Arrive Magazine - November-December, 2006

ABOARD

Farther and Faster

W _a
r elcome aboard. I hope you enjoy your travels with us today. I’ve just come board, too, as the new President and CEO of Amtrak. But I’m not new to ailroading—in fact, one of my first jobs as a teenager was working on a track crew back in my hometown of Lorain, Ohio. More recently, I was an executive with the Union Pacific Railroad in the Midwest, where I learned a lot about customer service.

While the UP moves freight and Amtrak moves passengers, the fundamentals of consistently providing high-quality customer service are the same. For me, it is all about having a

vision of the kind of service you should be offering and delivering it day in and day out. Our business must be focused on earning your business.

I accepted the job of running Amtrak
because I believe in this railroad and in the
future of passenger rail service. In upcom-
ing issues of this magazine, I will have more
to say about where we’re heading and how
we’re going to get there. In the meantime,
I want to use this opportunity right now to
alert you to some of the changes we made
on Oct. 30 to bet-

ter serve you in the I accepted the job of ^Northeast._running _Amtrak We are pleased because I believe in ^to ^add ^anotherAcela Express this railroad and in the _roundtrip _be-future of passenger tween New York rail service. ^and ^Washing-ton, bringing us to 15 weekday

roundtrips. Acela now departs on the hour from Washington every weekday from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. Southbound from New York, Acelas now leave every hour from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thanks to track improvements, we’re making them a little faster too, with 2 hours, 45 minutes the new standard trip time between New York and Washington. Service between Boston and New York has also increased. We now offer nine weekday Acela Express roundtrips between Boston and New York, with eight of these serving Boston/Washington. Weekday service out of Boston now starts at 6: 15 a.m., with most departures tuned sharply to a quarter-past-the-hour schedule.

Forgive me for bragging about our recently expanded service and faster trains, but we’re proud of what we’ve done. In future issues, I look forward to talking about some other things we are doing to earn your business.