Amtrak CEO Abruptly Resigns

Via CNN:

Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner is stepping down from his position to “to ensure that Amtrak continues to enjoy the full faith and confidence of this administration,” he announced in a statement.

The decision comes as Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk said he believes the US Postal Service and Amtrak need to be privatized.

There's little other information on the circumstances, except that most outlets quote from Elon Musk's recent remarks:

Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology Media & Telecom conference, Musk said it was “kind of embarrassing” that other countries, such as China, have superior passenger rail.

“Amtrak is a sad situation,” Musk said, according to CNN Business, which first reported his remarks.

“It’s like, if you’re coming from another country, please don’t use our national rail. It can leave you with a very bad impression of America,” Musk said.

This is actually quite true, alth0ough I'm not sure where Musk learned this -- it couldn't have been from first-hand experience, because he flies by private jet. But there's a sort of sub-sub genre on YouTube where the presenters get on an Amtrak train and liveblog their journeys. Their economic model is naturally to maximize their viewership, and that means putting Amtrak in the best light possible and making their train rides look like desirable experiences.

The problem is that as often as not, they get on the train, and a bunch of things happen -- the train is stopped in the middle of nowhere, federal agents get on, and the train stays there for several hours as they hunt for a fugitive. The train hits a car at a crossing, and it stays there for several hours pending medical attention, police investigation, and mechanical inspection. The train stops and stays there for several hours, reason never explained.

Any number of things can happen that make the train nine to 12 hours late, with the result that the YouTuber expected to be at his destination at 2 PM, but the train finally pulls in at 2 AM, having long since run out of food in the dining car, toilets jammed up, heat off, and so forth. The YouTuber understands that if this is all people see of Amtrak, they won't want to watch his liveblogged train trips, much less actually ride on an Amtrak train, and he struggles like crazy to make the whole debacle seem like a positive experience.

The video embedded at the top of this post is an example of this dilemma. A charming couple, Allie and Rob, somehow have made a career out of riding long-distance Amtrak trains and going on cruises, and they somehow finance this lifestyle by posting YouTube videos liveblogging their trips and cruises. They have to walk a fine line between accurately portraying the Amtrak experience while making the Amtrak lifestyle seem attractive enough that people will want to watch their videos. They start,

ALLIE: Alright, guys, you know that we travel a lot on Amtrak trains, we have a lot of experience under our belts, and you know, it isn't all rainbows and unicorns, is it?

ROB: No, there are some issues that we run into from time to time, sometimes every time, so we want to break those down for you today so you'll have a better underwstanding of exactly what you'll be facing as you ride on Amtrak.

First, as they put it, "other passengers on the train". This has to do in part with Amtrak's dual business model. In coach, it competes with Greyhound for the lowest-tier travel market, with the complication that while Greyhound doesn't have snack bars that sell liquor on its buses, Amtrak has snack bars that sell liquor on its trains, with inevitable results. On the other hand, the sleeping car market is largely retirees on leisure travel, a whole different group with its own issues.

Trains can stop for hours in the middle of nowhere to put off a drunk or drug-addled passenger, or they can stop for hours in the middle of nowhere to transfer a retiree with a medical emergency to an ambulance. And as Rob and Allie point out, you simply don't know the criminal history of anyone on a train, and that can be a definite issue. In an episode of On Patrol: Live, the Fullerton, CA police department was called to help remove a disruptive passenger from an Amtrak train, but in the following week's show, it turned out that the guy had elected to stay around town after being thrown off the train, and they had to deal with him again.

Another point Rob and Allie raise is that you can't ever count on any train being on time, and they aren't talking about 20 or 30 minutes, they're talking about many hours. They frequently warn Amtrak novices not to book plane tickets that depart the same day as their arrival date on Amtrak, because the train will almost certainly arrive too late for them to make it to the airport in time for their flight -- always book a hotel to stay overnight before flying out, but even that may not be enough.

Another point is that the equipment is old, dirty, and poorly maintained. The sleeping cars are sold for leisure travel where the passengers want to see the scenery, but the windows aren't washed. They make the point that this is where the Greyhound market runs up against the leisure travel market, and the leisure travel market suffers.

Another point is the wild discrepancies among staff attitudes -- there are highly motivated servers and car attendants, while others simply don't want to be there. Somehow, training and supervision are missing. And finally, the food has gotten worse.

I'm with Musk. I have a sense that nobody at Amtrak ever bothers to watch the YouTubers who express their frustrations and often make constructive suggestions. I don't know if Mr Gardner was pressured to leave, or if, as in an episode Rob and Allie recount, he simply quit and got off the train in the middle of Nebraska like a dining car server on one of their trips -- I kinda think it was the latter. Firing the CEO won't help a thing. They need to rethink the whole business and start over, or maybe just concede the market to Greyhound. But Musk sees the problem, and that's a good start.

UPDATE: From Reuters:

A White House official told Reuters Gardner had been asked to step down. An Amtrak spokesperson declined to comment on whether he had been asked to leave.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement that Amtrak needs to address safety concerns at Washington's Union Station.

"It’s time for Amtrak leadership to clean up Union Station," he said. "It’s time to rid our nation's treasures of homelessness and crime. Commuters and travelers need to feel safe in our capital."

It sounds as though nobody in the White House would ride an Amtrak long-distance train, but apparently just looking at Union Station, a few blocks away, told them what they needed to know.