Ambus and Missed Connection

Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum

Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Status
Not open for further replies.

RailFanLNK

Conductor
Joined
Mar 24, 2006
Messages
1,928
Location
Lincoln, Nebraska (LNK)
My wife and I were travelling on the Lakeshore Limited 49/22 and was 7 hours late getting into Chicago and missed our connection to the California Zephyr. We were bussed to a former Holiday Inn in Willowbrook, Illinois. We are travelling via sleeper and wondering if we don't get a sleeper from Chicago to Lincoln, if we will have any recourse on getting our points back. We also missed a meal on the LSL because the dining car had not arrived from the New York City LSL. We were given GREASY pizza after sitting 5 hours in Albany, New York. We are to board a bus at 11 a.m. today. Will CUS be a cluster and is there anything we can do via phone to make things go easier with our new reservation? Thanks.
 
Getting points back, I doubt it. Getting a voucher, almost certainly. If in CHI, I do not even bother with using the phone. I walk over to the Customer Relations office. (Right across from the ticket counters.) I did in March, and was rewarded with an upgrade to a bedroom! :)

If you are at home, call Customer Relations by phone.
 
Just glanced at the Amtrak website and today's #5 departing Chicago does have Bedrooms (but not roomettes) available still.

I'm surprised that Customer Service in Union Station didn't make continuing train arrangements for you when they set you up with the hotel. Perhaps this was because you booked with AGR points?

I'd suggest that you call the AGR number and inquire about snagging one of those bedrooms on #5 today (as part of your original request) before you leave the hotel. Maybe they will be able to do that. If they offer coach, ask immediately for a refund of points since you were charged the higher premium for booking sleeping car accommodations.

If, for some reason, AGR is not able to help you with today's train booking, you'll want to sit near the front of that bus back to Union Station and be as near the front of the line for Customer Services as you can get. I'm guessing you know where it is since you probably were there yesterday.

You could ask about some sort of restitution for the absence of a diner as well....... 50/50 on that as greasy pizza does constitute meal service of sorts....... just not necessarily good service. That's a less important issue than trying to get into first class accommodations to your final destination however.

Either way, good luck and let us know how it turned out for you.
 
Dave summed it up correctly Al! Chicago's staff are very experienced @ making alternate arrangements for those that miss connections(it's usually West to East but the LSL got caught up in problems so this time it happened to you! :( )

AGR will not refund Points any longer ,but as was said, Customer Relations will must assuredly give you a Voucher (should be a nice one for all ya'lls hassles). I hope ya'll are able to snag one of the Bedrooms on the Zephyr and have a good trip back to Lincoln! (Are the Huskers still in the League? :giggle: )
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Thanks everyone for the suggestions. We will definitely be knocking down all the old ladies to get on the front of the bus! :p We have enjoyed getting to know all the displaced passengers and has been somewhat of an adventure....but would rather be home.
 
