Wednesday, October 20, 2010

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Saturday's Washington Post carried an article on the problems MARC commuters face, especially those on the Penn Line, which is the Line I take.  From crowded trains to delays and break downs, commuters had little nice to say about the service.  And MARC, in it's usual fashion, blamed Amtrak and CSX for most of the problems.  It seems that Amtrak and CSX operate the tracks on which the MARC trains run and often bump trains in order to get "higher priority" trains (read Amtrak and CSX trains) out on time.  That said, what I found most surprising about the article was the statistic reported that MARC trains are late 30 percent of the time. 

Only 30 percent of the time?  Really?  I've been riding the train for four months now and can say with certainty that more often than not my train is late.  So exactly where that 30 percent number comes from is unclear.  Perhaps it's an average of arrival and departure times over say a five-year period.  But if that means I have to ride the train for five years before I see more on-time arrivals, I'm afraid that MARC will be losing my business.  Unfortunately, though, I think that's exactly what the organization is betting on as there appears to be little effort being made to improve the service.  According to the article, MARC is trying to keep people more informed about breakdowns and delays.  But when you're sitting on a broken down train somewhere in the middle of Maryland, it does little good when your Blackberry blinks with a message saying your train will be late.  And with so few options, there's no chance on catching another train that will get you to work on time.

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