STATION REFUSED TO CHECK LUGGAGE

[Godwin]

this thread sure is getting long.

 

[George Harris]

Has anyone noticed that the woman has not come back to say anything? This was a simple drive by posting.

I agree with ALC Rail Writer completely on Trama. Being inconvenienced, even missing your train is NOT Trauma. It does not matter whether you are male female, 5 25, 55, 95 or something in between what happened does not rise anywhere close to trauma. If you think it does, you have some serious mental dysfunction.

We have given this Drama Queen 9 pages of satisfaction. It is time for it to stop, and in fact deleting the thread seems like a good idea to me.

 

[sunchaser]

Has anyone noticed that the woman has not come back to say anything? This was a simple drive by posting.
I agree with ALC Rail Rider completely on Trama. Being inconvenienced, even missing your train is NOT Trauma. It does not matter whether you are male female, 5 25, 55, 95 or something in between what happened does not rise anywhere close to trauma. If you think it does, you have some serious mental dysfunction.

We have given this Drama Queen 9 pages of satisfaction. It is time for it to stop, and in fact deleting the thread seems like a good idea to me.

I was noticing that this thread is really getting long as well.

I do not think we are giving her any satisfaction, however. She may have been a drive by. Doesn't matter to me. I do think that is important that we discuss helping each other out, and the best way to do that. She got her voucher. I get the feeling she expected much more, and that's why she got on here to complain. But I do think this thread probably needs to be put to bed.

 

[Alice]

We have given this Drama Queen 9 pages of satisfaction. It is time for it to stop, and in fact deleting the thread seems like a good idea to me.

I'm against deleting this thread. The discussion has covered a lot of territory, most of it interesting. At this point, the intentions and comportment of the OP are irrelevant to the value of the posts.

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

Has anyone noticed that the woman has not come back to say anything? This was a simple drive by posting.
I agree with ALC Rail Rider completely on Trama. Being inconvenienced, even missing your train is NOT Trauma. It does not matter whether you are male female, 5 25, 55, 95 or something in between what happened does not rise anywhere close to trauma. If you think it does, you have some serious mental dysfunction.

We have given this Drama Queen 9 pages of satisfaction. It is time for it to stop, and in fact deleting the thread seems like a good idea to me.

I think by further discussion we are only not only giving her more time on the stage, but encouraging others to come here and do the same thing which is disruptive to our community. I will move once again to have this topic locked-- In PM.

EDIT::

Its ALC Rail Writer... I write poems about trains, though, both are flattering. I thank you George.

 

[Ryan]

We have given this Drama Queen 9 pages of satisfaction. It is time for it to stop, and in fact deleting the thread seems like a good idea to me.

I'm against deleting this thread. The discussion has covered a lot of territory, most of it interesting. At this point, the intentions and comportment of the OP are irrelevant to the value of the posts.

I heartily agree. It isn't about Ruth, it's about us.

(and I'm only on page 5)

 

[George Harris]

Its ALC Rail Writer... I write poems about trains, though, both are flattering. I thank you Bill.

Oops. I will go back and edit my original.

George

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

Its ALC Rail Writer... I write poems about trains, though, both are flattering. I thank you Bill.

Oops. I will go back and edit my original.

George

Heh, no worries my friend George... I'll do the same.

 

[tp49]

We have given this Drama Queen 9 pages of satisfaction. It is time for it to stop, and in fact deleting the thread seems like a good idea to me.

I'm against deleting this thread. The discussion has covered a lot of territory, most of it interesting. At this point, the intentions and comportment of the OP are irrelevant to the value of the posts.

Agreed. Besides, if the moderators or admin wanted to kill the thread they already would have. Don't like it, don't read it.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

gender is just a letter

Not everyone considers their gender to be straightforwardly male or female, in which case a single letter isn't sufficient to express it.

 

[mercedeslove]

ALC for the win in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

I have NO (NONE, ZERO, NADA) sympathy for somebody who knowingly creates their own disfunction. Your mess is your mess, not mine. Somebody (many people) at that station were subjected to an unfortunate circumstance which should have passed. Instead we have a rant here by a person who decided to make her own situation even worse and then complain about it-- then people on this board have the nerve to make the situation even worse than she made it by offering her sympathy and genuine compassion for her "trauma".
Getting shot is a trauma.

Getting raped is a trauma.

the OP needs to be on failblog.org

and for what its worth don't remove this post. Not only is there useful information in it, but it's highly amusing. I love wank on the internets!

 

[mercedeslove]

Has anyone noticed that the woman has not come back to say anything? This was a simple drive by posting.
I agree with ALC Rail Writer completely on Trama. Being inconvenienced, even missing your train is NOT Trauma. It does not matter whether you are male female, 5 25, 55, 95 or something in between what happened does not rise anywhere close to trauma. If you think it does, you have some serious mental dysfunction.

