I just got home from a trip on the Empire Builder and arrived into Chicago yesterday (June 13th). The day before, I had heard the crew talking about a detour, and our attendant later confirmed that the train would be detouring east of MSP, as previously described here, with busses for connecting passengers. However, that night, the crew started saying that the train might be annulled totally in St. Paul, and the next morning, there was an announcement that everyone would have to detrain and board buses in the MSP because the BNSF detour route was also closed.
So, we arrived a little over an hour late into Midway Station at 8:15, and everyone proceeded to the station, where a long line stretched from a desk on the street side of the station all the way to the platform. One by one, each party went up to that desk, and was assigned to a bus. There were about five buses, but none of the would be serving Columbus or Portage because apparently they couldn't even get buses into those areas. I'm not sure I believe that--maybe Amtrak just didn't feel like taking the time to drive around flood waters to access the stations. Anyway, we finally got to the desk, boarded our assigned bus, and departed MSP by 9am.
A little before 11am, we pulled off I-94 in Osseo, WI, and the driver said that everyone could get off the bus to eat lunch at a Subway joint, and proceeded to tell us that they needed to find a new route because I-94 was closed...wonder why they needed to stop to do that with 2 drivers. Apparently, Amtrak had arranged for free lunch at a Burger King at exit 87, but the drivers were unable to find that exit--they said it didn't exist!
By 11:45, everyone was back on the bus, and we departed, soon exiting the interstate and taking route 21, where we encountered a lot of traffic, probably because of the closure. A few hours later, we finally merged onto I-39, but going NORTH! We finally exited and took another smaller road whose name I can't remember. The drivers seemed confused, and asked to borrow my map. Around 2pm, we pulled into a gas station, but there was absolutely no explanation from the drivers, so a few people got off and the rest stayed on, as everyone quickly lost faith in these drivers, especially as we saw one returning from the store with none other than an atlas! We finally got on highway 41 south in Oshkosh, WI, and reached Milwaukee around 7, where we encountered more traffic. As the Sears Tower came into view and we started crossing under Metra railroad bridges every few minutes, I thought this might be over, but that was not to be. We arrived in CUS at 7:50pm, 3 hours and 55 minutes late. The 2 buses parked right on busy Canal Street, trapping several taxis, who immediately lay on the horns.
We emerged from the bus to find a chaotic mess of luggage and people, with no Amtrak personnel in sight and a bunch of angry drivers and taxis. As the drivers pulled every last bit of checked luggage out of the buses, and dumped it on the sidewalk and some of it in the street, people began searching for their bags, but some of it was not to be found. Several Redcaps came out of the station, and we and several other people asked him about our bags. Some people weren't so friendly--one lady screamed at him that she would sue him for every piece of luggage she didn't have! He wasn't sure exactly what was going on, but soon found out from Amtrak that there were only two buses. He took us down to Passenger Services, where they told us to go to "Lounge G". Apparently, this is a room that is used for passengers who miss connections or have other problems such as hours but is also a wi-fi hotspot. We waited in a long line of people from our train in this messy room, with computers strewn everywhere and only a few agents handling passengers. We decided to come back the next day, and the next morning, we did indeed find our luggage, which had probably come in on a later bus which made stops at the missed stations.
I could comment forever about what Amtrak should have done better, but I understand that this is a difficult situation, and we were the first train to be totally cancelled. This turned out a lot longer than I intended...I'll post a trip report of the full trip later.
