Woman kicked off train gets apology

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Sep 4, 2006

EDITORS NOTE: This is a condensed weekly sampling of transportation writer Erik N. Nelson's Capricious Commuter blog about getting around the Bay Area. Read the rest of the blog at http://www.ibabuzz.com/transportation.

Thursday

AMTRAK may not serve Wooster, Ohio, but Isabel Francis now has a chance to ride the rails -- perhaps out of Cleveland -- with the compliments and the apology of the national rail system.

After being booted from Amtrak's Capitol Corridor in Berkeley and failing to obtain satisfaction from Amtrak, Isabel and her father, David Francis, finally turned to the multi-county Capitol Corridor, which pays Amtrak to operate its railroad service between Auburn and San Jose.

Here is the result of that effort: Corridor's managing director, Eugene Skoropowski, outlined these steps in this excerpt from a letter to Michael Graff of the Bay Rail Alliance:

"I was aware of the incident, but I had no information on the name and contact information of the passenger (this may have been given to Amtrak staff at Emeryville, but our office did not have this information). Amtrak operates our Capitol Corridor trains under a contract, and all employees on the trains are Amtrak employees. While we cannot become directly involved with relations between Amtrak and its employees, we clearly do become involved when an incident involves one of our customers.

"Hence, my attempt to con tact the girl's father, and I will extend an apology to his daughter. I expect that he and his daughter will also hear directly from Amtrak.

"As for the Amtrak employee, yes, he has been returned towork but only after being off for a month without pay, formal disciplinary action is now in his personnel file, he has been 'counseled' on proper conduct in such situations in the future, and I can tell you that he is one very sorry person about this whole incident. It almost cost his family their livelihood, and he knows it. In any future incidents, I think the conductor will use his head and his heart before enforcing what he thinks are the Amtrak rules.

"From my perspective, I think the employee situation has been addressed and taken care of. The apology to the customer has not, and that is what I am trying to take care of now. I think our Capitol Corridor riders know that we are trying to operate a customer-based service. I still read every e-mail that comes into my office, and see that those that require a reply get one. This one is no exception.

"In a business that relies on human talent to operate the service, and provide the major contact with the customers, there will be an occasional 'human failing.' This incident certainly qualifies. The ability to apologize to others for our mistakes, and forgive those who fail when the apology is sincere, is what distinguishes our civilized society from other societies that are not so forgiving. I am attempting to provide a measure of 'healing' to this incident."

Additionally, Skoropowski added in an e-mail to me that an Amtrak representative had also left a message for Isabel's dad offering free Amtrak travel in the Ohio area "as evidence of the sincerity of Amtrak's apology."

That's still not the face-to-face confrontation that the aggrieved young lady had sought, but it is a belated (on Amtrak's part) effort to atone. Is it enough? I await your comments.

A light in the wilderness

Tuesday

I got another call from Ken Gosting, the Voice of Yosemite, about the latest news from Mariposa County, which has, by an accident of geology, become more like the Bay Area.

It all goes back to the rockslide on Route 140, which prompted the U.S. Geological Survey to send state-of-the-art global positioning monitors developed on Mount St. Helens.

Gosting announced that not only had Caltrans built bridges around the sliding slate, it was putting up a stoplight.

It is the first and only traffic light in the county, and, according to Gosting, make Mariposa the last California county to be conquered by civilization as we know it.

"They tried to put in a stoplight in downtown Mariposa about six years ago," Gosting related. "It was at Route 49 and Route 140. Caltrans laid the wiring for them."

But the Mariposans saw red, rising up against the light scheme, not wanting to be the last domino to fall after Alpine County succumbed to the inexorable pressures of urban growth and installed a signal.

Threats were made. The light would be extinguished before it completed a cycle, some vowed. So Caltrans retreated.

This new light will regulate the flow of traffic on the one-lane bridges so oncoming motorists will have to wait until the bridge is clear.

"This one everyone's going for," Gosting told me, because they're frankly tired of Route 140 being closed.

It is sort of sad to know that Mariposa County has to resort to such measures to circumnavigate its natural phenomena. Now that they have a traffic signal, they'll have to set up a board to study its effectiveness. I imagine they'll call it the Mariposa Traffic Committee (MTC), and before you know it, they'll be writing a ballot measure for a quarter-cent sales tax to change the bulbs.