We have given this Drama Queen 9 pages of satisfaction. It is time for it to stop, and in fact deleting the thread seems like a good idea to me.

Probably because no one will carry the computer downstairs to the basement for her. Heavens for bid she should have to do it. It might cause her omgz trauma.

oh internets how I love you!

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Some people expect everything to work as advertised,all the time and just fly off on one when it doesn't. Life ain't like that, especially on the railway!

I think every mode of transportation has its problems some of the time. I've had an engine fail in the middle of a thousand mile drive in an automobile. I've had an airline claim my flight was bustituted and then fail to provide me with adequate instructions as to where to actually find said bus (which maybe I can claim was a bus and airplane problem simultaneously). I think the only reasonable advice we can offer to people who can't tolerate the slightest risk that something might go wrong in their travels is to not travel at all.

Some people seem to take too much luggage anyway, I always take what I can carry, any more than that is just a pain.

I've lately made a habit of walking for about ten mintes from my home to the subway on each trip, which provides a big incentive to limit what I'm bringing to what I can reasonably carry. I did take advantage of checked luggage on my last Amtrak trip, dropping off some luggage at South Station the day before my departure, and picking up some luggage the day after I returned, and getting help from my parents dealing with that extra luggage on the other end of my trip.

In the case of that missed bustitution trip I mentioned above, I was moving from Oahu to the Boston area, as well as moving out of my parents' home. I knew it was going to be a couple months before my parents would get all of our stuff to the mainland That was not a situation where traveling light would have been sensible (though I did limit myself to a backpack, a suitcase, and a cardboard box on the plane flight).

 

[p&sr]

I've had an airline claim my flight was bustituted and then fail to provide me with adequate instructions as to where to actually find said bus (which maybe I can claim was a bus and airplane problem simultaneously).
In the case of that missed bustitution trip I mentioned above, I was moving from Oahu to the Boston area, as well as moving out of my parents' home.

Bustituted out of Oahu! That must have been quite a Swim!

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

gender is just a letter

Not everyone considers their gender to be straightforwardly male or female, in which case a single letter isn't sufficient to express it.

Way to totally miss the point of the post.

"gender is just a letter" is understatement by which I mean a letter is not sufficient to express the person behind it.

You should read a whole post and consider major themes before performing a deconstructionist analysis.

 

[Chris J.]

I've lately made a habit of walking for about ten mintes from my home to the subway on each trip, which provides a big incentive to limit what I'm bringing to what I can reasonably carry. I did take advantage of checked luggage on my last Amtrak trip, dropping off some luggage at South Station the day before my departure, and picking up some luggage the day after I returned, and getting help from my parents dealing with that extra luggage on the other end of my trip.

A ten-minute walk with something fairy heavy is good at showing how much heavier it gets as you carry it!

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

I've had an airline claim my flight was bustituted and then fail to provide me with adequate instructions as to where to actually find said bus (which maybe I can claim was a bus and airplane problem simultaneously).
In the case of that missed bustitution trip I mentioned above, I was moving from Oahu to the Boston area, as well as moving out of my parents' home.

Bustituted out of Oahu! That must have been quite a Swim!

The planes took me as far as Newark, NJ. Only my checked luggage made it to Hartford that day, though. (I was actually trying to get to Bridgeport that day.)

 

[jackal]

I think by further discussion we are only not only giving her more time on the stage, but encouraging others to come here and do the same thing which is disruptive to our community. I will move once again to have this topic locked-- In PM.

AlanB already indicated that it is not this board's policy to lock or delete threads which wander off topic as long as they do not get abusive.

This sounds like healthy disagreement, which has morphed into a fascinating conversation about very many interesting things - part of what makes this site great.

And that is exactly what we try to promote here. We don't lock topics because they are difficult, or because they criticize Amtrak, or because they wander off the original topic. The OP most likely wanted to do nothing more than vent, and perhaps try to discourage a few people from riding Amtrak as a way of extracting her revenge for the wrong that she feels she suffered. And I'm not suggesting one way or the other that she was right or wrong. She also probably believed that this is something run by Amtrak, which it is not.

But she's not the first to come here to vent, and I'm sure that she won't be the last either. But we're also not going to stop people from coming here to vent. We discuss all aspects of Amtrak here, good and bad.

I personally doubt the OP ever came back to read these responses: she didn't register, so she can't track it on her favorites, and I doubt she knew to bookmark the URL. If she came back to these forums looking for the replies, she won't find it: it's been buried along with the dozens of other threads that are added to each day--perhaps showing on page 2 or 3 of the thread listing (and I doubt she knew how to get to page 2 or 3).

 

[Tony]

If she came back to these forums looking for the replies, she won't find it: it's been buried along with the dozens of other threads that are added to each day--perhaps showing on page 2 or 3 of the thread listing (and I doubt she knew how to get to page 2 or 3).

