# Bus ride (and plane ride) from Hell



## MARC Rider (Mar 6, 2018)

Here's a flight I'm glad I wasn't on:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2018/03/06/how-a-flight-diverted-by-the-noreaster-became-a-9-hour-bus-ride-and-ended-in-a-hospital/?utm_term=.3f90973d37bf

I'd like to think that if I were in the same situation, I'd just get my luggage and say "no thanks" to the airline's offer of bus transportation to New York, as one can take a perfectly good Amtrak train from the BWI railroad station. At leas Amtrak trains have bathrooms in every car. I'm not sure what American was thinking, putting passengers on a bus on I-95 driving right into a Nor'easter. Was Amtrak service disrupted by the storm? I don't know, as I was in northwestern Maine at the time, and we missed all the fun.


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## jebr (Mar 6, 2018)

Amtrak was closed that day as well. The only real option was to get a hotel room and hunker down for the day. American should have simply offered hotel rooms; instead it seems like they obtained a pretty strong liability on their hands (leaving people without bathroom facilities is a pretty big no-no, at least in most people's eyes.)

EDIT: It looks like MARC was also shut down, but Metrobus and Metrorail were running. Hotels were sold out in the area, so the only real options would be hunker down at the airport or try to make your way into DC via Metro.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Mar 6, 2018)

They were operating buses without lavatories? Does anyone have a picture of the bus?

Well I wouldn't mind riding our company's coach (I work for a bus line now) but I don't think we would ever have sent that thing into a huge storm with massive traffic. We would have cancelled.


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## MSprintz (Mar 6, 2018)

Only option would have been to take I-95 out of DC and connect with Route 1 over the Conowingo Dam as every other Susquehanna crossing was shut. Not a particularly bad option in the least and arguably the most scenic.

You would rejoin the interstate system near Valley Forge and Philly area PA Turnpike ( this time last year it would not have been an option with the bridge shut for maintenance ).

It would’ve just been slow going with the winds and rain. The problem down that way was they got caught unprepared for the wind. Around here on LI it was somewhat lackluster.

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## Swadian Hardcore (Mar 6, 2018)

Did they actually take the route via Conowingo Dam? Could they have taken PA-372 farther inland? I know it would have taken longer via PA-372 but still better than getting stuck.


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## JRR (Mar 7, 2018)

My son in law advised it took him 3 hrs to get across the Conowingo dam going to Phiily on fri night. The 372 bridge detour might have been faster even if much farther.

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