Long time lurker and seldom poster here.
I was on this train and was interviewed by the TV and print media who met the train at South Station around 12:45PM. I guess it was my first experience with a media scrum. This experience capped off a pretty long journey for many on the train, who like I, were actually on flights to Boston that had been cancelled and who were taking this train to get the last part of the way home.
In my case, my connection from Atlanta was cancelled and the best the airline could do was get me to DC with a seat on a flight to Boston late Friday night via Minneapolis. So I took the flight to DCA and Metro'd over to Union Station, had a nice dinner while killing time and boarded #66 for the 10:10PM departure. The train was crowded and we picked up more pax at BWI who similarly were trying to get to Newark, New York, or Boston.
The train stopped and lost power shortly (~20 min or so) after leaving Penn Station. Up to that point it was pretty much on time. I was dozing off (it was 3AM!) and what I noticed was how quiet it was. It reminded me of times I was sleeping in an Army barracks listening to so many folks snoring. When the train was moving, those sounds were masked (mercifully) by the rail noise and the white noise of the HVAC blowers. To my recollection, it seems like the crew was pretty slow in making an initial announcement. I don't know if they were relying upon the fact that most of us were sleeping to guide their interaction with us. But it seems that the first announcement didn't come along until around 30 minutes after we were stopped. The announcement was something to the effect that a downed wire was preventing further movement. It was not clear to me whether our train snagged the catenary or whether a tree branch or a prior train had done so.
After that initial lag in communications, the crew seemed to make an announcement over the PA about every 20 minutes or so, but frankly the content provided was pretty worthless. After a while that got annoying. The announcements generally progressed from "we're looking in to it" to "not likely to get the wire restored/fixed" to "a diesel from New York is being sent" (probably from Sunnyside) to "it's here and it will take a while to 'strap on'" to "it's attached but we have to do 'safety checks'" to "everything checked out and we should be moving soon" to "we need to do safety checks" (again!), to finally, we "need permission from the dispatcher to get underway." Somewhere in the midst of that series of announcements was one that there was food and water available in the Cafe Car that was being given out to those who wanted to go back and get it.
I admit to some optimistic thinking I guess, but I kind of was assuming that once the diesel came along (and it did because the bump of the coupling jolted us enough to wake me again) that we would press on to Boston. It didn't really occur to any of us that we would have to detrain somewhere and get on a different one. And that in doing so we would stand out in the cold for half an hour. So when we stopped at New Rochelle I assumed it was just a station stop. So when the announcement came that we all had to detrain, the crew kind of botched that. They said we could leave our bags on (which makes no sense) but that we had to get off the train. Interestingly, one announcement threw Metro North under the bus, indicating that they would not allow the train to proceed any further and that's why we needed to disembark.
I can only speak for my experience in my car but to me, the train did not get terribly cold until about 5:30am or so. At first it was pretty warm and it gradually cooled. But it never got to the point of seeing my breath or causing me to shiver. After a while I used my coat as a pillow and then as a blanket. And by the time we began moving toward New Rochelle, the car was definitely chilly but my hands were not numb and my feet were not cold. I definitely think the crew had no idea at 3PM that rescue power (diesel) and movement would not occur until 7AM-ish.
By far the worst part of the experience was New Rochelle. I don't recall the track numbers but we were on the outermost track compared to the station. The announcement directing us to detrain said that the "rescue train" was right behind us. I think that was wishful thinking. Hindsight is 20/20 but at 7:15 AM when we detrained (give or take), it was quite windy and frigid (~15 degrees F). Frankly most folks were not prepared for this kind of weather and it was obnoxiously cold. So picture over 150 folks huddled on a platform while the train we were on sat there for 15 minutes or so, doors open. Finally the carcass of #66 pulled away toward Stamford and then nothing. A couple of Metro North commuters came an went eastbound on the adjacent track to the island platform we were on. I only saw one Amtrak uniformed personnel and he was trying to share info but it was clear he didn't have much. In retrospect, Amtrak and the crew should have instructed us to go inside the station building (assuming that one could, I'm not familiar with New Rochelle). Anyway, after standing around for another 15 minutes in the cold, listening to a helicopter buzz over us, the rescue train arrived. Needless to say, it was crowded before we got on and our load only made it more so. The joke being made was that folks were paying Amtrak prices for subway service.
As i said in the interview, I think the onboard crew was simply overwhelmed with the situation. I believe the spent a fair amount of time outside the train, trying to figure out whether the right of way was blocked and then trying to get the diesel hooked up and checked. It struck me that unlike the Tarmac Delay plans that 14 CFR Part 121 scheduled air carriers have to prepare, Amtrak didn't really seem to have a contingency plan for a train that dies in the middle of the night. It never seemed serious enough to dial 911 (like a derailment would) and I never felt endangered. So this incident was somewhere between gravely serious for which I assume Amtrak crews and police have contingency plans that get exercised periodically, and a minor annoyance that wouldn't be more than a customer service issue.
Tonight Amtrak did call me to offer a weirdly restrictive voucher, good for a year. The person did ask some questions and apologize. I would ride Amtrak again and the most noted issue about how foul restrooms get when power is out makes for good TV. My experience on this and other long train rides is that restrooms are always horrible by the end of the run and that is something Amtrak should fix.
The way i look at it, i still got home before I would have on my busted connection. When I got to South Station, I still had to take the Silver Line to Logan to go get my car, which was buried in snow in the economy lot by Terminal E. Lots of planes, trains, and shuttle busses for the 29 hour journey from yesterday morning to this afternoon.
-- Blue Skies
