Customer Service Reps Placed in Charleston, Cincinnati

Amtrak has placed customer service representatives in its stations in Charleston, West Virginia, and Cincinnati to assist passengers booking trips and boarding the Chicago-New York Cardinal.

In a service advisory, Amtrak said that the station waiting room in Charleston has been relocated to a trailer due to construction to make the station compliant with ADA standards.

The interim facility will be open for passengers at all train times as will be the station in Cincinnati.

Passengers will be unable to buy tickets with cash but must use a credit card, reloadable credit or debit card, or an Amtrak gift card.

LSL to Go Tri-Weekly on Monday

Amtrak’s westbound Lake Shore Limited arrives in Waterloo, Indiana, on Oct. 8, 2020.

The next round of frequency reductions of Amtrak long-distance trains will be implemented on Oct. 12 when the Lake Shore Limited, Texas Eagle, Coast Starlight and Southwest Chief begin tri-weekly operation.

That will mean that there will be no scheduled Amtrak service in northeast Ohio on Wednesdays.

On Oct. 5 the Capitol Limited, California Zephyr, City of New Orleans and Crescent shifted to operating tri-weekly operation.

The Lake Shore and Capitol Limited will depart New York/Boston and Washington respectively on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, putting them through Cleveland on Thursday, Saturday and Monday.

That is the same schedule the westbound Cardinal follows at Cincinnati.

Nos. 30 and 48/448 will depart Chicago on Monday, Thursday and Saturday, putting them into Cleveland on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday.

However, the eastbound Cardinal departs Chicago on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday and reaches Cincinnati on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.

The Empire Builder and Palmetto will change to tri-weekly operation on Oct. 19.

Once those changes are made only the Auto Train will operate daily among Amtrak’s long-distance trains.

The Silver Meteor began quad-weekly operation in early July. At the same time the Silver Star shifted to tri-weekly operation.

The New York-Miami trains are scheduled to operate on separate days so as to preserve daily service on some portions of their routes.

Although some congressional leaders and President Trump continue to issue public statements expressing support for another round of COVID-19 pandemic emergency aid, differences in opinion among the parties as to the size of the aid and what would be covered have prevented any deals from being reached.

Rail passengers advocates have sought to lobby to include emergency aid for Amtrak in the next round of pandemic aid and Amtrak is seeking additional funding in federal fiscal year 2021.

The fate of those funding requests remains unclear and Amtrak president William Flynn has warned that further employee furloughs and train service cuts are likely if Amtrak doesn’t get additional funding for FY 2021.

The passenger carrier like other federally-funded programs is operating with funding authorized by a continuing resolution that freezes funding levels at FY 2020 levels through Dec. 11.

Amtrak Says Cincinnati Ticket Office Will Reopen

Amtrak acknowledged on Friday that it will reinstate ticket agents in Cincinnati and 14 other stations that lost them in 2018.

The action is in response to a congressional mandate.

Other stations set to regain ticket agents include Marshall, Texas; Texarkana, Arkansas; Topeka, Kansas; Meridian, Mississippi; Tuscaloosa, Alabama; Hammond, Louisiana; Charleston, West Virginia; Fort Madison, Iowa; Ottumwa, Iowa; Garden City, Kansas; La Junta, Colorado; Lamy, New Mexico; Shelby, Montana; and Havre, Montana.

Those stations lost their agent because they averaged less than 40 passenger boardings a day.

Cincinnati was the largest city to lose a ticket agent during that 2018 wave of ticket office closings.

It will take several weeks for the ticket offices to reopen.

Over the next four to six weeks Amtrak will post job openings and follow that up with interviewing and training.

The carrier has said the station jobs will be part-time and pay $20 per hour.

Cincinnati, which is located on the route of the tri-weekly Chicago-New York Cardinal, handled 11,382 passengers in 2017, an average of 36.4 passengers for the 313 days the station was open that year.

Ridership fell to 8,482 boardings in 2018 although some of that might have been due to a construction project being undertaken at Cincinnati Union Terminal.

Amtrak used a temporary station facility that was difficult to find.

In 2016, Cincinnati handled 12,481 passengers, which met the 40 passengers per day threshold. The passenger count in 2015 was 12,503.

