Is this unusual?

[hippyman]

Several years ago, my parents and I decided to take a trip onboard amtrak, from FTW, to SAS. This was going to be purely a pleasure trip, as I had done research online and all, however, our trip was anything but pleasurable. To start with, the train was roughly 12 hrs late, if I remember correctly, so we lost a non-refundable room for one night, and my dad got sick from the chicken he ate onboard. Then, when we got to our destination, we found out that they were going to be tearing up the tracks the next day, so we would be sent home on a bus, not a train. I have since been on one other trip, which turned out a little less hectic, however, I'm almost positive that my dad is permanently turned off of rail travel. I am now in the process of planning another rail trip, and I just want to be reassured of one thing, that all rail journeys dont turn out the same way as my first. Please, tell me there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

 

[Shanghai]

I'm sorry to hear of your former experience. We all know of Murphy's Law, so it would be unwise to exclude the possiblity

of problems traveling on Amtrak (or any other mode of travel). I have many thousands of miles on Amtrak and excluding

weather conditions, have never been bussed or have not been significantly late.

I hope you are able to give Amtrak another try and that the trip is an enjoyable one for you.

 

[Guest]

If I knew the train was going to be 12 hours late I would have just wrote it off and drove or done something else. Yeah, Amtrak did a very sorry job, but to let yourself get into that situation when you knew from the get go that things were very off is kind of dumb.

 

[Trogdor]

A few years ago, Amtrak had some very well-documented, and very horrible OTP problems due to poor handling (and general shortage of capacity) by the host (freight) railroads.

Through a combination of the economic downturn and improved relationships with the freight railroads, on-time performance has improved significantly. There's still the chance that some catastrophic event will affect your train, but simple freight train interference (a common cause of massive delays years ago) shouldn't put you more than a few minutes behind schedule.

There's still the possibility of delays or bus substitution due to track work. Track maintenance is an ongoing process, and sometimes it requires shutting the line down. However, if it is known in advance that such a disruption will occur, Amtrak will do what they can to notify all passengers ahead of time.

(And, you can ignore the guest's comment basically blaming you for what happened last time; those comments are uncalled for.)

 

[Railroad Bill]

Wife and I have traveled over 30,000 miles in the last three years on Amtrak and with just a couple of exceptions we had a wonderful time. Service 80% of the time is very good. Most of our attendants both in sleeper and the diner were friendly and did their job well. We too have been fortunate never to have been bustituted and our only very late trip was compensated by Amtrak for our trouble.

It is unfortunate your first trip was such a bummer, but give it another try. Amtrak is an adventure but it is why life is so interesting.

 

[hippyman]

If I knew the train was going to be 12 hours late I would have just wrote it off and drove or done something else. Yeah, Amtrak did a very sorry job, but to let yourself get into that situation when you knew from the get go that things were very off is kind of dumb.

If they woulda let me know the train was gonna be that late, I would have just cancelled, unfortunately, they didnt. I'm just hoping their record has improved since.

 

[the_traveler]

If I knew the train was going to be 12 hours late I would have just wrote it off and drove or done something else. Yeah, Amtrak did a very sorry job, but to let yourself get into that situation when you knew from the get go that things were very off is kind of dumb.

If they woulda let me know the train was gonna be that late, I would have just cancelled, unfortunately, they didnt. I'm just hoping their record has improved since.

Before you left home, you could have called 1-800-USA-RAIL or checked the website. Then you would have known the train was that late. And I hope you wrote and notified Amtrak Customer Relations to notify them of your problems at that time. (They would have probably provided some compensation! )

I hope you give Amtrak another try, and be sure to sign up for Amtrak Guest Rewards (AGR)!

 

[hippyman]

If I knew the train was going to be 12 hours late I would have just wrote it off and drove or done something else. Yeah, Amtrak did a very sorry job, but to let yourself get into that situation when you knew from the get go that things were very off is kind of dumb.

If they woulda let me know the train was gonna be that late, I would have just cancelled, unfortunately, they didnt. I'm just hoping their record has improved since.

Before you left home, you could have called 1-800-USA-RAIL or checked the website. Then you would have known the train was that late. And I hope you wrote and notified Amtrak Customer Relations to notify them of your problems at that time. (They would have probably provided some compensation! )

I hope you give Amtrak another try, and be sure to sign up for Amtrak Guest Rewards (AGR)!

I wasnt aware of this number at the time, as this was my first trip, thankfully, I didnt let it happen again, I got compensated by amtrak, and did try again, with better results. And I'm planning yet another trip later this year .

 

[Guest]

If I knew the train was going to be 12 hours late I would have just wrote it off and drove or done something else. Yeah, Amtrak did a very sorry job, but to let yourself get into that situation when you knew from the get go that things were very off is kind of dumb.

If they woulda let me know the train was gonna be that late, I would have just cancelled, unfortunately, they didnt. I'm just hoping their record has improved since.

Before you left home, you could have called 1-800-USA-RAIL or checked the website. Then you would have known the train was that late. And I hope you wrote and notified Amtrak Customer Relations to notify them of your problems at that time. (They would have probably provided some compensation! )

I hope you give Amtrak another try, and be sure to sign up for Amtrak Guest Rewards (AGR)!

I wasnt aware of this number at the time, as this was my first trip, thankfully, I didnt let it happen again, I got compensated by amtrak, and did try again, with better results. And I'm planning yet another trip later this year .

