VRE pleased with Keolis performance

Funny that you say they're talkative. I've noticed that, too, and I'm on the Fred line! Haven't met one yet who doesn't like to chat if you give him half the chance. Well, one, but he was "extraboard" or something, not one I had seen before. Just started this week so maybe he's just coming on full-time or something, I have no idea. Anyways, it does seem like they really love what they're doing and are genuinely concerned about disappointing people. The AC at my end of the train loves explaining things, so I'm sure there could be some great conversations if there was time to engage fully. And I really mean LOVES explaining things; if you ask why we are going so slow, he doesn't just say "there's a train in front of us", he goes on to explain signaling, speed rules, etc. etc. People's eyes glaze over when he talks sometimes.

I'm sure anyone like you or me could sit all day and shoot the breeze with that guy! I like these guys and I have just started riding more so I couldn't make a comparison to Amtrak VRE staff but apparently people like a lot of these people better.

Davis

Can you guys stop before the thread gets locked?

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/r ... ?4,2257514

Boardman admits to being asleep at the switch according to latest Don Phillips article in Trains....

Just what some of us were saying to our T&E friends at Amtrak...

According to Boardman he now believes Keolis is good for the entire 15 years and has pulled out of the MARC bid so Keolis may well win that one except for the Penn line....

I'm not worried about Amtrak as they have seen contracts come and go. As long as they provide a consistent level of reasonably good service anyone who gets burned by a Fly-by-nighter will have a safe haven to fall back on (see Metrolink). It's a shame that CSX is getting out of the MARC services as that was a real link to the B&O and its proud heritage.

Regarding Keolis this is the easy part of the contract where the effects of deferred maintenance, low employee morale and other cost cutting kick in. Things might start to look a lot different after 5 years. These privatization schemes are always dodgy due to the incentive structures. If VRE was run as a public sector agency the managers would want to try to use every dollar in to benefit the public that vote for their "bosses" in government. Private sector firms want to re-direct as many of those dollars to their own pockets as possible and keep the service at levels just above the point where they get fired. Look at the state of the railroads in the UK to see how these sorts of operators work out on a large scale.