My Amtrak Adventure
(or How I Learned to Embrace De-Icing)
Okay, the truth is I didn't decide to take the train
due to de-icing or plane concerns. I actually thought it would be a
cool experience to travel across country on a train. Never done it
before....and I may never do it again.
My train was supposed to leave Taylor, Texas at 10:20 am. Early
enough to make a good start but not so early that I'd have to wake up
at the crack of dawn. I did afterall have to drive an hour and a half
just to get to Taylor. So I'm up by 6:30 and the first thing I do is
call Amtrak to see if my train is on time. How naive I was...the
train was already 3 hours and 15 minutes behind schedule. Being
optimistic, I consoled myself by saying that at least my layover in
Chicago was 5 hours so this shouldn't cause a missed connection. And
I was lucky to find out now so I could wait out the time at home
instead of in a parking lot at the train station, especially since I
had found out that Taylor has an unstaffed station. I was picturing
myself standing by the side of the tracks trying to flag down the
silver bullet from hell. It wasn't quite that bad but I'm still not
sure if the train would have stopped if they hadn't seen me sitting
on the platform. Okay, it wasn't a platform, it was a concrete slab.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
After filling up on morning TV, I headed out on my drive to
Taylor, Texas home of the Taylor Ducks. Upon arriving in the fair
town I searched the side of the roads for a sign pointing me in the
direction of the train station. Nothing. Since I was early I figured
I would just drive the two main highways in search of the obvious but
having covered all four corners of town I still hadn't found the
station. I had discovered the tracks but no station. So I'd just stop
for something to drink and ask the friendly counterperson at a fast
food restaurant. Nothing doing. None of the people at the McDonald's
could tell me where the train station was. No problem. I had passed
the Chamber of Commerce on my way down the road and they surely could
tell me where it was. And they probably could have if they hadn't
been closed for a long lunch that would take them straight through
the time of my departure. At this point my patience was wearing thin
but I finally discovered the station conveniently located under an
overpass and completely hidden from the line of sight of any
"outsiders". Just as promised, there was a free but unattended
parking lot. Taylor looked like a friendly town even if they had no
idea that a train ran through their midst so I was sure my car would
be safe. Things started to look up when the train actually showed up
right on schedule...or at least exactly 3 hours and 15 minutes behind
schedule as predicted. Since I was waiting out in plain sight the
train stopped, I boarded and my real journey from hell began.
A friendly conductor welcomed me on board and lead me up to the
upper deck of the bi-level coach car. The train wasn't overly crowded
so I got a seat alone conveniently located next to the stairwell
leading down to the lower level and the bathrooms. These bi-level
cars are nice since they have a watercooler near the stairs and
several toilets and changing rooms downstairs. It looked promising
and I sat back to enjoy the wonderful experience of lulling travel by
rail. Nothing doing. The actual ride and view were great even though
I was in flat, flat Texas. But my train car sounded like a TB ward
with all the hacking and coughing going on. In fact, there was a
woman two rows up who sounded like she was coughing up her lungs
along with other assorted organs. Combined with the other 30% of the
car who seemed to be suffering from various colds and flus, I
wondered what my chances were of arriving at my final destination
with my health intact. Then there was the wonderful watercooler and
generously supplied dixie cups near at hand...maybe a bit too near at
hand since every kid on board my car considered it a must to get a
drink of water every 15 minutes. This entailed running full speed to
the cooler, spilling water everywhere in the process of filling a
cup, then running back to their seat making sure to crash into as
many seat backs as possible. And let me not forget to expound on the
stairwell and lower level access near at hand. It seemed convenient
at first until I realized that everybody who wanted to go up or down
would be cruising past in a constant stream. Also, it became
abundantly clear that in my seat position, I was taking the place of
the "canary in a coal mine". With the potential of noxious fumes
rising up the stairwell from the toilets below, the conductor need
look no farther than my seat to see if evacuation were necessary.
