Montclaire posted:Unfortunate, but I do understand where they are coming from. Amtrak is funded by tax dollars and they do have a responsibility to use them wisely. There is no reason why a national trucking company can't fill the gap, and use it as a marketing tool.
Just my two cents but I am all for private companies becoming human again and acting like they are part of the community. We can't expect the government to fix everything for us and we all have to (should) work together to make things like Toys for Tots happen. Not a political statement, just an observation.
Does anyone expect a private company to operate as if they are part of the community? In this day and age, I doubt very much if a private operator took over Amtrak they would be any more sympathetic towards toys for tots or rail charters for things like the 765, the idea of community involvement is dead unless companies think they can leverage it to their advantage, for PR reasons or whatnot, basically if it doesn't go to the bottom line, it won't fly, and that has been the operating pattern for a long time. I don't know if Amtrak did this to improve service (I mean really, the Toys for Tots trains really, really caused a disruption in Amtrak service?), I doubt it, this to me smells more like someone being told to run Amtrak as a business and be ruthless about it, the same way corporations are generally run.
