From Chicago to New York

What an unpleasant ride! The staff was overall unfriendly and inefficient. Having being assigned four cars to take care of, the attendant was clearly overworked, and in no mood to provide a friendly service. As soon as passengers boarded the train in Chicago, he passed timetables. “Ladies and gentlemen, all the questions you got can be answered with the information in that pamphlet. Please read this before you ask me any questions. If I can’t answer a question, there’s a number you can call, or a map online you can check,” he instructed. A map online? Maybe he was riding a different train, but Amtrak doesn’t have Internet. As for the number we could call, that would be a wonderful idea if only we had service for more than segments of the trip. After talking to other passengers, I realized I was not the only one having a difficulty swallowing our attendant’s temperament. “This guy shouldn’t be working here,” one lady complained, “He has no understanding of customer service.”

As if the attitude of our attendant weren’t enough, the air conditioning kept the cars at a gelid temperature. Several people approached the staff to ask whether the AC could be turned down a bit. One of the assistant conductor was kind enough to explain that “these cars are so old that they only have an on and off switch. If it’s on, it’s on, and it gets cold, but I’ll see what I can do.” The previous time someone asked for the temperature to be turned down, our attendant just said, “No! There’s nothing I can do,” and continued walking.