Luckily, I never completely lost consciousness. The best part about
being near the stairwell was not apparent until lights out. All
lights are extinguished near ten at which point only minimum running
lights along the main aisle remain lit...the overhead reading lights
being optional at this point. So slowly the train drops in to an
uneasy doze with the lights out. The lights out everywhere except for
the stairwell which must remain brightly lit to assist those who make
late night trips to the toilets. And lets not forget those late night
people who detrain or board in the middle of Arkansas and have to
talk as loud as possible and slam their excess baggage into your seat
as they look for seats. Never mind that it's four in the morning and
the entire train car is trying desperately to sleep. Lets just chat
with grandma as loud as possible because if you're not getting any
sleep then nobody else should. A night passed with my minuscule
courtesy travel pillow under my head and an arm over my eyes to block
out the 4000 watt bulb in the stairwell made sleep a fleeting thing.
The irony is that, though I didn't know it, this leg of my
journey was actually the most comfortable and tolerable of the four.
Had I known, I might have tried to enjoy it more. As it was, I was
grumpy and uncomfortable and in more than a little pain by the time I
gave up on REM sleep and sat up to watch the countryside go by in the
morning. It is relaxing but between the discomfort of trying to find
a comfortable position to sit in after over 20 hours of travel,
little to no useful sleep, and no healthy food consumed, the journey
becomes a form of torture. I honestly feel that if the prison system
becomes incapable of containing additional offenders, then forcing
them all on train cars to travel the countryside for the duration of
their sentence is a suitable punishment for the gravest of crimes. By
the time my train was chugging slowly through Missouri it was over
five hours behind schedule. Most of this was unavoidable since the
cold weather had caused rails to crack which was the original reason
my train was delayed, and the cold also forced a limited speed that
put most trains behind schedule. In the morning, the conductor
informed us that many of us would be missing our connections in
Chicago and that because of this they would be having passengers
detrain in St. Louis and board busses to be taken up to meet their
trains at further points along the scheduled routes. My connection
was going to be missed but no bus would be employed. Instead we were
told that they were trying to get a hold on the train to force it to
wait in the station until our train arrived. Luckily as we approached
Chicago we found out that our train had complied with the hold and I
would be making my connection. The downside was that I had been
traveling for well over 28 hours by this point and since my train was
5 and a half hours late, I would get no layover in Chicago which
meant no chance for a break from travel to change or breathe
non-processed air. But at least I wouldn't be stranded in Chicago.
And so the real fun began. I boarded my second train that would
take me from Chicago to Boston and immediately the differences were
obvious. The staff were much less friendly and the people already
boarded and sick of waiting for us laggers were about as friendly as
the staff on Denny's swing shift. There were about three seats left
on my train car and I didn't realize how lucky I was to get one of
those until I found out that we were waiting for two more trains to
get into Union Station and that they had overbooked the train. There
were people who didn't get seats for three or four hours. Gotta love
that customer service. I was lucky enough to get a window seat but my
seat mate was less than happy and the father and son across the aisle
were beyond livid. I tried to make myself invisible in my seat then
finally ventured to ask how long they had been waiting. Talk about
releasing the flood gates. I got the whole story about how pissed
they were and how long they had been traveling and how long we were
going to have to wait. They finally winded down and we all talked for
hours after that and I suppose that was the best part of my journey.
The shared misery...not to mention the shared trip to the lounge car.
We ended up leaving the station two hours behind schedule. As we made
our way back to the lounge car we noticed that some cars were much
cooler than ours except for the lounge car which bordered on
tropical. Not long after we were seated back in our car they made an
announcement that they were working on the heating problem but not to
worry since they were aware of it. I can tell you right now that they
never did a damn thing about it. It was so cold outside but inside it
was unbearably hot. I ended up shedding as much as I could then piled
all my extra clothes and coat on the air vents along the window to
try to stop the flow of oppressive heat all to no avail. I also had
been lucky enough to get a seat that was broken. The seats on trains
do recline but not far back enough to really get comfortable for
sleeping purposes. They try to make up for this by giving you a leg
rest that props up at the bottom giving the whole seat the feel of a
dentist's chair. Well, my lower leg rest was broken and wouldn't
raise at all giving my seat, and my remaining journey, the feel of
"Marathon Man". Torture in the extreme. To cap it all off, these
train cars were not split-level and only had two restrooms per car.