Well, I have been a supporter of Amtrak ( and still will be) but they really dropped the ball on our trip on the LSL. We were delayed by 6 hours on Monday 7/22. We missed our connection to the CZ. Crummy deal but we both (wife) and I could live with it. What we can't live with is what happened on Tuesday 7/23. We were told on Monday when we were getting our meal vouchers that they were only good for 1 meal. The hotel said, "no they are good for two meals". We spent 3 hours getting hotel/meal vouchers at CUS. Standing in line and watching them hand write out 40+ vouchers. We were then loaded into a bus around 6:15 pm but the bus didn't move for 45 minutes even though everyone who was going to the hotel was on the bus. We arrived in Willowbrook IL around 7:45pm. We were finally in our room at 8pm even though we detrained around 4:10pm. We thought we might go to a White Sox game when we knew we weren't going to make our connection but we fiddled away 4 hours of our time getting vouchers, sitting on a non-moving bus and being bussed to a location that the rude hotel clerk couldn't answer my question of, "where is Chicago from here and can we take any transit or cabs to Chicago?" My answer I received was, "I don't know where Chicago is from this hotel!" Really....you couldn't tell me that CHI was a 25 minute drive to the N, S, E or W? I don't have a smartphone so I couldn't "look it up". Then it gets better. We were told by the bus driver that "I will pick all of you up at 11am tomorrow. I will be here as early as 10:45am but if you come down after 11:15am, I will not stop the bus or turn around". Ok, I get it, we will all be on time. No problem...I'm the on time machine! So at 10:30, 40 Amtrak passengers are sitting outside of this hotel because we all have checked out and waiting for Ms. Grumpy Britches Bus Driver to arrive.11:15am...no bus, 11:30am...no bus." So I call Amtrak and a woman who I finally get on the phone sounds panic stricken and says, "there's no bus?" I said, "yep". She told me to call her at noon if there wasn't a bus. I called at noon and was told a bus had been out there. I laughed and said, "40 of us having been sitting outside for 90 minutes...there's been NO bus. Then at 12:30 I call and the CSR got rude with me and told me, "there's a bus on its way". Still no bus at 1:10pm (the CZ and EB depart at 2pm and 2:15pm) so 6 of us grab a cab and pile into it and spend $70 (with tip) to get to CUS at 1:45pm. Unfortunately the other 34 passengers didn't make the train. They were bussed to Naperville since the "11am bus" didn't arrive until "1:30pm" and was too late to get to CUS. In the 7 years I have been riding Amtrak I have only gotten to read about experiences like this instead of getting to experience it. We had families with kids sitting outside a hotel we had checked out of for almost 3 hours. When we pulled out of CUS my heart dropped when I could tell the others hadn't made it. I was elated to so them climb on in Naperville but they all were really pissed off and so were we!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Well, I have been a supporter of Amtrak ( and still will be) but they really dropped the ball on our trip on the LSL. We were delayed by 6 hours on Monday 7/22. We missed our connection to the CZ. Crummy deal but we both (wife) and I could live with it. What we can't live with is what happened on Tuesday 7/23. We were told on Monday when we were getting our meal vouchers that they were only good for 1 meal. The hotel said, "no they are good for two meals". We spent 3 hours getting hotel/meal vouchers at CUS. Standing in line and watching them hand write out 40+ vouchers. We were then loaded into a bus around 6:15 pm but the bus didn't move for 45 minutes even though everyone who was going to the hotel was on the bus. We arrived in Willowbrook IL around 7:45pm. We were finally in our room at 8pm even though we detrained around 4:10pm. We thought we might go to a White Sox game when we knew we weren't going to make our connection but we fiddled away 4 hours of our time getting vouchers, sitting on a non-moving bus and being bussed to a location that the rude hotel clerk couldn't answer my question of, "where is Chicago from here and can we take any transit or cabs to Chicago?" My answer I received was, "I don't know where Chicago is from this hotel!" Really....you couldn't tell me that CHI was a 25 minute drive to the N, S, E or W? I don't have a smartphone so I couldn't "look it up". Then it gets better. We were told by the bus driver that "I will pick all of you up at 11am tomorrow. I will be here as early as 10:45am but if you come down after 11:15am, I will not stop the bus or turn around". Ok, I get it, we will all be on time. No problem...I'm the on time machine! So at 10:30, 40 Amtrak passengers are sitting outside of this hotel because we all have checked out and waiting for Ms. Grumpy Britches Bus Driver to arrive.11:15am...no bus, 11:30am...no bus." So I call Amtrak and a woman who I finally get on the phone sounds panic stricken and says, "there's no bus?" I said, "yep". She told me to call her at noon if there wasn't a bus. I called at noon and was told a bus had been out there. I laughed and said, "40 of us having been sitting outside for 90 minutes...there's been NO bus. Then at 12:30 I call and the CSR got rude with me and told me, "there's a bus on its way". Still no bus at 1:10pm (the CZ and EB depart at 2pm and 2:15pm) so 6 of us grab a cab and pile into it and spend $70 (with tip) to get to CUS at 1:45pm. Unfortunately the other 34 passengers didn't make the train. They were bussed to Naperville since the "11am bus" didn't arrive until "1:30pm" and was too late to get to CUS. In the 7 years I have been riding Amtrak I have only gotten to read about experiences like this instead of getting to experience it. We had families with kids sitting outside a hotel we had checked out of for almost 3 hours. When we pulled out of CUS my heart dropped when I could tell the others hadn't made it. I was elated to so them climb on in Naperville but they all were really pissed off and so were we!
Sheesh! -- sounds totally botched up - definitely. How many ways is hard to count. You deserve and probably get a big voucher for this total blunder by Amtrak, or their subcontractor - whoever.
 