So you just waited for 12 hours without questioning anything? Even without knowing that you can call and get status updates I would be talking to someone well before 12 hours overdue trying to figure out what was going on. Isn't there a the ticket agent you could talk to?

 

[Trogdor]

What, exactly, is the point of challenging and berating this person over what he "woulda/coulda/shoulda" done five (or however many) years ago? Does it make you feel better about yourself?

The man asked if his experience was typical of today's trains, and it is not. The rest of you need to go to time out.

 

[sunchaser]

Extreme lateness was one of my biggest concerns before we took our first train trip. I just monitored amtrak.com, amtrakdelays.onlineschedulingsoftware.com, & www.trainweb.org/capt/AmtrakMapsForward.html (amtrak status maps).

I also check for service alerts on amtrak.com, too. You can always call Amtrak a few days before/ the day of as well.

I still regularly check these sites for the trains we normally take, even though we aren't taking the train for a while.

 

[hippyman]

If I knew the train was going to be 12 hours late I would have just wrote it off and drove or done something else. Yeah, Amtrak did a very sorry job, but to let yourself get into that situation when you knew from the get go that things were very off is kind of dumb.

If they woulda let me know the train was gonna be that late, I would have just cancelled, unfortunately, they didnt. I'm just hoping their record has improved since.

Before you left home, you could have called 1-800-USA-RAIL or checked the website. Then you would have known the train was that late. And I hope you wrote and notified Amtrak Customer Relations to notify them of your problems at that time. (They would have probably provided some compensation! )

I hope you give Amtrak another try, and be sure to sign up for Amtrak Guest Rewards (AGR)!

I wasnt aware of this number at the time, as this was my first trip, thankfully, I didnt let it happen again, I got compensated by amtrak, and did try again, with better results. And I'm planning yet another trip later this year .

So you just waited for 12 hours without questioning anything? Even without knowing that you can call and get status updates I would be talking to someone well before 12 hours overdue trying to figure out what was going on. Isn't there a the ticket agent you could talk to?

Guess I wasnt clear, the delays didnt happen until after we were on the train. I was just hoping this doesnt happen that often anymore.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Amtrak a laid back way to travel. I left on a round-the-country trip in January during the nastiest winter in recent memory, intending to travel through the depths of the Colorado Rockies and through some of the coldest places in the US, such as Fargo and Minot. I had some aprehensions before I left on my trip, as some will remember.

Well, I left telling my dad that I'd be surprised if I got home on the planed day to get home. And I was right. I was home a day late. I was expecting late trains, and didn't get any. What I did get was several cancelled trains. My planned itnerary, using AGR points for a lot of it, was New York-Washington D.C. in coach, Washington-Chicago in sleeper (Capitol Limited), Chicago-Lincoln in coach (California Zephyr), Lincoln-Sacramento in sleeper (California Zephyr), Sacramento-Portland in sleeper (Coast Starlight), Portland-Columbus Wisconsin in sleeper (Empire Builder), Columbus to Chicago in coach (Empire Builder), and Chicago-New York in sleeper (Lake Shore Limited).

Price was to be 15,000 points for a one-zone Roomette (loophole!) and $815 for coach tickets between Chicago and Lincoln, Columbus-Chicago, sleeper Washington-Chicago and Chicago-New York, for me and my girlfriend.

Just before I got to Chicago the second day, I got a phone call. Damn and Blast, California Zephyr cancelled. Well, the Amtrak Customer Service people quickly and efficienctly grasped that what I wanted was a nice, fun trip. So I got a longer one, via the Southwest Chief and Los Angeles, all in sleeper- no coach. Oh yeah, and a $135 refund.

As we got into Arizona on the 3rd day of the trip, I got another call from Amtrak. The Empire Builder was cancelled into further notice. Damn and Blast again. Oh wait, with Amtrak's excellent customer service and some friendly help, I got re-directed to Seattle from LA and put up in a decent Holiday Inn Express. All on Amtrak's dime. The next day, I was put out on the Empire Builder from Seattle. At Columbus, the SCA got permission from the Conductor to let me stay in my roomette. And, well, he didn't pull my ticket either. That helped me and my girlfriend pay for our national train day fun.

So at the end of the day, what was supposed to be an $815, 7 night, 8 day trip for two with many meals included but not all, mostly in sleeper... turned into a $620 trip, 8 nights, 9 days, with ALL meals included and all in sleeper.

You could see that as the trip from hell. But I'm laid back, it cost me nothing but an extra day of my time, and I made sure I had a blast. So for me, it was the god-sent trip from heaven itself.

 

[TVRM610]

Go GML! I'm not saying it never happens... but I somewhat doubt many airlines have ever treated a customer like this.

It always amazes me when people act like the train is not a good idea since it "often gets delayed" when many amtrak routes have a better OTP than the major airlines... and I've yet to take a long-distance road trip and not run into some severe congestion due to traffic, accidents, or construction (or a combo of all of them!). Delays happen in all forms of transit... and statistacally Amtrak is not better or worse as far as I can tell.

 

[Pastor Dave]

We do 2 - 3 LD trips per year for the last 15 years or so. Only disaster was Feb 2010 Auto-Train that got cancelled both ways due to weather, so we "autoed" both ways. But that being said, that means we've had about 40 very positive trips. Sounds like your first experience was not indicitive of the consistency of travel today.

Dave

 

[alanh]

Regardless of mode of travel, any traveller can encounter the "trip from hell".