Both of the toilets on my car were out of order. So I had to make my
way back to the next car through the blowing snow, which at this
point was almost a relief, only to find that only one restroom on the
next car was functioning. You gotta wonder how they consistently sell
enough tickets to overbook when they run a business like this.
There's got to be a law against forcing so many people, trapped for
hours on a train to all share one bathroom.
The bottom line is that I had a trip from hell on that particular
train and slept maybe an hour total...none of which was REM sleep.
The rimshot on this whole episode is that by the time I figured out
what station we were at on our journey I realized that we were now 4
hours behind schedule. It's one thing to board a train that is
running behind and another completely to have to sit and endure the
delays. My patience had all but run out at this point and running on
no sleep and virtually no food I had a hair trigger. Which explains
why I was a step away from murder by the time we pulled into Albany.
Lots of people were scheduled to detrain at this station and the
train stops for quite awhile to refuel and split apart since half
goes to Boston and the remaining cars continue on to New York City.
The people getting off the train were backed up in the aisles since
there seemed to be a bit of a jam getting off. There was this one
woman who stood behind my seat and kept hitting the headrest with her
bag. I looked back and gave her a look that basically said, "Please
cease and desist because that action is bothering me." She took this
as her cue to do it repeatedly, on purpose, since her limited brain
capacity suggested that this was enormously clever and quite a prank.
As she snickered with her friend, and I should mention she appeared
to be an adult, I turned around and gave her a second look that said,
"Cease and desist otherwise I will pull your heart from your chest
and shove it, still beating, down your throat." Nobody should toy
with a person who has been traveling non-stop by train for over 52
hours. It is simply not wise. Nobody bumped my chair after that. But
I still didn't think I'd be able to endure another six hours and
that's what I was facing. Just as I was surrounded by the newly
boarding passengers who consisted of small, noisy children, a crying
baby and its mother, and most heinously, two junior high girls seated
across from two high school boys, my savior appeared. An Amtrak woman
who announced that the train was overbooked (big surprise) and that
if your final destination was Boston you could alternatively board a
charter bus just outside which would take half the time to reach the
final destination. I don't think my feet touched the ground as I
bolted from that hell on rails.
So now I was enjoying the cramped comfort of a charter bus.
Boarding as one of the last passengers I enjoyed the seat next to the
small toilet cubicle that forced me to switch positions every time
somebody decided to use the facilities. Compared to my earlier hell,
this seemed like heaven on earth. Good to their word, the trip took
under three hours and I was finally in Boston. The wrench in the
proceedings was that in order to take the bus I was forced to quickly
detrain and board giving me no chance to call my sister and inform
her of my change in ETA. But I figured it was no problem and that I
would just call her as soon as I arrived. There I am in Boston's
terminal with a dime in my hand and as I phone my sister I am less
than thrilled to realize that her phone is out of order. So I'm lucky
enough to have arrived at 7pm instead of 9:30 or 10, but she's not
home and there's no way for me to contact her. If she's called Amtrak
to check on my train they'll tell her that I'll be 5 and a half hours
late meaning she won't show up for 2 and a half hours. I could take a
cab to her place but if I miss her in transit there is no way for me
to get in her house and no way for me to contact her or leave a
message on her machine. In a nutshell, I'm screwed. So I sit myself
down on the traditional train station wooden benches amidst the local
vagrants and proceed to thank my lucky stars that at least I'm off
that train from hell. It could be worse. I ended up calling my
parents, who weren't home, and leaving a message about the situation
and they had a number for my sister's roommates allowing them to
contact her so I only had to wait about an hour and a half for her to
show up.
