“But Officer, This Isn’t My Stop!”

I was reading recently about a passenger on a cross-country flight who became upset for some reason and caused such a disruption that the plane made an unscheduled landing to get rid of the guy.

All of which brought to mind what happens when something similar occurs on an Amtrak train. In my various travels, I’ve witnessed incidents like that a couple of times and there’s something very satisfying about seeing some jerk put off the train.

Amtrak has a very strict no-smoking policy on all its trains, but on one of my train trips someone had been sneaking some puffs in the lavatories of one of the sleeping cars. One of the other passengers mentioned it to the conductor who made an immediate announcement over the train’s PA system: “Someone has been violating the no smoking policy on this train,” he said, “and if it happens again, the very next stop will be yours.” It didn’t.

On another trip aboard the since-discontinued Desert Wind, a young man treated himself to quite a few too many drinks in the lounge car and became loud and belligerent when the attendant refused to continue serving him. The conductor told this clown to return to his seat and sit there quietly, but the kid returned to the lounge car after a few minutes, insisting he be sold more booze.

The conductor was notified and never said another word to him, but about 20 minutes later, the train slowed to a stop where a highway crossed the tracks. A Nevada State Police car was parked there waiting for us and two minutes later the drunk was ensconced in the back seat of the squad car on his was to the jail in Caliente, Nevada. Hasta la vista, baby!

I asked the conductor about the incident later. “No big deal,” he said. “If someone is causing a problem, we give them a warning. Then, if they don’t shape up, we have the dispatcher notify the police in the next town up ahead. The first clue a trouble-maker gets is when he looks up and sees two big cops standing there.”

I should add here that these “ejections” don’t happen very often. Most of the time, a stern warning from a conductor and the prospect of getting put off the train, is literally a sobering experience.