Actually, this is not at all that strange nor much of a surprise to me. IMHO, the way the lady handled the situation was not in the best judgment on her part. However, she was only doing what she thought was right at the time. And Amtrak is not responsible for transporting undocumented human remains in this case simply because nobody knew about the death but her. It is a sad situation, but we all have to experience death at some point. One just never knows when and exactly where it may occur. I personally don't want to die on the train!
The reason I say this occurance is not that uncommon is simply because I have been on numerous trips where someone died enroute. I will note on one trip this occured and it kinda killed the day a little. Somewhere down below RVR on the NB "Silver Star," an "old farm hand" gentleman came into the dining car to have his breakfast. He had gotten on the train in SAV the night before. I sat him, served him his breakfast, he paid the LSA, and left me a great tip! He was also a very jovial individual, in a great mood, and I enjoyed talking with him towards the end of his meal. He commented that he was absolutely happy he could get his grits with his eggs! I had saved some of the gravy from the night before from the "early bird special country fried steak" that was on the menu at the time to have with my biscuits when I had breakfast. He asked if we had some gravy, too for his biscuit. And instead of telling him "No we don't have it" (because biscuit and gravy was not on the menu), I just warmed up about half of what I saved, and brought it out to him. Man I am glad I did that, now!
Anyway, we were between TRE and NWK, and recieved word we might be sitting in NWK for a long time because someone in the coaches had died, and we would have to wait for a coroner. It was Sunday of course, and it took over two hours to get the coroner to the train at NWK. I found out it was the "old farm hand" I had served breakfast to earlier that morning. He died down between ALX and WAS, and his nephew (who was riding with him) didn't tell anyone because he didn't want to hold the train up and inconvenience the other passengers being we were already three hours down. But the train attendant figured it out after he quietly observed each time he passed by, and the old man didn't get up and go to the bathroom a a very long time! I really hated to hear that it was him, but what do you do? In a perfect world our passengers wouldn't ever die while on their trip!
But anyway, this is not all that uncommon especially with older folks traveling the train. But it is kinda unusual for it to recieve the press it got in this case. All in all the survivors in the affected family will still have to deal with their loss. God bless them. OBS...