Sleeping car refund due to busing

Hi

I'm currently on th #5 CA and we're notified that there is a derailment west of Salt Lake City. They are getting busses to take us either to Reno or Sacramento. I guess where ever they can get a train to. Will we be refunded for the lost night and food not on the train? They did announce there are no hotel rooms in SLC due to a conference.

Thanks

Brian

After your trip, contact Customer RELATIONS to see what they will do. You should get a refund between the cost of the sleeper and coach, since it was an involuntary downgrade.

Ouch! A bustitution from Salt Lake City to Sacramento?!? Oy, that is pretty darn brutal.

They don't know if they can get a train into Reno with the backed up freight traffic. We're headed to San Fran. Seems silly not to just bus us the whole way. I'm very disappointed not being able to ride the train the rest of the way but I'm not expecting much in the way of scenery between Sacramento and San Fran.

When I rode Zephyr eastbound the California portion was very scenic, IMO, but I don't know if WB is a weird time of day. I hope your bus ride isn't too brutal. (Amtrak usually charters decent buses but it is still hard to snooze in bus seats.)

Amtrak handed us off to Greyhound and mass chaos ensued for a bit. We are being bused to Reno to meet up with the train the rest of the way.

Im going out on 5 tomarrow march 26th from slc to emy.I wonder if the tracks will be open or if they're going to detour us to the feather river Canyon

Here's a great linky I found pertaining to this derailment.

Officials tell News 4 that clean up could take several days, but the track is expected to be open within 24 hours; good news as this particular stretch of the track is very busy. Out of 51 cars, 34 have been confirmed as derailed. The cars were carrying consumer products like TVs, electronics, furniture, and clothing -- there was no concern of hazardous material on board.

Other trains that were delayed by the derailment have been re-routed. There is no timeline yet on when investigation will be complete, but Union Pacific is leading the charge.

Click to expand...

I was in EMY this morning and they had announced #6 was cancelled. No buses were available they said. Many were being rerouted via the SJ to LAX and on to the SWC. I overheard the agent also offer routing through PDX to some passengers. Not sure how they were handling folks going to mid-route destinations.

We'll get to see if UP can respond to this derailment as fast as BSNF did with the one the other day in Colorado.

Tick! Tick! Tick! Tick! Tick! Tick! Tick! Tick! Tick! Tick! Tick! Tick! Tick! Tick! Tick! Tick!

Was thinking access by the cleanup crews would be pretty easy, but then this video from YouTube...

...shows a firetruck stuck in the...uh...whatever kind of dirt's there.

6 (26) departed EMY around 4 hours late...I wonder why they said it was canceled. Perhaps it's going to be bused, and they don't want more passengers on it than they must?

Train2104 said:

6 (26) departed EMY around 4 hours late...I wonder why they said it was canceled. Perhaps it's going to be bused, and they don't want more passengers on it than they must?

Click to expand...

Maybe it's only going as far as Reno to pick up bussed #5 passengers? Just a guess.

In that video, it looks like the firetruck got stuck in the mud.

Effective with 6 (27) and 5 (26) the bus bridge is lifted.

since the derailment was between Winnemucca and Reno, and the eastbound CZ had already left Sacramento at the time of the derailment, it was not possible to reroute that train on 3/25 through the Feather River Canyon of California, bypassing the stops at Colfax, Truckee, and Reno. So those passengers onboard 6(25) were probably bussed from Reno to Salt Lake City (once buses could be found) and 5(24) was held at SLC and turned to go east after the bussed passengers arrived SLC. Westbound passengers on 5(24) were likely bussed to their final destinations west of SLC, or perhaps as far as Reno and put aboard the equipment that had been terminated the day before in Reno, which would have been turned on the wye at Reno to go back to Emeryville, CA.

I don't think Amtrak puts passengers on airplanes any more at Amtrak expense when their trains are blocked from continuing on their intended route. Back in the big floods of '93, Amtrak flew me and my 5 accompanying children from the SWC train annulment point -- Albuquerque -- to our final destination of Minneapolis when the Santa Fe routing to Chicago was closed down at Kansas City due to Missouri River flooding. I believe Amtrak paid more for those plane tickets than our entire circle trip coach train tickets had cost me.