Wow, for me, this thread has not only been on page 1 all along, but constantly near the top of page 1. Its been pretty lively debate.

 

[sunchaser]

I think by further discussion we are only not only giving her more time on the stage, but encouraging others to come here and do the same thing which is disruptive to our community. I will move once again to have this topic locked-- In PM.

AlanB already indicated that it is not this board's policy to lock or delete threads which wander off topic as long as they do not get abusive.

This sounds like healthy disagreement, which has morphed into a fascinating conversation about very many interesting things - part of what makes this site great.

And that is exactly what we try to promote here. We don't lock topics because they are difficult, or because they criticize Amtrak, or because they wander off the original topic. The OP most likely wanted to do nothing more than vent, and perhaps try to discourage a few people from riding Amtrak as a way of extracting her revenge for the wrong that she feels she suffered. And I'm not suggesting one way or the other that she was right or wrong. She also probably believed that this is something run by Amtrak, which it is not.

But she's not the first to come here to vent, and I'm sure that she won't be the last either. But we're also not going to stop people from coming here to vent. We discuss all aspects of Amtrak here, good and bad.

I personally doubt the OP ever came back to read these responses: she didn't register, so she can't track it on her favorites, and I doubt she knew to bookmark the URL. If she came back to these forums looking for the replies, she won't find it: it's been buried along with the dozens of other threads that are added to each day--perhaps showing on page 2 or 3 of the thread listing (and I doubt she knew how to get to page 2 or 3).

ALC-Do you really think this thread or others like it are are disruptive? I know it sounds like a rude question, I don't mean it that way. What I've seen of this board is that sometimes there are disagreements, but overall the participants seem to get along fairly well. If we all had exactly the same opinion, we'd be pretty boring! After some thought, maybe it should continue, because it seems to be a very active one. If her intention was to cause strife (that's a big if), it has failed miserably! If that were true, I think she would come back on and vent more to try to stir it up. I don't think she thought this board is part of Amtrak, I think she was complaining. She was trying to wrap it in a 'warning' so that it wouldn't look like she was complaining. If it had been just a warning, all she would have needed to say is 'be prepared to carry your own luggage as in this instance they had no checked on baggage'. Or she could have formed it in a question.

And it is ok to complain, but as I've said before I think she expected a lot more from Amtrak for the situation. And thats why she got on this board-to complain.

 

[jackal]

If she came back to these forums looking for the replies, she won't find it: it's been buried along with the dozens of other threads that are added to each day--perhaps showing on page 2 or 3 of the thread listing (and I doubt she knew how to get to page 2 or 3).

Wow, for me, this thread has not only been on page 1 all along, but constantly near the top of page 1. Its been pretty lively debate.

Er, duh. Forgot about the fact that replies bump it to the top. h34r:

 

[supergrandmother]

I was in Birmingham station last week. There were about 6 people boarding north bound Crescent. I carried both my carryon and my granddaughter's carryon up the stairs. 5 year old granddaughter carried her backpack and the bags of peanuts we had purchased. The stairs are not bad. There are about 8 steps and a flat area, then about 8 more steps. I wouldn't really call it 2 flights. There are no Redcaps in Birmingham that I have ever seen, although there is a young man who hangs around the station and offers to carry luggage (for a tip, of course).

 

[AlanB]

Not that I want to restart all of the lively debate and interesting twists and turns that this topic took, but I do have an update that I think important enough for everyone to know.

It would seem that Amtrak mounted an investigation of Ruth's incident in Birmingham. That investigation uncovered some unacceptable issues in this case. Out of that an employee has received formal discipline and the incident is now considered closed.

This would seem to confirm that Ruth was indeed telling the truth, even if some people felt that she was being a bit overly-dramatic, she certainly wasn’t lying. I have no idea if Ruth has been offered additional compensation because of this investigation, nor if she’s received any further apology or communication from Amtrak. And frankly if she has, it’s really up to her to come back and reveal said info if she wishes, since that is a private matter between her and Amtrak.

Finally, I have no idea just what “formal discipline” entails so please don’t bother asking as I just don’t know. I rather doubt that such details would ever be released anyhow, as details like that step over several lines of employee confidentiality.

 

[Ryan]

Wow!

Do you know (or can you comment) if Amtrak became aware of this issue because of being posted here, or did Ruth's complaint to Amtrak get the ball rolling?

I'm curious as to the level to which Amtrak keeps an eye on postings here to look out for potential issues (if I were to own a business big enough to garner a message board about my product, I'd sure as heck want to keep tabs on what's being said about my product!).

 

[the_traveler]

While there may be an Amtrak Lurker who looks in from time to time, I don't think anyone from Amtrak "keeps an eye on us" all the time!