Same old news

A year later and our famously neglected rail system faces the same old problem: funding!! And the same president rides the same train as in previous budget proposals. At a time when the people are turning more and more to public transportation he rejects funding for this in addition to funding for Medicare, Medicaid, education, protection of the environment and transportation infrastructure. I'd pose the question: Why? But the answer lies in his dedication to throwing more money at the mess in Iraq. Where once we had a trillion dollar surplus we are now so far in debt, our children's children will be trying to catch up.

I'm not going to continue to rant and rave about his views regarding domestic priorities versus a single-minded approach to a futile war in a part of the world that, if we don't take care, will be pleading to become a state or a territory of the US.

Instead I must describe a recent Amtrak trip which would have made a first-time rider never want to ride a train again!

Planning a Christmas holiday to the west coast from the eastern seaboard involved leaving my home town at nearly two in the morning heading north to Washington, DC. With 80 other passengers, some lugging blankets and pillows to make their coach seats a bit more comfortable for the small children in tow, we were glad to get into our roomettes and fall asleep to the gentle rock and rumble of the train. Not too late in Washington we had plenty of time to find some lunch before our afternoon departure on the Capitol for Chicago. Comfortably settled in our roomettes, I read a while, looked out at the scenery and about 7:30 enjoyed dinner in the diner. The following day went smoothly until we arrived at Elkhart, IN shortly after breakfast when we were informed of a freight derailment some 60 miles west. We were not alone in our inability to proceed, the North Shore Ltd from New York was right behind us. Since neither of us could move, an initial proposal was to join the two trains and work their way around the derailment. However, it soon appeared this would not be possible and all passengers were to be transported to Chicago by bus, a two hour ride. If only it had been as simple as that sounds. Not only the people had to be moved, so did all the luggage, checked bags from the baggage car as well as one's personal things. Everything was unloaded onto the concrete station platform, snow covered and icy. For younger people this was not much of a problem but older folks had to struggle with finding their bags and then struggling to get them to the bus and load them by themselves. Once I would not have had a problem with doing this but not now!

At least the bus was comfortable and warm. The arrival in Chicago's Union Station was hectic, to say the least. No one was on hand to help with getting one's bags or to guide us to our connecting train. The departure area was a madhouse with lines of people stretching from one end of the lower level to the other. An Amtrak employee finally appeared to help those of us trying to find the platform for the Empire Builder and eventually we were settled in our compartment, ready to relax and enjoy our run to Seattle. Our relaxation was relatively short-lived. While enjoying our dinner a conductor came around looking for passengers in another sleeper, the one next to ours. It had a technical problem and was going to be disconnected from the train and put on a siding. Accommodations for the passengers in that car would have to be relocated and we were caught in that relocation. We had opted for the accessible bedroom but someone from the other car needed the accessibility more than we (when I saw her size I understood how she could not use a roomette or the standard wc). We were asked if we would accept a roomette for the one night (she was departing at a stop the next day) and I could not in all good conscience say no.

So now we were not only behind the schedule because of our late arrival in Chicago we lost another hour or more as the defective car was removed from the train. This affected the Seattle arrival so badly that the following morning, about seven o'clock, we learned that we would be bused from Spokane to Seattle, a four-hour bus ride. With about an hour to dress and have breakfast (brought to us by our car attendant) we braced ourselves for a repeat of the Elkhart procedure. All luggage off-loaded to the platform, find your own bag, drag it to the bus, load it on by yourself and then find a seat on the bus. And this bus was not as comfortable as the other, nor were we able to get seats together--younger, sprier passengers got theirs by the windows. There was a brief stop at a MacDonald's so we could get some lunch (on our own dime) and arrival in Seattle was some four or four and a half hours later.

After a Merry Christmas visit with relatives we thought our return journey via the Empire Builder, the Capitol and the Star would surely be trouble-free. But such was not the case. Our departure from Seattle was delayed from a scheduled 4:45 departure to actual boarding at 7:30pm. Once on board we learned what was probably the reason for the delayed arrival, thus departure, there was no diner on board and would not be all the way to Chicago. We saw the troubled diner on a siding when we went through Havre, Montana. To give credit when due, we were not all that late getting into Chicago but just late enough for the Capitol to have already departed. Faced with an option of Amtrak putting us up in Chicago overnight or taking the Lake Shore (departure at 10pm for New York) we opted to take the Lake Shore, stay overnight in New York and catch the Star as it began its run south from New York.

Many would blame Amtrak for all the disruptions but it doesn't take a wizard to see that the problems were not Amtrak's. The freight derailment would have been just that, a derailment on its own track if Amtrak had a dedicated rail of its own. The problems with defective equipment would not have happened if funding had allowed Amtrak to properly maintain its equipment and/or acquire new cars as needed.

Does this change my mind about travel in the US? Not a bit. I'd like more help when it comes to having to transfer to a bus but I really do prefer having a relatively comfortable, warm, place to sit or put my head down to what happens all too frequently to air transport.