Well, I have been a supporter of Amtrak ( and still will be) but they really dropped the ball on our trip on the LSL.
Al, these are the kind of stories that keep me up at night when Amtrak trips get close. Any time we have a connection it raises my stress level. Makes it hard to enjoy the trip sometimes.

Sorry you had to deal with this!
 
:( Sounds like ya'll got one one of the Bad Old Tme Chicago Agents Al, most times they do a first rate job there dealing with circumstances like this! I know ya'll will call CR and the Voucher should be a Nice one, hope the Bad Amtrak Employees didnt run off potential Repeat Customers with their Incompetence and Attitude! (They didn't transfer Miss Polly to Customer Service did they? :eek: :help: )
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Yeah, Brenda and I went through thing after thing where the ball got dropped and how we were treated. I doubt I will ever take the Lakeshore again. Depending on a "different" section to join you in a different city is like rolling the dice at the roulette table. The hardest thing about this was I was just starting to possibly plan a trip of 20 people next winter/early spring for a Chicago Blackhawks hockey game from LNK to CHI. There are two players on the Hawks right now that have played for the Lincoln Stars. (Brandon Bollig and Jimmy Hayes) I think I could easily sell it out. But I have a hard time taking my friends money and having them have complete confidence in me as a trip leader and then having something like this happen. :(
 
:( Sounds like ya'll got one one of the Bad Old Tme Chicago Agents Al, most times they do a first rate job there dealing with circumstances like this!
For what it's worth, on a recent AGR reward trip, we missed a connection from the Empire Builder to the Illinois Zephyr. While the long trip in a van was no match for Illinois Service business class, I will say that Chicago was very well organized - unfortunately they've had plenty of experience. And the van driver was a good sport loading all the luggage, including our folding bikes, in the van.

The IZ is route is a rarity in that it is straight as an arrow and 79 mph all the way, whereas the fastest highway route zig zags from one side of the state to another.

Customer relations generously subsidized our next trip.
 
Yeah, Brenda and I went through thing after thing where the ball got dropped and how we were treated. I doubt I will ever take the Lakeshore again. Depending on a "different" section to join you in a different city is like rolling the dice at the roulette table. The hardest thing about this was I was just starting to possibly plan a trip of 20 people next winter/early spring for a Chicago Blackhawks hockey game from LNK to CHI. There are two players on the Hawks right now that have played for the Lincoln Stars. (Brandon Bollig and Jimmy Hayes) I think I could easily sell it out. But I have a hard time taking my friends money and having them have complete confidence in me as a trip leader and then having something like this happen. :(
Not sure I would put the Lakeshore Limited on the permanently banned list. It is not a whole lot different than making a connection. Connections cause me a lot of stress cause I have had several that were messed up, but I still do it!

Your Lincoln to Chicago trip should be pretty straightforward since it does not have any connections. You may be late, but at least you cannot miss any connecting trains. And you can plan the trip so that late trains do not cause too many issues. I would just be upfront with everyone and tell them some of the things that could happen when using trains.
 
I hope Amtrak has a liquidated damages clause in their contract with that bus operator and executes it!

They are now paying for all those patrons PLUS the loss of goodwill (which won't show up on a balance sheet). Not acceptable.

If you LD a low bid contractor enough they will go away and not come back, or so a little bird tells me.

Now as to why it took them so long to issue vouchers, I haven't the slightest idea. I hope that that too will go electronic because Amtrak has been past due for a long time. (So happy to see e-ticketing and upgrades coming to POS onboard.)

