9300170

No one wants to love Amtrak more than I do. I rarely fly and try to be understanding of the difficulties Amtrak and its employees face every day. With that said...

Just got off of the 29 from dc to Chicago on a roomette. I've heard people say they never saw an attendant but in our case it was actually true. We were in the transitional sleeper car. We had to put our own beds down and up again. Just as we pulled in to Chicago we heard two attendants talking (arguing) about how they hate the transitional sleeper and that neither of them felt they should do 20% more work because of some corporate decision. So they obviously didn't. There was no juice, coffee, or ice in any of the sleepers.

I'm usually a very big tipper but literally couldn't tip anyone since we never interacted with an attendant in any way. 😩

We're connecting to the Sw chief for the rest of our trip out west. I hop we have a better experience tonight and tomorrow.

RogerD408

I do hope you take the time to let Amtrak know about the lack of service on your trip. I know there are some Amtrak people that respond to posts here, but I'm not sure they will take up your case with Operations.

ColdRain&Snow

As an ardent Amtrak supporter myself, I find it troubling that you had this experience. It is completely unacceptable.

Several weeks ago, I was on this same routing and also riding in the Transition Sleeper. The attendant stopped by while we were still parked in WAS, told me that my bed would be put down while I had dinner (7 PM), and rushed off before I could protest. She did put my bed down, but that was the last evidence I saw of her until we rolled into CUS. All of the revenue space was full in the dorm, and everyone unfamiliar with the beds (majority of pax) sat on them for the entire morning until they detrained at Chicago.

On the Chicago platform, the attendant reappeared and said something about her helping out with the breakfast service in the Dining Car. Even if that were true, she should have done something - anything - to communicate to those pax what was going on. Or have another TA jump in and help put up the morning beds. Instead, nothing happened and everyone sat uncomfortably all the way into Chicago.

Please report this to Customer Relations (CR). I used to listen to people sing the praises of this train, but my last several trips on it have ranged from bad to mediocre, all on account of poor OBS crew performance.

The Southwest Chief is crewed out of Los Angeles, and I am confident you will have a much better onboard experience on this next leg. Have a great trip, and please do reach out to CR when you get back so they'll document this service failure. They need to do some OBS housecleaning on the Capitol Limited to be sure.

You want to go where?

I'm a newbie here as far as long-distance Amtrak service is concerned.

I think I understand what a transition sleeper is, but I don't understand why they have one. Aren't all cars on the Capitol Limited double height? Also, why would service be worse on the transition sleeper than the others? Do you pay less in this car? If not, I would complain to Amtrak and ask for a partial refund.

ColdRain&Snow

The Transition Sleeper (TS) is a variation of the Superliner II Sleeping Car (double deck). It provides several functions:

--Dormitory for On Board Services (OBS) crew.
--Conductor's space/base of operations.
--Some revenue Roomettes.
--Passage through Superliner cars is on upper level. TS has lower level diaphragm on front end that allows passage through to Baggage Car (and rarely, other single level equipment), hence the name "transition."

When Amtrak sells revenue space in the TS, a Train Attendant (TA) from the adjacent car is supposed to serve these passengers. Much of the time, this happens without incident. I just rode on the Zephyr in the TS and had an amazing TA assigned to us. But sometimes, these TS pax are neglected as happened to the OP. It's happened to me too and is an Amtrak service failure.

You do NOT pay less to be in the TS. Rather, you usually pay high bucket since they sell TS space last. So that adds to the insult of poor OBS performance. Yes, the OP may be compensated if s/he reports this to Customer Relations. Doing so will also open a case which will hopefully make it to the desk of the proper manager responsible for this train.

9300170

We bought the tickets 4 months ago. I guess it is possible they were running out of room back then.

I'm just thinking I'm jinxed. We've been on the third train for 94 minutes and haven't seen the attendant either. SW chief #3. We've rung the call attendant light four times. My traveling companion is on oxygen and we were hoping to get dinner delivered tonight. The dining car person came by, but of course she couldn't help us and we now have no reservation .

I wish I was the complaining type instead of the whining on the internet type. Lol

RogerD408

Sounds like you may have to go hunting for a TA to get help. Or you might try Tweeting @Amtrak and ask how to contact an attendant if they don't respond to the button. It may be your call annunciator is not ringing in their room (it they are even near it). I don't know if a call to Amtrak would find its way back to the train conductor. It's their show and he/she may be able to get you some attention.

You may also be able to approach the dining car and ask for food to go.

jobtraklite

It sounds like the easy cost accounting syndrome is starting to kick in. This syndrome causes decision makers to take into consideration costs that are easy to calculate (cutting back on staff) and to ignore costs that are difficult to calculate and take a while to appear.

In this case they apparently failed to consider the cost of employees taking in out on passengers, who will then take it out on Amtrak.

You want to go where?

Thanks for your detailed reply. I learned something new from this.