Acela leaves NYP without its passengers

LOL

Well this is not completely true. The Acela Train had come in from Boston as there were passengers on the train heading south toward Philadelphia and Washington, DC. The conductor and attendent in the first class car have a list of the names of the passengers who have tickets for their train and who would be boarding in New York. Didn't they think that it was unusual that no one was on the platform after the train was announced for boarding is something we will have to find out.

Haha,

Your tax dollars..hard at work !

I guess private businesses never make mistakes.

They do, but there are consequences. Someone is usually held accountable.

As a railfan I have tried to cut Amtrak slack since its inception, but I have generally been disappointed with the level of service and their attitude towards their customers.

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They do, but there are consequences. Someone is usually held accountable.

No different in government.

Bwahahahahahahahahaha!!!

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Bwahahahahahahahahaha!!!

What a clever reply!

Just another black mark for our beloved Amtrak!

There are two separate questions to be answered:

• Why were the passengers and the train at different platforms?
• Why did the crew depart without having boarded any passengers at New York City?

And then the third question, since this was obviously human failure and the process for departure also failed -- what will be done to correct the behaviors and change the process that allowed this to happen?

"They literally sent us to the wrong platform, and the conductor took off without any passengers,”

LOL... Yes there will be a indiscrimanent drug scan done on this crew.

As I mentioned before there were passengers on that train who boarded from Boston and points south such as New Haven and Stamford, CT. This is the first time anything like this has happened on the North-East Corridor however it should have never happened since the conductor and the attendant in the first class car both carry a list of the passengers in the first class car as was the case when I boarded an Acela Train recently in Boston. Missing a passenger or two is not unusual but several dozen just in first class should have made the attendant asked the conductor to find out what happened to those passengers expected to board in New York.

I have only one time came in contact with a Amtrak on board employee who needed some customer relations training however he had been working trains since the before Amtrak and was due to retire soon he told me. That was in 1988 on the Desert Wind Train between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles.

Amtrak isn't the only one to do this.  I had a near similar experience with Delta at Reagan Airport several years ago. 

I accidentally became aware of the gate change but, the information screens on the concourse and at the original departure gate were all still showing the wrong information.   As I was boarding the plane, I told the gate agent the screens were still showing the wrong departure gate and that I had never heard a gate change announcement. I suggested she may want to have someone check the gate that was shown on the screens.  Fortunately, she followed my advice as shortly before the boarding door was closed, about 50 people came rushing onto the plane.

Curt

With the net and social media, companies would increase their standards for everybody in the company.  Guess management is living back in the smoke signal era!

There's this thing called a SCHEDULE. Train arrives at X, departs at Y. If you're not on the train when it is scheduled to leave, TFB.

If they delayed trains indefinitely just in case a passenger that needed to be on it wasn't paying attention, got lost, was running late... Can you imagine the gridlock on the rails?

I'm SURE they thought it was strange, but they had to get that train out of there and on the tracks to keep from bollucksing up the whole system.

You work for Amtrak?

Happens all the time with the airlines.  They have a schedule to keep.  It's not the engineers or conductors fault someone screwed up the departure track announcement.  I guess some people think the train should wait for everyone on the list before it departs.  Who knows they might be stuck in traffic.

The issue with this event is that the train didn't pick-up any passengers at NYP...not just one or two.

Amtrak train leaves Penn Station for Washington, D.C., without its passengers.

Interesting story, but I will still keep riding the Amtrak & Via Rail.

There were 85 passengers waiting to board that Acela Train at New York however there were 138 passengers already on that train heading for stations south of New York that boarded from north of New York.

That doesn't matter, as Matt Kirsch posted that the had to depart on time, and "schedule" is all important.

Someone might also inform that news writer that trains don't "take off", they depart. 

I flew on a 737 from Birmingham to Baltimore with one other passenger on the plane.  It was a scheduled flight and in order to keep the plane on schedule for its next stop it left on time.  They told us to sit where ever we wanted to.  Trains are the same.  If the train had waited until the passengers showed up, the next story you would read about is people were late to their destination.  If you feel the need to place blame on someone, blame the Gate person.  That's who screwed up.