On one of my first long-distance overnight train rides—I forget where we were going—the on-board service crew included a Chief of On Board Services, an Amtrak employee in white shirt and tie, grey slacks and a navy blue blazer. His job was to supervise all the other on board Amtrak employees and assist passengers with…
NOTE: In addition to my indispensable notebooks, for many years I also took a scanner on my rail ventures. The scanner searches for and finds the radio frequencies used by the operating crews (conductors and engineers) when they talk back-and-forth to themselves and to the host railroad dispatchers. The following notes were taken several years…
I got an email the other day from someone—a woman— who was aware that Amtrak management has been giving their conductors a hard time. Of course it was a woman who would notice something like that. Some years ago, I was on the Empire Builder having lunch in the diner when one of the conductors…