Happening Now
Remembering Phoebe Snow
February 21, 2025
Brian Rosenwald (also known as Phoebe Snow), retired Amtrak VP, beloved innovator in passenger rail customer service, and the executive credited with introducing the Pacific Parlour Car with its special dining menu and wine-tastings to the Coast Starlight, died Wednesday at 72 following a brief illness.
“Brian... oversaw the rebuilding of vintage cars and created an exclusive club for sleeper car occupants,” the family wrote in an obituary published this week. “Brian scheduled on-board wine tastings and entertainment and gave a controversial and characteristically visionary 100% service guarantee. It was all a monster hit. Brian was proud to be an excellent boss who believed in his employees. He retired as a Vice President at Amtrak in 2013.”
Following retirement, Brian, known later as Phoebe, “embarked upon a new labor of love," the family said, "becoming co-owner of Taste Food & Wine on Jarvis, where she conducted richly informative and entertaining tastings.”
Griff Hubbard, a colleague and video-blogger who was with the Texas Eagle Marketing & Performance Organization revenue-managing the Texas Eagle, did an extensive interview and conversation with Phoebe about Amtrak, trains, customer-service, and Brian’s story. You can find that on YouTube by clicking here.
"The National Association of Railroad Passengers has done yeoman work over the years and in fact if it weren’t for NARP, I'd be surprised if Amtrak were still in possession of as a large a network as they have. So they've done good work, they're very good on the factual case."
Robert Gallamore, Director of Transportation Center at Northwestern University and former Federal Railroad Administration official, Director of Transportation Center at Northwestern University
November 17, 2005, on The Leonard Lopate Show (with guest host Chris Bannon), WNYC New York.
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