Amtrak Reviews

Pros

Good to work. Straight forward people.

Cons

Some times it gets boring

Advice to Senior Management

Stop being cheap

Pros

-Great team and coworkers who worked there.
-Supers are very friendly and try their best to help.
-Lots of Travel
-Work with trains.

Cons

-Long hours
-Extra Board Status
-Seniority enforced style Roster
-Thick and long training, but very useful
-Long wait time for first pay.

Advice to Senior Management

Figure out ways to prevent students from tanking from Training by failing a test. One possibility might be to switch them to another division or such.

Pros

(1) Some of the people are actually pretty nice to work with.
(2) You can get decent retirement benefits - if you retire with enough years of service.

Cons

(1) You never know what your budget will be year to year. Amtrak is partially funded by the US Government. Politicians are in a cost cutting mood, and Amtrak's budget was severely reduced. Layoffs are underway and will be for most of 2012.
(2) DC politicians love to cut Amtrak's budget, even though Amtrak's share of the pie is miniscule.
(3) This is a government job without government benefits. Many employees are lifers and simply hanging around until retirement.
(4) With a few very recent exceptions, Amtrak technology is 20-30+ years old.
(5) Amtrak has lost money every year of its 40 year history.
(6) Despite the current economic climate, given a choice between unemployment and a job at Amtrak, I cannot stress enough that you remain on unemployment and continue looking.

Advice to Senior Management

(1) You're great at lobbying politicians, but you consistenly fail your employees in so many ways.
(2) The prevailing opinion is that Mr. Boardman has little regard for technology. For a modern day CEO to think this way is truly incomprehensible. Personally, it wouldn't surprise me much to see our financial results every year given the Flintstones environment.

Pros

Great place to work because of the terrific benefits and ability to work with people and travel at the same time.

Cons

One of the downsides is yoou may not be able to have a stable schedule or plan ahead if you are working on the train

Pros

Benefits. Room for Growth. Humble and Hard working people. Supports continued education. Overall a good place to get noticed if you are a hard worker.

Cons

No room for innovation. Government has their watchful eye over every move you make. Safety dictates everything (although not really a bad thing). Many "craft" employees who are union protected and can get away with murder and take advantage of the business. Implementation of programs as "experiments"- SAM PROGRAM.

Pros

Amtrak salary is really good but you have to be willing to accept that management does not really give a crap about their employees.

Cons

The only way to obtain employment with AMTRAK is by who you know. Management promotion decisions are based on if they like you are not. It is definitely not based on your good work ethics. Working at AMTRAK is very political.

Advice to Senior Management

Amtrak leadership is based on who are friends. If you are not well-liked for no apparent reason by management, you will not grow within the company.

Pros

Good benefits and good people.

Cons

Employees are not given tools to be successful or be promoted within the workplace.

Advice to Senior Management

Managers should go into the workplace and work along side their employees - cross training.

Pros

Pay and benefits are above industry standard for a high school educated position. Pass probation and you've got a job pretty much forever, should you want it, or them you. Retirement is good, but you pay into it with a higher payroll tax than non railroad employment.

Cons

Ambition is not a requirement to succeed there. As long as you just do the little you are required to do, and don't try to do more than anybody else to prove yourself, you'll be fine and not be seen as a nonconformer (and suffer from that). Don't "rock the boat" (train) with innovative suggestions that might require change from the status "stagnant" quo. Management makes very little effort to appreciate a subordinates work, and is not interested in anything but the status quo...even though officially the company has never operated at a profit level. Why should it, its taxpayer subsidized.

Advice to Senior Management

Think about becoming competitive in a market industry that doesn't have any competition. It's not that difficult thing to accomplish. But change is one requirement and if profit levels could be achieved, just think of the contribution to the taxpayer in reducing the national debit level. Know your employees, lead your employees to want to offer more, and above all show your employees that they are appreciated for at least doing the job correctl. Know the meaning of teamwork and fit your employees into correct role placement. Finally, get past using the Union as an excuse to not doing something a better way.

Pros

The pay is good, and you can always count on overtime. Most people if they wanted to could 16+ hours of OT a week

Cons

Its like working with a bunch of 3RD graders People are always looking to do less work than they really have to. If you work hard, you are frowned upon. Management doesnt listen to the employees about things that we need to complete jobs. Management only hires their friends, and no matter what degree you have, you will never be good enough. If your in it for the money, good,otherwise.......STAY AWAY!!! I would say that only 5-10% of the employees hired have a degree higher than an associates from a KNOWN and Accredited college.

Advice to Senior Management

Wake up management. Listen to what your employees have to say. If you listened and changed, the place would run a lot smoother

Pros

The pay is the best in town, weekends off, overtime allows great extra earning potential

Cons

some of the "lead" clerks are on a power trip and speak down to you, not a reflection of the company AMTRAK, just some intolerable people here

Advice to Senior Management

Investigate the nepotism