Saturday morning, my wife, a friend and I traveled on Amtrak through the nor’easter storm from Philadelphia to New York City. We left late, but arrived at Penn Station almost on-time. We had a great lunch at O’Neals’, then saw Dmitri Shostakovich’s delightful “The Nose,” at the Metropolitan Opera. Then it was back to New York’s Penn Station.
That’s when our great day ended!
Little did we know that 5 hours later, we would be stopped dead on the rails, having traveled only 10 miles, preparing to reverse engines to return to New York’s Penn Station, where we started.
Making the five wasted hours worse, about 100 of us were forced to stand for 4½ hours as there weren’t enough seats for us on the train.
When we arrived at Penn Station, New York, after the opera, we were told our train was delayed 20 minutes, but not why. We did hear two northbound trains were delayed by signal problems.
When we boarded, every seat was already taken, plus loads of passengers were standing in every car. We learned after boarding, Amtrak canceled Northeast Regional #161, and put its passengers on our train, #163. No extra cars were added to accommodate the additional passengers.
The conductor announced we were waiting for permission to proceed due to signal problems. A half hour later, our heavily overloaded train finally headed to Newark, our first stop, 17 minutes away.
We never got there!
After boarding the train I called Amtrak about obtaining a refund since my “reserved seat” didn’t exist. The agent asked if I still had my ticket, and that it was all I needed to get a refund. Once we left the station, the trainman began collecting tickets. In a polite, but firm tone, I initially refused to give him my ticket. I tried to explain what Amtrak’s agent told me, but he only got testy. I asked for a letter or note to prove I had no seat. He said, “No.” He said if I didn’t stop complaining about not having a seat, and didn’t turn over my ticket immediately, (I did get to keep my stub.) he would have me arrested, and taken off the train in Newark.
Jeremy and Rachel Feinstein, traveling to Philadelphia, also had no seats. When Ms. Feinstein and others complained about the lack of seating, and wanted to know how to get a refund, the same trainman told them if they didn’t like being on the train he could call the police, and put them off at Newark. He was repeatedly surly, and rude. While he was opprobrious, other Amtrak employees were sympathetic.
Just a few miles inside New Jersey we stopped. For the next 2 hours, we sputtered toward Newark, hearing repeated announcements about signal problems and needing permission to proceed.
Then, over the next 1½ hours the conductor announced, more than a dozen times, we were only 4 minutes from Newark.
I met some wonderful passengers; a businessman on his way to Baltimore, and many college students returning to school. A very nice young man, headed for Newark, gave up his seat for my wife.
Four hours after leaving New York, Amtrak conceded defeat to the storm. We backed up to New York. All Amtrak passenger service between New York and Trenton, NJ was suspended. Unconscionably to me, passengers headed for Newark would not be let off there, even though we could see the station.
During the return to New York, everyone scrambled to figure out how to get to their destinations. Fortunately, I was able to call Hertz on my smartphone. Reservations found a Manhattan location still open, and reserved a car for me. Minutes later, I received an email from Hertz confirming the reservation.
Others weren’t so lucky. Some of the college students had little money and would have to wait until Amtrak could restore service, to get another train. Some would be forced to stay the night in Penn Station, New York.
It took a half hour to return to Penn Station. When the train doors opened we all rushed out on to the platform. It was a relief to be free from the train. We soon picked up our car from Hertz, and managed to reach home before midnight.
While Amtrak could neither have prevented their signal failures, nor the down power lines, which paralyzed their trains, they made serious and inexcusable mistakes in dealing with their passengers.
• Amtrak needs to be honest with its passengers. They knew about 100 passengers would have no seat, causing some to stand for hours. They should have, at the least, given passengers the option to take another train or refund the fare, or add cars to the train, to have enough seats for everyone.
• Amtrak needs to use better judgment about its ability to quickly repair significant widespread systems and power problems. They knew they were having serious signal problems, from New York to Trenton, (60 miles) even while they continued to send out train after train. Nine trains were stranded like ours. They should have suspended service much earlier, until they could ensure their trains could get through.
• Amtrak needs to communicate better with their passengers. Passengers were rightly frustrated and angry as Amtrak withheld important information about their problems and the trains’ true status.
• Amtrak needs to better train its employees to handle emergencies, and handle their stress. There is no excuse for a trainman to be rude, or surly, or treat passengers with contempt, or threaten them with arrest for being upset when Amtrak doesn’t fulfill their own obligations.
I am a strong supporter of long distance rail travel in the US, and have complemented Amtrak many times including a column about the Auto-Train, and in Thanks Amtrak, for fast thinking and quick action, yet I must call on Amtrak to make major improvements in their communication and treatment of passengers, and their training of employees in passenger relations.
