Hello all, I have been lurking here for years but never had reason to post, but now a reason is present. You see, I was one of those detrained by Amtrak in Guadalupe, and the other passenger was my father.
Unfortunately, GenePoon and some others have made some assumptions that I take grave offense to and I'd like to share my perception of the incident and the behavior of the Amtrak personnel involved.
We were aware at 630AM Sunday, when we arrived at the Sacramento train station, that we wouldn't be going over the loop in Tehachapi. This was not a result of a misunderstanding on our part, on Friday night the station agent in Sacramento made it clear that the train passing through Sacramento on Sunday would be detouring, and he understood clearly the only reason the tickets were being purchased were for that detour. If the station agent had read the bulletin properly, we would not have even gone down the coast route, but taking Amtrak is always an adventure and it was clear this trip would be no different. I know that we should have known better than to trust information from an Amtrak employee and that was clearly a mistake on our part. Next time we will consult our magic 8 ball.
I want to stress that we took this information in stride, and contrary to GenePoon's report, we were not at all upset that we would not be going over the loop. I ended up calling a friend that lived in Alameda and he met us at Jack London Square where we spent a precious few minutes catching up before we had to reboard the train. Every dark cloud has its silver lining.
Yes, we did have scanners. I was not aware they were forbidden items on a train and obviously the instruction manual that came with them was out of date since it didn't say we were supposed to use an earpiece and be discrete. They were not playing through loudspeakers, unless you call the 1/2 watt speaker inside the scanner a loudspeaker. We kept the volume down so that it would not disturb the other passengers, and this fact is one of the few nuggets of reliable information in GenePoon's report, as he noted himself that no other passengers complained about it and in fact a few were interested in the detector reports varying from 60 to 64 axles.
The trouble south of San Luis Obispo occurred because of Amtrak's apparent policy of kicking everyone out of the Parlour Car during the winetasting (I say "apparent" because this information is not disclosed by Amtrak anywhere prior to the winetasting, in fact we did not find out about this until the attendant told [not asked, as would be professionally appropriate] my father to leave the car when he declined to participate in the winetasting). You see, my father takes medication and cannot drink alcohol, and even before he had the prescription had not had a drink in 10 years. Additionally, our sleeper room was on the inland side of the train, so we would only have a view of the rolling hills of dry grass and would not be able to see the coast.
When the attendant again ordered my father to leave, we asked to speak to the conductor. Instead, a "customer service manager", or some similar title, named Elizabeth Peterson, walked over, and asked my father "if he intended to pay the fee for winetasting." We asked her if she was the conductor, and she said that she was in charge of the train. My father then advised her of his prescription, and then she told him he had to leave the car and return to his room since he was not participating in the winetasting.
I asked her where this was disclosed (especially considering we were just about to make it to the coast and the sun would soon be setting) and she advised me there was no such disclosure, and she conceded that Amtrak makes no effort to inform sleeper car passengers of this policy prior to the winetasting itself. She stated the reason for the policy was so as to allow for "paying" customers to be in the Parlour car during the winetasting. I then pointed out that there were at least 14 seats open in the Parlour car at the tables, and that it made no sense to enforce the policy when that many seats were open. She could only suggest that a few people may be making their way to the Parlour car from the coach cars.
We then reiterated our request to speak to the conductor, given that there were so many open seats, and she left. A moment later the assistant conductor showed up, we saw him talking to Elizabeth over at the bar before he came over to talk us, though. He walked up and immediately accused my father of being belligerent and told my father if he did not go back to his car that he'd be kicked off the train. At this point, we explained the trouble the ticketing agent in Sacramento caused, and the assistant conductor then said that my father could indeed stay in the Parlour car and would not be able to have any wine or crackers. Obviously he was not going to have wine, so this seemed to us to be a reasonable solution. However, the assistant conductor then said that "if you cause any more trouble we'll remove you from the train." At this time the head conductor finally showed up, but she did not do or say anything.
My father then asked the assistant conductor if he would continue the discussion in the sleeping car next to us, not to debate the most recent threat, but to notify him that three other people in the car sitting next to us did not pay for the winetasting, and that they got no flack from the Amtrak personnel at all. Plus, one of those three people was not even supposed to be in the sleeping car, he waited for the sleeping car attendant to walk away and boarded the train in San Luis Obispo. The assistant conductor then said there would be no more discussion on the matter.
My dad then stood up and said, "Look, this is a sensitive matter, can we just go to the next car to talk about this?" The assistant conductor then yelped "SIT DOWN IN YOUR SEAT", in a tone that I have not heard since I was in kindergarten. My father took offense to this, and insisted that the conductor treat him in a respectful manner. It is important to note that at no time did either of us raise our voices. When my father did not immediately sit down, the assistant conductor quickly stated that my father was going to be removed from the train at the next stop.