In statement issued on Friday, Amtrak said those hired for the 15 stations will be uniformed workers trained to assist passengers with booking and boarding trains, including helping with unaccompanied minors, carry-on baggage and providing information on the status of arriving and departing trains.

The agents will be scheduled to meet customers for all trains.

Applications for the jobs will be available online at jobs.Amtrak.com. However, the carrier said before it hires outside applicants it will initially seek to fill the jobs internally.

The Amtrak statement said the Cincinnati station will not offer the services Amtrak requires to carry minors ages 13-15 traveling on their own.

It attributed that to the time of day when rains arrive in Cincinnati. Nos. 50 and 51 are scheduled to reach Cincinnati in the dead of night between 1 a.m. and 3:30 a.m.

The federal law prompting the return of the agents is contained in the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2020 that became law in December 2019.

It directed Amtrak to provide a ticket agent at every station that had agent position eliminated in fiscal 2018.

Cincinnati May Regain Amtrak Ticket Agent

A story in a Texas newspaper says Amtrak plans to restore ticket agents in Cincinnati and at 14 other stations that lost their agents two years ago.

The Marshall News Messenger said the depot board that operates the Amtrak station in Marshall, Texas, received a phone call from an Amtrak manager on May 18 that said an agent would be restored in Marshall and 14 other stations.

Other stations reported to be set to see ticket agents restored included Texarkana, Arkansas; Topeka, Kansas; Meridian, Mississippi; Tuscaloosa, Alabama; Hammond, Louisiana; Charleston, West Virginia; Fort Madison, Iowa; Ottumwa, Iowa; Garden City, Kansas; La Junta, Colorado; Lamy, New Mexico; Shelby, Montana; and Havre, Montana.

The restoration of agents is expected to take place in the next month to six weeks.

The story said Amtrak plans to internally post the listing of the restored jobs in and then post them externally.

No Amtrak officials were quoted by name in the story and the passenger carrier has not announced any plans to restore ticket agents at any station.

At the time that Amtrak said it planned to close ticket offices at several stations, it framed the move as a cost-cutting measure at locations where ticket sales and passenger boardings were low.

The decision to close the Cincinnati ticket office was criticized for applying a minimum passenger count to a station that does not have daily service.

Amtrak’s Chicago-New York Cardinal stops in Cincinnati on Monday, Thursday and Saturday westbound and on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday eastbound.

Cincinnati was the largest city to lose its ticket agent. Amtrak also has closed ticket offices in Michigan in Flint, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Niles and East Lansing.

More Opposition to Cincinnati Ticket Office Closing

The Hamilton County transportation improvement board has passed a resolution urging that Amtrak keep its ticket office at Cincinnati Union Terminal.

However, the office closed on June 5. Cincinnati is served by Amtrak’s tri-weekly Chicago-Washington Cardinal. It handles about 11,000 passengers a year in Cincinnati.

Amtrak has hired a caretaker to open and close the waiting room and assist passengers with their luggage and boarding.

Because of construction at CUT, Amtrak is using a temporary facility adjacent to the iconic station.

The Cardinal stops in Cincinnati in both directions in the dead of night. The city will be one of the largest Amtrak cities in the county to lack a station ticket office.

Amtrak now has ticket offices in Ohio in Cleveland and Toledo.

Senators Protest Cincinnati Ticket Office Closing

Ohio Senators Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman have written to Amtrak seeking to get it to reconsider its decision to close its ticket office in Cincinnati on June 5.

“We believe that destaffing Union Terminal now would be pennywise and pound-foolish, as the decision to cut services now would likely need to be reversed once the terminal is fully renovated and ridership increases,” the senators wrote in their joint letter.

The letter expressed concern that removing ticket agents would leave passengers, especially the elderly and those with disabilities, without appropriate levels of service for baggage check, ticket purchasing, and general passenger assistance.

Amtrak serves Cincinnati with its tri-weekly Chicago-Washington Cardinal.

Cincinnati Fighting to Keep Ticket Agents

Cincinnati officials are eyeing providing assistance in an effort to keep open the Amtrak ticket office at Union Terminal.

The action came after Amtrak said it would remove its two ticket agents from Cincinnati on June 5.

