Sprite,

Thanks for your trip report, it’s always nice to hear about Amtrak trips good and bad ones. I’ve got a few quick comments just to clarify a few points and not necessarily to excuse the bad things that you encountered.

First, those tentative arrival times are computer generated based upon various factors, including what’s called padding. For example in your case at Dallas, Amtrak allows 35 minutes for the train to go from Dallas to Fort Worth. However, going the other way Fort Worth to Dallas they allow 1 hour for the same trip. I’ve no doubt that the computer was counting on that extra 25 minutes to get the train closer to an on time arrival. I can only assume that yet another delay was encountered and that extra time was eaten up by that delay.

That said, a good rule is, if the train is running 1 hour or less late, expect that it could arrive on time. More than 1 hour, expect that at best it will make up one hour.

Next the sticky stairs are something that your attendant should have and could have fixed. However, the mess in your bedrooms in particular the bathrooms, was the failure of the cleaning crew in San Antonio. That was not her fault, she is only responsible for making up the beds and ensuring that clean linen is on them. On the other hand, she does have some means to try and clean them if you point out the problem to her. But don’t blame her for their condition, that wasn’t her failure.

Her heavy sigh upon asking for the connecting door to be opened was uncalled for, and she should have had the key on her ring. I’ve got to wonder why she didn’t.

Turning to dinner times, if you had boarded before 3:30 – 4:00 PM, then you would have gotten your pick of times by and large. However since you were boarding later, what happens is the dining car steward who walks through the sleeping cars to take reservations from the passengers, then asks the attendant how many people they have boarding further down the line during the diner hour.

The Steward then gives the attendant reservation slips for those passengers, using whatever times he/she has open at that point, while paying attention to the expected boarding times of those passengers. Once that’s done, the Steward then visits the coaches for anyone there who would like to make a reservation. Coach passengers usually get the worst times. So had your attendant not secured the 6:46 seating for you, you might well have been stuck with a 9:00 PM seating.

Turning to breakfast, again she shouldn’t have needed convincing, that was just laziness on her part. She knows that it is her job to do that if asked. I will admit that it does place an extra burden on her especially with a large family and many attendants use the time while people are at breakfast to make up the room for seating and get the linens changed for arrival into the last station.

As for the differences between employee attitudes, based upon my observations, age seems to have no bearing on things. I’ve seen good and bad at all ages, it all comes down to the person themselves IMHO.