Christmas Eve, 1988: Left San Bernardino, CA on the Southwest Chief, traveling Coach. Although assigned to a Chicago-bound coach, I moved to the old Santa Fe Highliner Transition coach, since those seats reclined further. Too bad they only use a few of them nowadays. Lounge attendant called in sick, and everyone else working the train said "so-and-so said he'd never work another Christmas again". As a result, lounge service as sporadic; the crew did their best to cover but were simply short-handed.
Christmas Day, mere minutes after departing Albuquerque, the train hit a cow at speed (train was at speed, not the cow); this severely damaged the huge plow pilot on the lead F40. Turned out we really needed that plow later. It soon started snowing, and for the next 18 hours, it got steadily worse, and not better. At Raton, we waited for a Westbound to pass, and when we got permission to continue, mere minutes later, the adjacent track looked as if no train had ever passed through. Conductor said we were losing time, not because of the snow, but because of the damage to the plow-- Santa Fe rules.
An Army family-- Corporal, his wife, two elementary kids and a three week old baby-- headed home from Hawaii to Northern Kansas befriended me; I read half my kid story manuscripts to the older two. Always pity the captive audience! Parents were worried because the wife's folks had to travel 150 miles to get them. They asked the conductor about a motel in Dodge City, and the conductor had the engineer radio a request in; the Santa Fe set up an inexpensive room for them, and called the parents to cancel the drive. An obstacle came up where the motel demanded a credit card to hold the room. What Army Corporal with a wife and three kids is going to have a credit card? So, I quietly cornered the conductor and gave him my card number. After`all, nobody's going anywhere in THAT weather. I heard the info go over the radio and I was momentarily terrified that my card info was being broadcast to the world, until I realized they had some kind of a code. Later, family unloaded in Dodge in the middle of the night, and someone from Amtrak (Station agent?) met the family with a huge quilt to bundle the baby in, just in case, and made sure they got the first cab in line.
Side note: Although Amtrak runs big city to big city, it's Small Town Mid-America that fills Amtrak's seats and pays its bills, and everyone needs to remember that.
At Kansas City, we were three hours late. It took some work to move the three F40's around to get a good plow at the point since the bad plow interfered with coupling. Here, I left a little late on the Ann Rutledge for Jefferson City. We made up some time and I got there only slightly late.
Something I've noticed: When the chips are down and things get really, really bad, the train people somehow make things work, and get things done.
Even though my Credit card wasn't needed, I still heard from the family every Christmas for about ten years. One of the kids overheard me talk with the conductor; she found my address on one of my manuscripts. Sneaky kid.