“The city administration is glad to assist in these efforts should that be the desire of the mayor and City Council,” acting City Manager Patrick Duhaney wrote in a memo to the Cincinnati City Council, which must approve any expenditures.

Duhaney responded after being contacted by passenger rail advocacy groups Friends of the Cardinal and All Aboard Ohio, which asked elected officials and city administrators to help keep the ticket office open.

Cincinnati is served by the tri-weekly Chicago-Washington Cardinal. No. 50 arrives in the Queen City on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday while No. 51 stops on Monday, Thursday and Saturday. Both trains arrive in the middle of the night.

“While there are other stations on the Cardinal route that are unstaffed, Cincinnati is a popular, multi-level station which makes assistance by Amtrak staff for handicapped and elderly passengers very important,” Duhaney said in his memo.

He said that any loss of station services will degrade ridership and jeopardize continued service.

Aside from selling tickets, Amtrak’s two agents in Cincinnati assist with boarding and checked baggage.

Amtrak plans to hire a caretaker to open and close the waiting room before and after trains arrive.

The situation in Cincinnati is complicated by the fact that renovations at Union Terminal have forced Amtrak to temporarily locate to an adjacent, station facility on Kenner Street behind the Terminal.

The renovations at CUT are slated to be finished this fall.

Amtrak has cited an overwhelming preference by passengers to buy tickets online rather than at ticket offices as well as a desire to cut costs as motivating the closings of 15 ticket offices between mid May and late June.

“This is in no way a reflection on them,” Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said in reference to the performance of the agents in Cincinnati.

He said that the agents might be able to transfer to a different position within Amtrak.

After the Cincinnati ticket office closes the nearest Amtrak station with a ticket window will be Indianapolis. Amtrak also has ticket offices in Ohio in Cleveland and Toledo.

Magliari said the caretaker the passenger carrier plans to hire in Cincinnati will do more than open and close the waiting room.

He said that person will also assist passengers and receive training in how to operate the station.

The 15 stations set to close reportedly handle 40 or fewer passengers per day, yet rail passenger advocates content that Cincinnati should not be measured by that criteria due to the limited service and ongoing renovations of Union Terminal.

“Cincinnati is an outlier,” said Derek Bauman, the southwest Ohio vice chair for All Aboard Ohio.

“If you look at the other places where this has happened, [these are] basically smaller burgs,” he said. “I think that if it had not been for Union Terminal being under construction for the past year, that we would probably not have been in a position to lose our two people.”

Bauman expressed optimism that once the construction if completed at Union Terminal that Amtrak ridership in Cincinnati will increase.

“If anything, especially during this time of Union Terminal being rehabbed and the location and security and difficulty for (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliance, we need the assistance of the full-time Amtrak employees,” he said.

Cincinnati, Charleston Amtrak Ticket Offices to Close

Amtrak plans to close its ticket offices in Cincinnati and Charleston, West Virginia, in early June, which will mean that no stations in that state will have Amtrak agents.

Charleston Mayor Danny Jones called the closing a terrible inconvenience for anyone who rides trains.

The mayor said many people are not Internet savvy, and information about trains is not always up to date.

Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said the station waiting room will remain open. Charleston, which closes on June 6, and Cincinnati, which closes on June 5, are served by the tri-weekly Chicago-Washington Cardinal.

Magliari said the closings are being done to save money and because the volume of business done at ticket counters continues to decline. Altogether, Amtrak plans to close 15 ticket offices and eliminate 22 agent jobs over the next few weeks.

“Nine out of 10 tickets across the country are purchased online,” Magliari said.

Amtrak within the past year also closed ticket offices in Huntington and Prince, West Virginia. The carrier is targeting stations serving 40 or fewer passengers a day.

Passengers boarding the Cardinal in Charleston or Cincinnati will have to purchase their ticket online, from a travel agent or aboard the train by paying cash to the conductor.

Closing of the Amtrak ticket office in Cincinnati will mean the only ticket windows still open in Ohio will be in Cleveland and Toledo.

Prospects of Making Amtrak’s Cardinal a Daily Train Discussed at Meeting Held in Cincinnati

Map of Amtrak’s Cardinal showing its station stops. It more stations in West Virginia than in any other state.

