Strange baggage handling

[Chey]

The original plan was to go from Alexandria to Fort Worth and that's what I had booked, ALX-CHI and CHI-FTW. I think the problem may have started when I modified my ticket. Since the rains were so bad in Texas and my husband who was picking me up hates trying to negotiate Fort Worth I discovered that for not a lot more money I could take the SWC instead of the Eagle, and get off at Lamy (since I like to check my bags, and because it's such an easy drive and was DRY, Lamy seemed perfect). And Lamy is a slightly shorter drive home anyway.

So I called Amtrak - for some reason the AGR number wasn't working - and asked them to modify the second part of the trip, keep the Cardinal roomette, just switch the TE roomette for a SWC roomette. The agent seemed to be new and struggled a little with it but got it done. But my eticket looked strange. What had been a ALX-FTW ticket was now a ALX-MULTICITY ticket, although it technically should have been ALX-LMY, right? Because the only other 'city' on this ticket was Lamy. Perhaps I should have booked this online and then cancelled my other ticket. Perhaps I should have called back. I didn't do either.

When I checked in at ALX, I got the usual confusion from the agent. I have had to convince them in the past that FTW has baggage service. But they weren't buying that LMY, which they had never heard of, does have baggage service and their computers were down. I tried to show them on my 4G phone but they wanted none of that. So they routed my bags to CHI and put a transfer tag to LMY.

I was pretty uncomfortable with that because my baggage stubs stated "CHI" on them. There were also stubs for the transfer but I didn't trust them. Good thing - when I got to Chicago I went to the baggage claim and sure enough my bags were there. So I dragged them over to the ticketing area and rechecked them. This guy knew all about LMY, had pre-printed tags and I was set. I enjoyed the new scenery, my luggage got off the train with me at Lamy and we had an easy drive home.

I am surprised I had to do this. Just about anywhere I've gone on a train has involved a transfer and the bags transferred without my intervention. This time was different. I wondered if it had to do with my multicity ticket or if the agent at the ALX station was just too new to understand? Maybe someone can clue me?

 

[caravanman]

There may not be one answer to this... Certainly there have been times that I knew more than the staff I was trying to deal with.

Thank goodness you knew enough to see if your bags were ok at Chicago!

Ed.

 

[MARC Rider]

They'll do odd things at times. Last year, in the winter, they weren't taking baggage on the Capitol, and I was going from Baltimore to Lamy. I Checked my bags a couple of days in advance, but they would only send them to Chicago on the Cardinal.When I got into Chicago, I iquired about my bags, which had come in the day before. I got a neat tour of the sub-basement where may bags were being held, and was then able to check them onward to Lamy. And the bags were, indeed unloaded at Lamy.

 

[Chey]

They'll do odd things at times. Last year, in the winter, they weren't taking baggage on the Capitol, and I was going from Baltimore to Lamy. I Checked my bags a couple of days in advance, but they would only send them to Chicago on the Cardinal.When I got into Chicago, I iquired about my bags, which had come in the day before. I got a neat tour of the sub-basement where may bags were being held, and was then able to check them onward to Lamy. And the bags were, indeed unloaded at Lamy.

Wow, that's even crazier than my story. But we got our bags back so it's all good. That's kind of fun that you got to see the basement in Chicago, I'm sure there aren't many of us who have.

 

[the_traveler]

When you use a Red Cap at WAS, and they use a cart, to get to the lower (thru to VA) tracks, there are 2 ways for the carts to get there. One is to go WAY out to get to the grade crossings to reach the lower tracks. But this is out in the elements (rain, snow, etc...). The other way (which is all under cover) is thru the bowels of Union Station.

This includes a trip thru the baggage room.

 

[Tennessee Traveler]

Not sure if this applys to this forum, but I just traveled from Albany, NY, to New Orleans through Chicago. I arrived several hours early to the Albany station and checked my larger bag through to New Orleans. I clearly watch the baggage clerk put a CHI change card put the train numbers on my bags. There was plenty of time 9 hours for the change to be made in Chicago. When I arrived in New Orleans today, my bag was not on the City of New Orleans. Kudos to the New Orleans personnel attempting to find my bag calling both Chicago and Albany(neither were helpful). We filled out a temporary baggage claim and NOL personnel said they would let me know what they found out. At 8 PM NOL Amtrak called said my luggage came in of the Cresent train and had been routed through New York instead of coming with me on my trains. Since I am in sleepers, I'll not trust Albany NY Amtrak in the future. I'll just drag the bigger bag on board and hope the Sleeper Car Attendant will help me find a place on the Viewliners for my bag. I can always carry the bag on board Superliner cars and leave in the baggage rack on lower level.

 

[quadrock]

It's not anywhere as crazy as some of these other stories, but several years ago, four of us were coming back from West Palm Beach, FL to Newark, NJ. I believe this was on the Silver Star. Upon arriving in Newark and going to baggage claim, it turned out they forgot to offload some of our bags at Newark and they ended up at New York Penn. We had to fill out some forms and the Newark baggage folks called New York to verify this. They ended up sending them back to Newark for me to pick them up the next morning. The strange thing was that half of our party did get their bags unloaded, half did not. As I recall, all bags were correctly tagged to Newark so I'm not sure how they would forget to unload just half of them.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

This kind of crap is why I almost never check anything. You knew exactly what was needed, you knew what was possible, and you knew precisely what would happen if they didn't listen. And yet they simply refused to listen despite your best efforts to explain it to them. No wonder they have so many absurd and arbitrary limits on what can and cannot be checked as luggage. They must have little to no faith that our checked luggage will actually make it to our destination intact and on time without some sort of operational miracle. To be fair it's not just Amtrak that can't figure out how to handle luggage these days. Almost every time I check a bag on an airline something bad seems to happen. Sometimes it simply goes missing, sometimes it gets sent to some far flung outpost, sometimes the contents are damaged, sometimes the TSA destroys the TSA-approved locking mechanism, and other times contents are pinched in transit. What I need is some luggage that can radio home location and timestamp information along with pictures of whoever is damaging/pilfering from it.