HOUSTON — Train passengers Amos and Ruth Weaver derailed the Amtrak station’s plans to close at 6 p.m. Monday, the Houston Chronicle reports.
Faced with having to sit outside for three hours until the Sunset Limited arrived in the station about 9:08 p.m., the Weavers decided they wouldn’t be Houston’s first victims of Amtrak cutbacks.
“Not in my wildest dreams did I expect them to lock us out,” said Amos Weaver, 70, who is taking a two-week trip across the country. “All I know, this is no way to run a railroad. If Amtrak wants to build ridership, this is not the right way to do it.”
Because of personnel cutbacks and having no backup plan for a vacationing employee this week, the station was scheduled to lock up at 6 p.m. But the Weavers of Pennsylvania, who arrived early after turning in their rental car, decided to complain.
The station attendant, Dave Garland, called his supervisor, who then had a recently laid-off employee come in to work the night shift.
Mary Jean Mata, who filled in for the shift, said she did not know what would happen on Wednesday, when the next night train is scheduled to arrive without a station attendant.
Amtrak officials were unavailable for comment late Monday. However, there is a sign posted on the station’s door notifying customers of the unexpected changes this week.
About two weeks ago, the staff at the city’s Amtrak station was reduced from seven employees to two as part of a nationwide effort to soften years of operating losses.
At that time, officials promised that the station would always be open and staffed.
Houston is served directly by only one Amtrak train, the Sunset Limited, which makes three runs a week in each direction between Los Angeles and Orlando, Fla.
Ticket clerk Dave Garland said earlier Monday that 41 people were ticketed to board and 20 or so to get off the westbound train about 9 p.m. Monday.
“It’s not an unusual situation,” said Amtrak spokesman Kevin Johnson in Chicago. “More than half of our stations across our network are unstaffed.”
In some cases, Johnson said, they have a “caretaker” open and close the station as a convenience to waiting customers.
Station attendants are there to sell tickets, answer questions, and announce train arrival and departure times. But when stations are unmanned, a lot of that becomes a guessing game for passengers.
Tight budgets and years of operating losses forced Amtrak to cut personnel, hours and services at stations around the country.
Staff at the Amtrak station in Dallas was cut from eight to three, in Fort Worth from 10 to three, in San Antonio from eight to four, in Austin from four to two, and in El Paso from four to one.
To reduce Amtrak costs around the nation, Johnson said, about 200 workers are being cut at 85 stations in 36 states.
Tim Geeslin of Fort Worth, a regular Amtrak rider and president of the Texas Association of Rail Passengers, which advocates rail travel, called Amtrak’s cutbacks short-term thinking.
“In a big-city station like Houston, that doesn’t make any sense,” Geeslin said.
Geeslin said he has learned to plan for unmanned stations over the years. But he said that if passengers aren’t prepared, they are in trouble.
“You assume it’s like going to the airport, you know what to expect and you expect someone to be there,” Geeslin said. “You don’t want to be dumped out in middle of night.”
In Houston, the eastbound train leaves the station at 10:28 a.m. on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays, and the westbound train leaves at 9:30 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Cuts in routes are not expected until Oct. 1 and will depend largely on congressional budget appropriations. Johnson said Amtrak is subsidized by the federal government.