Does anyone know what happened to yesterday's Lake Shore Limited #448 - why it arrived into Boston ten hours(!) late?
I ask because this is apparently why today's #449, with my wife aboard, departed Boston four hours late; and has her arriving Syracuse, and being fetched from 45 minutes away by son-in-law (and new father) at 1:30 in the morning (instead of 9:45 pm).
Whatever the reason for the delay, Amtrak's handling of it was, as all too often, inexcusably incompetent. If yesterday's late arrival dictated today's late departure (because "the staff need their rest," wife was told), this was already evident early this morning, well before wife left home by bus. And yet, we received no such notice; and so wife got to spend six hours in South Station's food court amidst periodic reassurances, inaccurate if not mendacious, that it would be another half-hour.
And then, when she presented the business class ticket purchased three days ago, she was informed that there is no business class on this train! What gives?
I enjoy train travel enough to put up (barely) with Amtrak's pervasive incompetence, but I worry that I won't be able to get wife to join me much longer; and that Amtrak is competing with our political leadership to create the greater national embarrassment. And to think that when Franz Kafka noted that "there's always hope,....but not for us," Amtrak didn't yet exist.
[Yes, of course, after venting here, I'll take this up with Amtrak Customer Relations.]
I ask because this is apparently why today's #449, with my wife aboard, departed Boston four hours late; and has her arriving Syracuse, and being fetched from 45 minutes away by son-in-law (and new father) at 1:30 in the morning (instead of 9:45 pm).
Whatever the reason for the delay, Amtrak's handling of it was, as all too often, inexcusably incompetent. If yesterday's late arrival dictated today's late departure (because "the staff need their rest," wife was told), this was already evident early this morning, well before wife left home by bus. And yet, we received no such notice; and so wife got to spend six hours in South Station's food court amidst periodic reassurances, inaccurate if not mendacious, that it would be another half-hour.
And then, when she presented the business class ticket purchased three days ago, she was informed that there is no business class on this train! What gives?
I enjoy train travel enough to put up (barely) with Amtrak's pervasive incompetence, but I worry that I won't be able to get wife to join me much longer; and that Amtrak is competing with our political leadership to create the greater national embarrassment. And to think that when Franz Kafka noted that "there's always hope,....but not for us," Amtrak didn't yet exist.
[Yes, of course, after venting here, I'll take this up with Amtrak Customer Relations.]