When consistency isn’t a hobgoblin

We’ve all heard the corrupted version of the Ralph Waldo Emerson quotation: Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. I left out the quotation marks because the actual quotation is, “Foolish consistency,” etc.

Nobody could accuse Amtrak of either kind of consistency when it comes to how they beg, borrow, steal and, sometimes, own, the passenger stations they serve.

Take for example the recently reported (Trains Newswire, 9/21/16) situation between Amtrak, the State of New York and the City of Buffalo, New York. The ceiling of the station having collapsed (twice now) due to poor maintenance and a reportedly heavy rainstorm, the city wants to at least refurbish the station. Amtrak wants to “monitor” the project and work with the state, but the state wants nothing to do with it. The city actually seems to be the owner of the station. I don’t know if Amtrak pays rent or if the city simply provides the space in order to accommodate Amtrak service.

Since the inception of Amtrak, it has been accepted that Amtrak would only own those big-city pieces of real estate where substantial terminating trains can be accommodated and where absolutely necessary in the Northeast. Everywhere else, Amtrak relies on local communities, community organizations, city, county, state, or transit agencies to see to it that Amtrak gets a station.

It’s nice, and it gives us all a warm and fuzzy kind of community feeling to know that those who love passenger trains can get out there and serve. On the other side of the coin, it gives me a headache to know that Amtrak, the spender of millions in your tax dollars every year, relies on volunteers to support the very locations that should be considered local and regional profit centers, that provide the very high local profile that Amtrak and railroads in general are otherwise lacking, and that should be supported wholeheartedly as a part of a “real” passenger railroad.

On the subject of those high local profiles, Amtrak should be ready with the advertising and design dollars to create consistency of message wherever an Amtrak train boards or discharges paying passengers. Right now, we have inconsistency. You may or may not find an agent, baggage handler, or even anyone to open up a waiting room—depending not on traffic at that station, but more on how engaged the community has been, or whether there is a retired person willing to take on the responsibility for only the joy of service.

For argument’s sake: Are Amtrak stations part of a business, or are they not? If so, I’d much rather see the consistency you might see in, for example, freight agents, new car dealers, or even chain groceries. If Amtrak stations are just local community centers or senior citizen gathering places—if they are just that—then we may never see the growing Amtrak that most of us who love trains would like to see. They can be consistent, and still be that, but if they are just that, why don’t we just say that all stops are flag stops and cut the losses?

Harsh? Maybe! Railroads in the passenger business worldwide don’t hesitate to take advantage of free space, a free central location to advertise their service, and/or a bit of free labor. But I see the situation as I would see a department store that expected to make a profit on all sales, but refused to erect its own store, instead depending on a community square or flea market for space, and then asking that local people staff the booth for nothing. Or see it perhaps as a carpet cleaning service that expected you to have the carpet machine at your home waiting for them when they arrived, and then clean it after they leave.

For growth, in my opinion, Amtrak needs not just good trains and equipment and dedicated people to run them, but also dedicated agents housed in owned facilities with consistent branding and the promise of advancement and reward for those agents. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe volunteerism is the way to go; but how, I wonder, does that differentiate Amtrak from just another of America’s operating tourist railroads?

(Editor's note: No link to Trains Newswire has been provided, because it is only available online to those who subscribe to Trains.)

©2016 – C. A. Turek – mistertrains@gmail.com

(Charles A. Turek is a writer and novelist based in Albuquerque, NM. After four decades working in areas of the insurance industry related to transportation, he now writes on all aspects of American railroading. Charles is a political conservative but believes in public funding of passenger rail as a part of the federal government’s constitutionally conservative obligation to provide for defense and public infrastructure so that private enterprise may flourish.)