Well, I have been a supporter of Amtrak ( and still will be) but they really dropped the ball on our trip on the LSL. We were delayed by 6 hours on Monday 7/22. We missed our connection to the CZ. Crummy deal but we both (wife) and I could live with it. What we can't live with is what happened on Tuesday 7/23. We were told on Monday when we were getting our meal vouchers that they were only good for 1 meal. The hotel said, "no they are good for two meals". We spent 3 hours getting hotel/meal vouchers at CUS. Standing in line and watching them hand write out 40+ vouchers. We were then loaded into a bus around 6:15 pm but the bus didn't move for 45 minutes even though everyone who was going to the hotel was on the bus. We arrived in Willowbrook IL around 7:45pm. We were finally in our room at 8pm even though we detrained around 4:10pm. We thought we might go to a White Sox game when we knew we weren't going to make our connection but we fiddled away 4 hours of our time getting vouchers, sitting on a non-moving bus and being bussed to a location that the rude hotel clerk couldn't answer my question of, "where is Chicago from here and can we take any transit or cabs to Chicago?" My answer I received was, "I don't know where Chicago is from this hotel!" Really....you couldn't tell me that CHI was a 25 minute drive to the N, S, E or W? I don't have a smartphone so I couldn't "look it up". Then it gets better. We were told by the bus driver that "I will pick all of you up at 11am tomorrow. I will be here as early as 10:45am but if you come down after 11:15am, I will not stop the bus or turn around". Ok, I get it, we will all be on time. No problem...I'm the on time machine! So at 10:30, 40 Amtrak passengers are sitting outside of this hotel because we all have checked out and waiting for Ms. Grumpy Britches Bus Driver to arrive.11:15am...no bus, 11:30am...no bus." So I call Amtrak and a woman who I finally get on the phone sounds panic stricken and says, "there's no bus?" I said, "yep". She told me to call her at noon if there wasn't a bus. I called at noon and was told a bus had been out there. I laughed and said, "40 of us having been sitting outside for 90 minutes...there's been NO bus. Then at 12:30 I call and the CSR got rude with me and told me, "there's a bus on its way". Still no bus at 1:10pm (the CZ and EB depart at 2pm and 2:15pm) so 6 of us grab a cab and pile into it and spend $70 (with tip) to get to CUS at 1:45pm. Unfortunately the other 34 passengers didn't make the train. They were bussed to Naperville since the "11am bus" didn't arrive until "1:30pm" and was too late to get to CUS. In the 7 years I have been riding Amtrak I have only gotten to read about experiences like this instead of getting to experience it. We had families with kids sitting outside a hotel we had checked out of for almost 3 hours. When we pulled out of CUS my heart dropped when I could tell the others hadn't made it. I was elated to so them climb on in Naperville but they all were really pissed off and so were we!
 
The other possibility with the bus is that one shift did not communicate adequately with the next shift and Amtrak messed up. In which case the bus company will tell Amtrak to pound sand. Once they put in the request late to operate service they can't guarantee that it will run on time.
 
The Lakeshore Limited used to be pretty reliable, though there seem to have been more and more problems lately (mostly caused by CSX). You had very bad luck there, getting a delay in the section coming from NY -- that happens *extremely* rarely. (Delays in the section from Boston are more common, but there's hours of slack in the schedule at Albany for them.)

Interesting that the delay was possibly to a lack of a functioning diner. The single-level diners are over 50 years old. For the next year, you may want to avoid the long-distance trains which go to New York City, as they use these 50-year-old diners. (This is the LSL, Crescent, Cardinal, Silver Meteor, and Silver Star.) Amtrak is supposed to be getting new diners in 2014, and then that shouldn't be an issue any more.

Your worse luck was in Amtrak utterly screwing up the bussing and the hotel. Do get on the horn to Amtrak customer service, and they really should give you vouchers.

It does seem most likely that the bus subcontractor violated its agreement with Amtrak, what with the bus driver saying she would be there at 10:30 AM, and not being there until 1:30 PM. Hopefully Amtrak can recover from the bus company.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top