And that wraps up the first half of my rail adventure. Don't
worry, that is the longest part...but you can imagine that at this
point I am not looking forward to the return trip. I decided that I
might be able to endure it since I had a full week of unadulterated
rest and relaxation with Xmas smack in the middle which couldn't be
bad...could it? So I'll now segue into a short exposition on the joys
of my Xmas eve and early Xmas morning. It is, of course, the way most
people spend their Xmas eve I'm sure. Without getting too involved
here, the set-up is that my sister lives with two roommates, one of
which just moved in two or three weeks before and so is virtually
unknown to my sister other than any annoying habits she might have
revealed. One of these habits is the occasional overindulgence in
alcoholic spirits. This roommate was scheduled to work half a day on
the 24th at which point she would go to the airport and catch a
flight out to spend the holiday with her boyfriend and his mother. As
flights are wont to do, hers was delayed. So what better reason to
hit the bar and knock back a few glasses of holiday cheer. Having
possibly consumed a bit more than this, she proceeded to fall asleep
in the terminal only to wake up and in the attempt to board her plane
finds herself "unjustly" detained by the airline staff. "Is it
illegal to fall asleep in the terminal?" she later queried repeatedly
to us in a drunken slur. No...but it is unacceptable to attempt to
board your plane shitfaced then proceed to behave in a belligerent
manner toward the staff. At this point I take it they called security
who handcuffed her and carted her off to the airport offices of the
state patrol. After detoxing for a bit they called my sister and left
a message for us to please consider accepting her into our custody
until her newly scheduled flight the next morning. We ended up having
to take a cab to the airport at about one in the morning (Merry
XMas!) and signing out for the roommate who smelled like a moonshine
shack and spent the entire trip home expounding on the unfair
treatment she was subjected to. Once home, she spent the next hour
and half to two hours crying, sobbing and pleading for forgiveness to
her boyfriend on the phone. The poor guy had spent his Xmas eve
waiting vainly at the airport for her while leaving his mother at
home. I'm sure this is not the way to score points with your
potential mother-in-law. Between the early morning conversations, an
errant alarm that went off for a full 15 minutes at 5 am, and the
additional morning sobbing and phone calls before her 8 am departure,
I think I logged a total of 3 hours of sleep that night. A bit better
than a night on a train, but not by much. After this, my time in
Boston was great. My sister and I had the run of the house and the
care of the three dogs that occupied it with the human occupants. But
I still had to endure the repeat performance on Amtrak. If I was
independently wealthy I would have written off the loss of the train
ticket and found some way to book a flight home even during the
busiest travel season. Unfortunately, I am a poor postdoc and
probably can't even afford what I've already spent...and that is why
I found myself at the train station the next Saturday afternoon
awaiting the fated boarding call.
All in all, the train trip home was less eventful and remained
ontime throughout. This doesn't mean it was fun or even tolerable but
it was a damn sight better than the trip out. My train left on time
from Boston but I ended up seated next to a person that wanted to
talk. And talk, and talk. It didn't matter that I had a book out and
made it plain that I wanted to read. He needed no encouragement. In
fact, on the few occasions when he wound down enough for it to not
appear rude, I cracked my book open and began to read only to have
him fabricate some reason to interrupt me simply to offer himself an
opening to talk to me some more. He really was unbelievable. I
learned all about his bigshot sister in business, his new job in
trucking, the ins and outs of Peterbuilts, and the hilarious
Budweiser mug he bought his brother-in-law that had those damn frogs
from the commercial on it that actually talked. "We wore the
batteries out on that sucker in one night!" What a laugh riot. On one
of his frequent trips back to smoke I turned out my light and feigned
sleep when he returned and this saved me from any further stories.
