I'm in a training class for an Assistant Conductor and so far it's been a rough ride financially. The training class is the largest Amtrak has ever had. 105 students. They are trying to recover from the pandemic so understandable but ill prepared. Normally a classroom consists of roughly 15 to 30 students in the past (hear say). This would allow for better one on one with the students. But it's been nothing but chaos and miscommunication for 8 weeks of training. They had to use a makeshift training center instead of the actual Amtrak training center which is what we were told we would be training in during our hiring process. To make matters worse, we are allotted a per diem of $25 a day which you don't even get until your first paycheck after 4 weeks struggling to survive. Mind you, breakfast is included at the hotel as one plus. Half the class was given a hotel with kitchenettes. The other half, my half, was not. In which case $25 would suffice if I had the ability to cook my own food. But because the class is so big they had to overflow us into a different hotel without any type of long-term amenities. Financially it's been incredibly difficult to survive off of $25 a day for a meal when the average meal here in Wilmington Delaware costs $15 to $25 for just one meal. Another issue is I'm already getting charged expensive Union dues and was told they wouldn't charge us until we were protected by them once we make it through our 90 day probationary period which doesn't start until after 9 weeks of training. I've had to use my credit card with an extremely high interest just to survive on my own to make it through this training and it's been super difficult. Word to the Wise, make sure you have lots of money saved before you take this job.