Then the assistant conductor got on his radio, and told the engineer to stop in Guadalupe. This was approximately 5 minutes North of Guadalupe. Both conductors then walked away, and stopped at the bar in the Parlour car where the dining room personnel were gathered along with Elizabeth and the car attendant. I followed them and began to speak with them regarding the incident, trying to understand their position and hopefully to try to convince them this was all a misunderstanding.
It was at this point that the assistant conductor noticed several passengers looking at us, and asked that we take the discussion into the dining car (next car down). I found this to be of particular concern, given his immediate refusal to do the same thing moments prior when speaking with my father. Elizabeth joined us, but the head conductor did not.
After a minute of discussion, it was clear that the assistant conductor would not budge from his position, and he stated we were done discussing the matter and walked away. I then went back to our sleeper car (three cars up from the Parlour car) and checked our room. All of our luggage was gone (including my laptop). I went downstairs and found my father and the conductor, along with the sleeping car attendant. At this point we were just pulling into Guadalupe. The conductor removed the luggage and my father exited the train. She then informed me that I was being removed from the train as well. I asked her why, as I paid my fee for the winetasting and only tried to mediate the situation and had kept my calm the entire time. She then said that if I didn't get off the train that she would have me arrested. Seeing as I had no choice, I got off the train.
They then closed the door and the train pulled away. I then called 911, as Guadalupe is an unfamiliar, appeared to be sparsely populated, and we had no method of transportation. 911 dispatch said they'd send a unit, and we moved our luggage to the front of the shed that passes for a station there (there are no indoor facilities). Then we realized my father was missing one of suitcases. In her haste collecting our belongings, the conductor missed one of our bags.
A couple moments later two police cars from Guadalupe PD arrived. We spoke with the officers, (for those of you that don't know, Guadalupe is an extremely small town, and the officers told us has no taxi cabs, no buses, and no rental car agencies.) One of the officers the Sergeant, seemed to be pretty sympathetic to our plight and she offered us a ride to the next town over, Santa Maria, which has an airport with an indoor terminal rental car agencies.
So we got to Santa Maria, and got a one-way rental car back to Los Angeles, and figured we'd be able to catch the train in Santa Barbara or Oxnard to retrieve the piece of missing luggage. We called the 800 number to see if the suitcase could be put in a secure location (it had some valuable electronics in it) but the nice lady we spoke with said she could only file a lost luggage claim. So she took our information as we set off down highway 101.
Based on the timetable it seemed like we would not catch the train in Santa Barbara (indeed it was sitting in the station just as we passed by it on the 101) but we knew at this point we'd catch the train in Oxnard. So off we went, and we got to Oxnard about 20 minutes before the train. We asked the station agent if he could call the conductor to hold the train, just in case it was going to be a quick stop, so that we could retrieve the suitcase right there and eliminate the possibility of anything bad happening when the train was turned in Los Angeles. He said he could not make any calls, but a few people would be getting on the train, so they would have to stop for at least a few minutes.
The train then arrived, and the conductor was the first one off the train from the crew car right behind the baggage car. She seemed very surprised to see us. My father explained the situation, and she said she'd let him get the suitcase as soon as she got the baggage car open, and we did manage to get the bag there in Oxnard. We then drove back and returned the rental car at Burbank airport and caught a ride home.
Thus ends the story of our adventure.
And yet, it doesn't. When I got home, I took my laptop out to charge it, and found that my 1TB external hard drive was missing. I am not sure whether the conductor overlooked it when she gathered our belongings, or if she stole it, but nevertheless it's gone, along with the data saved on it.
The conduct of the Amtrak personnel was unacceptable to say the least, and possibly reckless to say the worst. The temperature in Guadalupe was about 60 degrees when we were detrained, and we had no jackets, and the sun was setting. Tonight in Guadalupe it's going to get down to 40 degrees. Thank goodness the police came to help us out or else we might have had to spend the night outdoors. Considering the proximity of Santa Maria to Guadalupe, I perceive the crew's decision was spiteful, vindictive, and a classic example of poor decision-making.
And I still do not understand why I was told to leave the train.
If Amtrak has no room for being reasonable for "first class" passengers not participating in winetasting because they are on medication, I have to imagine the same would go for someone who cannot consume alcohol because of their religion, such as Jehovah's Witnesses or Latter Day Saints. And what about children? Are they removed from the car when alcohol is served?
I am honestly hopeful that someone in Customer Relations will see that the entire cause of this mess was a stupid policy, and that we'll receive a personal apology for what I feel was gross misconduct on the part of the train crew.
When seemingly mundane policies are not flexible, they tend to backfire. Here is a shining example.
In retrospect, we probably should have just paid these folks their $5 and thrown the wine out and let them carry on thinking they rule the world. Sorry for the length of the post, I have a hard time dealing with the shameful and hurtful comments that have been propagated by those who have taken GenePoon's original report as gospel.
