Amtrak FAQ

Pros

Benefits package is pretty good

Cons

no career advancement for administrative staff unless you look like them.

Advice to Management

Walk the talk and not just talk.

Pros

High pay with no degree, just pass a drug test. Health insurance is great (but they are trying to change that, and prescription coverage sucks).

Cons

Work life balance? Not even close. They pay you so they own you. Plenty of good individuals in management, but horrible system has evolved that does not treat people as people. Doesn't matter if you work six days a week, live in a hotel, and have doctor's notes for all absences, miss 11 days in a year and you are fired. All poor decisions regarding service eventually trickle down to the conductor, who has no time to fix it and is busy focusing on safety, making the actual work more stressful than it should be (at least if you care about the passengers who are suffering due to poor decisions made high above you).

Advice to Management

Let local management run their teams. Teach them, support them, and demand results but let them do it. Recognize as things currently stand it is a worst of all worlds situation. Management/agreement employee separation like military officer/enlisted, but with no mission to tie us together. No recognition from off train leadership (mechanical, stations, etc) that their job is to support the movement of people on board trains. Strong focus on revenue like a for profit corporation. No efficiency due to government funding. Not run like a public service. Performance metrics that only make sense to people who don't ride the trains (measure dollars earned, or passenger-miles. Currently seems to focus on taking lots of people a short distance even on trains that cross the country).

Pros

Good benefits and pension plan for those planning for the future

Cons

- Not a place for growth, very easy to be stagnant there - Not interested in improving processes

Pros

Good benefits good pay great tips

Cons

You’ll never see your family

Pros

Good pay, Decent Benefits great quality of life

Cons

Nothing really I have not had many bad experiences with it yet.