The problem was, the next morning he moved to the seat behind me and
when a poor unsuspecting girl boarded a few hours later, he began to
regale her with THE SAME STORIES for hours on end. I can attest to
the fact that they were no funnier the second time around. But that
really was the worst of that leg of my journey. I got into Chicago
with a six hour layover in front of me. I actually had a chance to
change and get out for some fresh air. I ended up walking aimlessly
on the city streets, catching some lunch, and wandering the halls of
the Art Institute. I probably looked pretty shabby and didn't smell
too good but that can be an advantage in the press of a museum. As I
walked back to Union Station it began to snow and overall, my time in
Chicago was great. And so I had one more leg to my journey. Would I
survive?
The funny thing is, as I waited in line for my final train to
board, I heard stories that made my trip sound like a walk in the
park. One guy said his train was delayed, then hit a UPS truck (this
is before Xmas so if you are missing a package it might be in the
undercarriage of an Amtrak train), and then following this delay they
set off only to hit a cow 3 hours later. Makes my slow and painful
journey seem less painful. Just about everyone near me in line echoed
the same words....first and last time I ever travel by train. I
couldn't have agreed more. This train was about 20 minutes behind
schedule pulling out of the station which is nothing in "train time".
Not only that, we somehow made up this time as we traveled so that by
the time I arrived in Taylor, I was actually three minutes ahead of
schedule. And this time I knew what to do when I boarded. I
immediately chose a seat away from the stairwell and its obnoxiously
bright light and interesting olfactory offerings, then proceeded to
mildly glare at anyone that deigned to look at the adjoining seat. In
this way, I ended up with the seat next to me free for the whole trip
home. This did not make my final night of sleeping on a train any
better. Despite the fact that I could stretch across two seats, you
have to understand that you can't really stretch out. And I'm
short...doesn't make a difference. To top it off, the two seats are
separated by a plastic divider that manages to hit you right in the
back or on the hip as you attempt to lay across them making comfort
unattainable. But this time I knew I only had to survive one more
night so I managed. I even managed to endure the baby three rows
behind that cried for most of the night...and the man one row up and
across the aisle who snored the entire night. No sweat...I was in the
home stretch. So now I'm about an hour and a half outside of Taylor,
Texas and I begin praying. Please let my car still be in the free,
unattended lot...and if it is, then please let it start on the first
try. Heck...let it start on the tenth try. Just let my car be there,
unmolested and in working order. And to my complete surprise and
eternal thanks, my car was in the lot and started on the first try
and following an uneventful hour and a half drive, I was back in this
podunk town of College Station. It's amazing how it seemed like a
fabulous destination after all that train travel. I think I would
have settled for any location that would have offered me a place to
lay down, completely horizontal without interference.
So that was my trip. I caution anyone who wants to travel by
train thinking it will be a great adventure. I guess it is an
adventure sort of like the adventure they promise you when you join
the service. "It's not just a job, it's an adventure!" Yeah, right. I
guess you'll be eating those words when you're being hazed and broken
in basic training only to find yourself on eternal kp duty or
scrubbing toilets. And speaking of toilets. I never once mentioned
the horror that represented the bathrooms on the trains. They are so
small and they are unisex so you can imagine how clean they are. By
the time that train's been on the rails for several hours it is a
pit. You really don't want to step in let alone sit down. I really
won't go into it but if you could experience it you would understand
why it will never make the centerfold in the Amtrak brochure. So
there you have it friends and neighbors. I know it was long but I
consider it a form of catharsis or therapy to get this down in print.
If you know anyone who is blithely considering the "great rail
adventure", feel free to pass it on. Remember, I wasn't the only one
in Union Station who said "first and last". I think I might
reconsider after months or years of recovery and then only if it is
no more than, and preferably less than, an overnight trip. A complete
cross-country trip will be sure to put you into an institution for
the insane and permanently under the care of a chiropractor. Heed
these words...
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