Amtrak – Riding the Rails in America Today

Everyone, at some point in his or her life, hears a calling, or feels a moral obligation to do something to try to make living on our small green planet just a little nicer. Some people become soldiers to protect their nation. Some become fire fighters or police officers to protect and serve the community. And some people, like me, sit around and write opinionated articles about all sorts of off the wall shit, in an attempt to get said shit out of our heads and a bit more into the collective mainstream of public consumption. Whatever your personal moral crusade may be, it’s often difficult to carry it through to the end. But every once in awhile something will come up that makes it all worth the effort. Every so often, doing your duty is a tremendous personal joy. Along these lines, I present my “tribute” to the men and women of Amtrak. It is their dedication to professionalism, customer service, and personal hygiene that inspired me to write this honorarium. As of August 2002, I have taken Amtrak trains on at least 20 different occasions, going everywhere from dead shows in CA, to important contract gigs in Boston, NYC, and Buffalo. I feel that I now possess the level of personal experience in rail travel (a la Amtrak) required to write this piece. If you plan on taking any trains in the near future, this is a must read article (more like a survival guide really). Enjoy…

Pre-Travel Leg Work

As anyone who has ever taken any form of transportation should already know, the only way to get rock bottom discount fares is to go directly to the website of the airline, railway, or bus company. They always have “Website prices” and bargain basement fares available. All of the so-called “discount travel” sites are complete bullshit. The fares are not that cheap, and all you can ever find is last minute business class seats to somewhere you that you didn’t even know you wanted to go to. Super! 2 days and 3 fuckin nights in lovely Newark, NJ, what a bargain! Moving along to Amtrak’s website… It’s horrible. To get to the area that advertises the discount fares, you need to be an infinitely patient and understanding person, and be ready to retry several times before actually getting there. Amtrak’s site has an automated trip planning and scheduling thingy that will also crash many times before allowing you book your trip. I wanted to go on a Friday, had to settle for Thursday. I wanted to return on a Wednesday, but could only get the discount if I came back on Tuesday. Oh well, anything to get a deal I suppose. Ok, now my plans are made, my reservations booked, and I’m ready to train my way across the northeast, or so I thought.

The Big Day

The only way to accurately describe the pain-in-the-ass, mother fuckingly stressful day of departure is to roll through it as it actually happened. I again stress, if you’re taking an Amtrak anywhere, you need to read this and get yourself ready for it…

3:50am – Alarm goes off, Woody wakes up, train scheduled to arrive at station at 6:45am, station is approximately 40 minutes away, looking good for time…I won’t be late.

4:00am – Call Amtrak’s automated train info line and discover that my train is already 2-3 hours behind schedule, but may make up some time on the run from Ohio to Buffalo, NY… goody.

4:10am – Pack five days worth of shit into a single backpack because luggage always gets lost when it’s checked in at Amtrak. Always remember to bring only what I can carry on. Call Amtrak again, train is somehow now 3-4 hours behind. Christ, my ride to the station is leaving at 5:10am… I’m going to be waiting for quite a fuckin little while once I get there. Better bring a newspaper.

4:30am – Call Amtrak again, train made up 2 hours (somehow??!!) and is scheduled to be at the station only an hour behind schedule – extra goody! Eat a bowl of Trix and make sure I remembered to pack everything.

5:00am – Call Amtrak again, Train is now back to 3-4 hours behind schedule… FUCK!

5:50am – Arrive at Train station only to find out that my train arrived an hour early, not 3 hours late, and instead of waiting until the scheduled time to depart, it left early without me.

6:00am – Grab alternate train that meets up with my train in Albany… good thing I have only carry on luggage or it definitely would have ended up somewhere in Pennsylvania I’m guessing.

12:45pm – How the fuck does it take 7 fuckin hours to take a train somewhere that I can drive to in 4 hours max???!!! Meet up with my train, now running about 5 hours behind schedule, and depart for Boston.

1:15pm – Order several Budweisers from lounge car, at 5 bucks a pop, there won’t be any silly drunkenness in my foreseeable future. Train is only going 40mph because there’s a speed restriction when the outside temperature goes above 90⁰. ***Little known train fact: If you’re on a train that’s running late, all other trains on the tracks have priority over your train. In other words, you do a lot of waiting for other trains to clear through, which makes you later and later as the day goes on.

3:00pm – what the fuck is that smell? It’s like a combination of sweat, pot, BO, and cheese. Of course! It’s the train people!! You know, the ones who got on in Seattle, and haven’t showered in 4 or 5 days! They’re always fucked in the head, talkative, full of bullshit tall tales, and in need of a couple bucks for a coffee, which they’ll pay you back for by mail if you give them your address. Time to leave the lounge car, anyway, there’s no smoking all the way from Albany to Boston, and I spent my last $5 on a bud, so there’s no point in hanging out here anymore.

