Letter to the Editor - Fight losing Amtrak ticket office with a vengeance

Dear Editor:

I am writing from Vermont but subscribe to a news service carrying Amtrak news, therefore have read the article in your paper about the pending ticlet office closure. I am also a member of the National Association of Railroad Passengers, or NARP. I do appreciate the train service and I have been a passenger aboard the Empire Builder plus other long-distance trains.

The reason I am writing is to just recommend that perhaps your mayor or other city officials connect with Amtrak and strongly argue about what they are doing. Perhaps appropriate members of your state legislature, your two U.S. senators and representative will get strongly involved as well.

The words that you have recorded from Marc Magliari are just public talk to make everything sound as though they are justified. You should not take it “lying down.” Many NARP members as well as the main organization itself are also against this mentality. What has Amtrak done to increase ridership in your area? How much advertising?

We fear that the new and current Amtrak CEO, Mr. Richard Anderson, is making some very poor decisions. He is not an experienced railroader and prior to this job has probably taken little interest in our greatest trains like the Empire Builder. He seems to be all too wound up with the “Northeast Corridor.” 

I would recommend fighting this with a vengeance. Mr. Anderson has probably not vacationed nor travelled for business on the Builder. What would one think if a cook didn’t eat his own cooking? Here Mr. Anderson, who is now seeking all kinds of ways to eliminate costs apparently does not believe in his own product, this service. 

I will close with a comment written by Mr. Jim Loomis, who writes his own blog and has been a board member of NARP: “And so top management at Amtrak continues to make cuts that diminish the experience for sleeping car passengers without listening to their front-line employees or the passengers themselves or the passenger rail advocates. The Amtrak brass is convinced if they keep cutting, the red ink will disappear. The question is, who’s going to pay top dollar to ride on what’s left when they’re through cutting?”

Thank you,

Bill Scott

East Hardwick, Vermont