by lordsigma12345
electricron wrote: ↑Thu Aug 12, 2021 12:37 amAmtrak has begun hiring part-time station agents to deal with this scenario of remote stations that only see a train once a day and not as much traffic - the union that represents the agents has griped about it but so far I believe management has been successful in this approach. All of these stations that they've been required to re-man from previous laws they have re-manned with part time employees which I think is totally reasonable especially in tri-weekly instances. I'm also not 100% sure these restored stations with part-time agents have a full Arrow setup in the station -but someone with more knowledge may be able to verify that. They may have to call over the phone to assist passengers with reservations at some of these part-time locations but I don't know for sure. I think the prime purpose is to assist passengers with checked baggage, assist passengers with carrying baggage, assist handicapped passengers, and be available to answer questions for passengers during the train times and in some cases lock/unlock the station and clean. Caretakers only did the latter so the part-time customer service rep can do that plus passenger interaction and assistance. It sounds like it's basically a caretaker-plus.lordsigma12345 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 11, 2021 10:12 pm I personally don't see empty stations with no one available to ask any questions or to keep an eye on things progress. Does this mean we need a body at every platform/shelter station? Nope but medium/large sized stations should have at least one person.Who replaces that one person manning the station when they take the day off? The boss!
What boss? You're going to need two people at every station just to have one available when one takes the day off.
How much do you think both get paid? Minimum wage? Ha!
$40,000 /year
https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Amtrak/salar ... ntative/US
What is the average Amtrak fare? $69 per coach seat.
https://www.bts.gov/content/average-amt ... rip-length
How many $69 fares will it take to pay the sales representative base salary?
580
Math follows, $40,000 / $69 = 579.7
Then you have to add the costs maintaining the station, powering the station, associated costs of providing equipment for the employee, etc. Do not know where you could find data for that.
rcthompson04 wrote: ↑Thu Aug 12, 2021 8:10 am I went through the list of Pennsylvania stations and I was surprised by the pattern I saw. Most of the stations west of Harrisburg are manned while most of the stations east of Harrisburg aren’t so you have several low volume stations manned while others with several times higher volume aren’t. Keystones are really a commuter train so I get it not having agents at even fairly busy stations (Exton and Downingtown in particular), but this proposal seems to be an absurd metric on its face. I suspect an agent will eventually be added at Exton as the rebuilt station has an office. What value do we get from having agents at most spots west of Harrisburg?That's between Amtrak and the Pennsylvania department of transportation. For stations that only see state-supported service station staffing is the state's decision - and stations that only see state supported service are excluded from this provision in the bill. This only pertains to long distance and NEC stations.
bostontrainguy wrote: ↑Thu Aug 12, 2021 10:55 amThey went with part-time caretakers at the stations that were cut where Amtrak has responsibility - the main local gripe is that Caretakers do not have any expectation of passenger interaction (though some do go above and beyond.) It sounds like the compromise is to replace the caretaker with a part-time agent that also deals with the passengers. I suspect Amtrak's approach going forward at smaller stations as folks retire is to switch them to part time instead of trying to de-staff.eolesen wrote: ↑Thu Aug 12, 2021 2:08 am In many cases you only need an agent for an hour a day per train. Problem is finding someone willing to stick around when the trains are several hours late.Who's maintaining the station? Someone must be cleaning it and throwing out the trash every day. There must also be two trains a day so schedule around that somehow. Clean the station between trains? Maybe a retired person in the area who is flexible with their time would like to pick up a little extra cash? Plenty of old folks who like trains and would probably like to do it. Could even spread it between a small group of reliable people.
Could they be paid by the town and not be Amtrak employees?
Last edited by lordsigma12345 on Thu Aug 12, 2021 1:38 pm, edited 8 times in total.