress is more willing to fund asset improvements than operating subsidies and I suspect he's correct.

Gilbert B Norman wrote: Since it appears Amtrak will get another $1.9B, or thereabouts, somebody must think he's doing what they want and that he is building a railroad to serve passenger travel in markets that justify such.

While I acknowledge that the "experiential" travel community disagrees, Anderson is not the worst CEO Amtrak has had. He is attempting to build a contemporary transportation system to meet the needs of the traveling public. Directing any resources to that small segment is simply counterproductive.

What happens if the "experiential" segment of Amtrak is eliminated? That leaves only the NEC and state corridors. Since the latter are funded by the states, that leaves only the NEC. If I were a senator or congressmen from an experiential state, I sure wouldn't fund the NEC.

The NEC may make a "profit", but there still seems to be frequent begging for billions of dollars for much needed infrastructure repairs.