Amtrak supporters met in Cincinnati on Friday to push for making the Chicago-New York Cardinal a daily train rather than the tri-weekly operation that it has been since the early 1980s.

Rail passenger advocates and public officials heard Amtrak officials outline the challenges facing daily service as well as how to overcome those.

“We’ve been building toward an event like this for a very long time. If you truly want to make this train better, you’ve got to run it seven days a week,” said Amtrak senior government affairs specialist Charlie Monte Verde. “We’re pitching this as a modern economic engine. We’re not trying to trade on the ghosts of the past.”

A Cincinnati chamber of commerce official echoed those sentiments.

“This is a piece of the puzzle for the chamber’s transportation strategy of connecting people to jobs,” said Jason Kershner, the chamber’s vice president for government relations. “We’ve really put our stake in the ground that transportation is important to business.”

The Cincinnati meeting was billed as a step toward building a coalition of communities along the route of the Cardinal who want better service.

Amtrak officials have said the cost of a daily Cardinal remains unknown. Much of the route uses tracks owned by CSX, which might demand capital improvements before agreeing to host a daily Cardinal.

Monte Verde said once the capital needs are known Amtrak could ask for an appropriation from Congress or attempt to build seven-day-a-week service into its budget somehow. He would not discuss potential costs.

“We think there is the space out there to make this train daily, but the first real step is to work with the railroads to see what their traffic is like,” Monte Verde said.

Amtrak officials said ridership would likely increase with more service because trains become more reliable the more they run.

“A daily Cardinal is a starting point,” Monte Verde said. “From there, you build the kind of awareness you need to have a discussion [about] a Cincinnati-Indianapolis-Chicago short corridor service.”

“It’s a step forward, and it’s going to be a step we build upon,” said Derek Bauman, the southwest Ohio chair of rail advocacy group All Aboard Ohio.

Cincinnati Interests View FRA Midwest Rail Study as Step Toward Daily Chicago Amtrak Service

Cincinnati area rail advocates are hailing a pending Federal Railroad Administration study as a potential step toward daily Amtrak service to Chicago.

The FRA recently said it would conduct a $3 million study of rail passenger service in the Midwest and Southeast. The study will cover Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and 10 others states.

At present, the only Amtrak service in southwestern Ohio is the tri-weekly Chicago-New York Cardinal.

No. 50 to New York passes through Cincinnati on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. No. 51 to Chicago operates in the Queen City on Monday, Thursday and Saturday.

In both instances, the trains are scheduled to arrive at Cincinnati Union Terminal between midnight and 4 a.m.

Derek Bauman is the southwest regional director for All Aboard Ohio, a statewide rail passenger advocacy group.

He and other Cincinnati area residents have spent the past 15 months lobbying for daily rail service to Chicago.

“It’s great news that the Midwest is being afforded these planning dollars,” he said.

Passenger advocates would like to see Cincinnati-Chicago service developed further, including making infrastructure improvements to reduce the current 7-hour running time.

“We haven’t seen anything like this come down the pike in some time — if ever,” Bauman said. “Being a part of this larger effort gives us here locally a great resource to lean on.”

Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune, a long-time advocate for bringing rail transit to the Cincinnati region, also views the the FRA’s plan a “real positive shot in the arm.”

“This funding makes the vision real,” Portune told WCPO-TV. “It tells us there is not only verbal support, but there is now financial support for doing the preliminary environmental work that’s needed for high-speed rail service between Cincinnati and Chicago.”

Portune said that the pending planning process “communicates to the region, ‘Now is the time to get your act together.'”

Beyond a daily connection to Chicago, Portune said daily rail service out of the city center of Cincinnati could lead to other local transit options connecting Downtown to Hamilton’s County’s west side communities.

Bauman said All Aboard Ohio is seeking to development partnerships with local chambers of commerce, educational institutions, and other organizations to draft model plans to supplement the FRA’s study on a local level.

“It’s important for us as a region to stay in tune with what’s going on,” he said.

Rail passenger proponents are also working the city of Oxford and Miami University in a campaign to establish a stop of the Cardinal in Oxford, Ohio.