Traveling Outside of Time
This hand-to-mouth existence, with its attendant bare bones budgeting and yearly belt-tightening measures is undercutting Rosenwald’s efforts and has begun to nibble away at his vision. The train that he made into a national showcase is today not quite as wonderful as it was in the late 90s.
Several things behind the scenes conspired to nudge the Coast Starlight off its millennial peak. The tension between corporate cost-cutters and what Rosenwald calls the “amenities people” had always been intense, and Rosenwald’s innovations worsened it. He argued that amenities – which more than paid for themselves with higher revenues – are what made the experience and that cutting them, even in tough financial times, was short-sighted. But to the cost-cutters, Rosenwald was squandering resources. Managers of other routes, jealous of his success, were grumbling.
Soon Amtrak’s hand-to-mouth existence, with its attendant bare-bones budgeting, undercut Rosenwald’s efforts. In spring 2000 he was offered a chance to supervise passenger services for three of Amtrak’s long-distnace trains out of Chicago. Shortly after, it became hard for anyone to innovate anywhere.