Trains Can Be Late. But So What?
When you travel by train, stuff happens. On one of my trips, a dining car steward on VIA Rail’s trans-continental train put it rather succinctly: “If you work for the railroad,” he said, ”you gotta be flexible.”
Amtrak’s long-distance trains often run late. That’s because they operate on track owned by the freight railroads, and there’s often a lot of congestion from all the freight traffic.
Passenger trains generally fare better in bad weather than the airlines do, but heavy rains can undermine the track or mudslides can cover them. And switches can freeze up in very cold weather.
But trains can also be delayed for reasons that are unusual, even bizarre. I was on the Coast Starlight a number of years ago and we were held up for forty minutes in Oakland, California, where the tracks run right down the middle of the street through Jack London Square. The reason for that delay? Someone had parked their can on the tracks, locked it, and gone shopping.
On an overnight train to Montreal years ago, we were delayed for an hour while the conductors wrestled an old mattress out from under the locomotive. It and a worn-out refrigerator had been put on the tracks by vandals.
I’ve been on two trains that hit cars at grade crossings—one in Savannah, Georgia, a dozen or so years ago; the other just last February a few minutes after the Lake Shore Limited had departed from Erie, Pennsylvania. Each one resulted in a 3-plus hour delay while authorities conducted their investigations. The first guy tried to beat the train across a crossing in a battered VW van; the second of those was a suicide.
Veteran rail travelers know delays can happen and they go with the flow. Years ago, I was having lunch in the dining car on the Empire Builder with a man from England when the conductor stopped by our table with news that a freight train had broken down up ahead of us.
“I’m sorry to tell you this,” he said, “but we’ll probably be four hours late getting into Seattle”.
The Brit absolutely beamed. “Jolly good!” he exclaimed. “We really are getting our money’s worth, aren’t we!”
Perhaps if the food & beverage service, and convenience of timetable, was up to par, I would not mind delays in schedules. However, when leaving Chicago at 930pm and not to arrive in NYC until 630pm the next day, an extra hour is quite painful, especially when no lounge on #48 after ALB. Or, outbound on #49, with no lounge; and you can only buy drinks from the diner, but not sit in it, even though it was empty at 5pm. Although lounge from BOS section attached at ALB on run to CHI, never met an attendant willing to offer to go thru 8+ cars to get a couple of drinks.
Compare that to Santa Fe’s “Super Chief,” my regular train, when the bar (Pleasure Dome) was opened just past Joliet into Chicago. Once, I even work-up so late into Chicago, but the steward had the fires re-started for a quick burger/fries as we came into Joliet!
I was on train 54, the northbound Vermonter, yesterday from Hartford to Essex Jct. We were 45 minutes late leaving Hartford, and almost an hour late into Essex Jct., but I didn’t care. I was just happy to be on the train, despite the fact that it was late and completely full.
I know that feeling!