The last person to be running Amtrak is an airline executive. They, the airlines executives are despised by their leadership. Just look at the merger of Continental Airlines with UA. UA was a complete train wreck, no pun intended, publicly traded the they participated an employee buyout that was draconian in nature. Bankrupt, sticks, then some group of genius's decided to merge with Continental where new UA management practices and contracts were forced upon a once very happy set of employees who won JD Power awards regularly. The merger proved to be an absolute disaster including Customer Service, which by far, though they do not have a monopoly on it, the worst Customer Service. A far cry when Continental was a great company. These so called Airline CEO's have no idea what customer services is much less how to run a railroad.
One thing that Amtrak does not need is CEO like Anderson. I doubt he has every ridden Amtrak nor is he even close to being prepared to manage Amtrak and deal with freight companies.
Wick is out because for 50 years no investment has been made in improving the infrastructure at Penn Station. Just read the Bergen Record today on the plans to re route passengers coming into Penn Station, they can even agree on simple passenger numbers being affected. Path Trains will be a wreck, NJ Transit wreck, the answer to commuters is take vacation, take a bus, work from home and oh yeah, plan to be in NYC by 7 am because from 8 ~ 10 am and 4pm to 8 pm will be chaotic.
Let's award the job to the airlines instead of a proven RR Executive. Maybe he can squeeze a few bucks from Congress. I expect fare increases, baggage fees, higher food prices and more system wide delays.
I guess Anderson won't be able to use the excuse that the delay to Newark is because of weather, hear that all the time, sunny, no wind, beautiful day - but weather delays are the standard answer.
Does he even know where the NE Corridor is?
What a disgrace.