3:15pm – zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

4:45pm – Should be in Worcester, but this sign says Springfield!!?? How fuckin long have I been on this train?? The temperature is below 90 now, why are we still going slow??!! Ughnn… Cottonmouth, bad! Sneak a cigarette in the bathroom, get a soda from the lounge car, and return to seat… Why am I using a debit card to pay for a coke?!?

6:20pm – zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

7:45pm – Arrive at my station approximately 2.5 hours late, not 5 as previously reported, super. That’s the closest to “on time” it’s ever been. Dismount train with backpack in hand. Fuck, where’s my debit card??!! Lost of course, left in some card eating ATM by yours truly. I’m a fuckin moron. I hate trains.

The return trip is pretty much the same thing in reverse, but since it follows so soon after the first trip, it sucks all that much more. And now, some compiled highlights of my Amtraking adventures. These are all true, though maybe a bit fuzzy, augmented by beer and sleep deprivation:

- Train was once over 10 hours late going from Boston to Buffalo due to a derailment of a freight train on the tracks ahead. No mention was made of the delay time to the passengers during the 1.5-hour layover in Albany. The train was rerouted through the NY Southern Tier and back up to Buffalo, adding untold hours to the trip. They ran out of food and drinks sometime after leaving Albany. The passengers went for hours with nothing to drink but water from the bathroom faucets. Train was scheduled to arrive at about 1am, but it didn’t pull into the station until after 11am, ten or more hours late. This actually fuckin happened… sad but true.

- On one trip from Buffalo back to Boston, the train, instead of pulling up to the station in Albany and laying over for 1 to 2 hours like it always does, this time it parked about ¼ mile from the station, and the lay over was only going to be about 10 or 15 minutes. Now I enjoy the layover in Albany because directly across the street from the station is a sub shop and a bar… are you getting the picture? Beer at normal prices and food that doesn’t taste like it’s been sitting too close to the train people for a little too long! I look forward to the Albany layover. As I dismounted the train, I asked a conductor why we were so far from the station, and why we were only staying for 10 or 15 minutes. Here’s that conversation, exactly as it happened…

Woody – “Excuse me. Why are we so far from the station? And why are we only stopping for 15 minutes?”

Asshole – “Look buddy, if you have a problem I can just throw off the train.”

Woody – “Excuse me? I asked you two simple questions. I expect two simple answers, is that a problem?”

Asshole – “I don’t need this. The layover is 15 minutes, that’s it.”

Woody – “But we’re a bizzilion miles from the station. 15 minutes isn’t enough time to even walk there and back. Why are we so far from the station? Is there a problem with the train?”

Asshole – “I can throw you off this train, and then what’ll you do?”

Woody – “First I’d rent a car, and then I’d be in Boston well ahead of you and this fuckin train. Let me get this straight… Because of Amtrak and ultimately because of you I’m running somewhere around 5 hours late, and now you’re giving ME shit? How about you pretend like I’m the paying customer and you’re the courteous Amtrak employee, and start this conversation over. ”

Asshole – “I don’t need this shit.”

Woody – “What is your fuckin name?” I want to make sure I got it right when I call Amtrak to complain and get my free round trip ticket to anywhere for putting up with a total fuckin disrespectful, unprofessional, ignorant asshole like you.”

Asshole – Just tell them it was the conductor of train 449.” (Walks away)

Woody – (calling after him) “I said I want your name fucknut.”

Asshole – No response

This also actually happened, no shit. Hey, and if by some twist of fate the knob nibbler who gave me all that shit ever finds himself reading this article…. The next time you give me shit old man, I’ll rap you in teeth so fuckin hard that my fist will come out the back of your head. You’re fuckin lucky that I felt charitable and lazy that day you worthless dreg.

Ok, back to the article, my testosterone levels have returned to normal. That guy really pissed me off. To finish off this epic tale of stress, odors, assholes, and missed time tables collectively known as an Amtrak train ride, I’d like to add the following bits of information for the discriminating traveler. Bear in mind that, as always, this is just my opinion and should never be confused with liable or slander:

· Last minute plane tickets can be purchased cheaply.

· Driving from the Great Lakes region to Boston only takes about 7 hours by car.

· Amtrak sucks.

· Amtrak has a virtual monopoly on train travel, ergo, trains suck.

· The only thing worse that taking Amtrak is taking a bus. Don’t even get me going on that one.

Peace,

-Woody