Craziest Drama on Amtrak you've seen?

[Aegis]

I identify myself as retired LEO to the LSA or conductor. They have told me they really appreciate having LEO's on board. Recently on the CS the conductor and I moved quickly thru several cars to an unknown problem. Turned out to be nothing.. He told me if I was needed he would page me on the comm system by first name to respond if I was there was a problem.

 

[A Voice]

Kicking a police officer is almost never a way to improve your current situation. I thought that was common sense.

If you've already done something such that law enforcement gets involved, I think its a safe assumption common sense was lacking to begin with.

 

[tricia]

If you've already done something such that law enforcement gets involved, I think its a safe assumption common sense was lacking to begin with.

This seems to be a case of someone typing before thinking.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

I think "common sense" goes out the window when you get really drunk. The conductor said he was going to be really unhappy when he sobered up, Assaulting the female passenger, Assaulting the conductor, assaulting the officer, and impeding the travel of the Amtrak train, all felonies.

I am a semi-functioning alcoholic. I know all about being drunk. One of the very first things I learned is the following: if you are too drunk to perform a task, you are probably too drunk to determine that. I set a list of inviolable rules. For instance, if I have had a drink in the past 3 hours, it is my wifes decision whether or not I am too drunk to drive.

When I was in college, one of those rules was that I avoid interacting with women with any kind of relational intent when I am drunk. Its a long irrelevant rule, someone who routinely drinks that much should set up systems like that.

 

[saxman]

This sticks out among all my rail travels. It's from SAXMAN's Amtrak USA Tour 2009, post #6.

While we waited for our new power I was able to get some good shots outside the back of the train. I watched as 4 BNSF locomotives pulled up beside us and they detached the rear most one, which I assumed would be our new power. Meanwhile, this lady standing next to me was trying make conversation. However intoxicated conversation is not something I enjoy. She went on about how the mechanics on our engine should all be fired for the bad job they did. Plus the conductors should be fired for doing such a horrible job in this situation. She even asked me to email my pictures I was taking so she could "write them up" and have them fired. She wanted me to take a picture of the BNSF locomotive number to add to her "write up." I'm sure that would really add evidence to the scene. She thanked me for taking the pictures. She never did give me an email.

As we waited for the BNSF to hook up, I over heard on the scanner, "we found the problem!" A few moments later, all power was restored. Great! Now we could move along. Too bad all that switching was done for nothing. After a good two hours of sitting we were on our way to Austin, with our orginal broken loco. I never find out what went wrong. My scanner does seem to work. We finally arrived into Austin at 10:35 PM, 3.5 hours late. I was glad to see my lady friend was being kicked off the train by Austin's finest.

I've had a couple of drunk guys fall into the seat next to me. Other than that, this one takes the cake.

 

[A Voice]

If you've already done something such that law enforcement gets involved, I think its a safe assumption common sense was lacking to begin with.

This seems to be a case of someone typing before thinking.

No, not at all. Persons with common sense don't behave in such a manner that would call for the involvement of law enforcement.

 

[bratkinson]

Reading this thread reminded me of a couple other unusual things I've seen during the years.

Back in the steam heated days, I was riding the Silver Meteor to West Palm Beach to join my parents who where vacationing there for the winter. As I recall, we left WAS about 8pm at night and by midnight, I woke up freezing in my roomette. So I put my overcoat and gloves on and went back to bed. Apparently, they got the problem fixed during the long station stop at JAX, and got the heat back on. Someone forgot to tell them we didn't need the heat any more! It soon felt like it was well over 100 in my sleeper (last car on the train, no less), so I spent the bulk of my time in the rear vestibule with the dutch doors open along with several other hapless sleeper passengers like myself. The conductor came back and only smiled.

Another time, I think it was just before Christmas in '75 or '76, I had scheduled the Broadway Limited to WAS and then to WPB (as above) and the Broadway had been cancelled account of the blizzard in progress. Fortunately, Amtrak had space on the Lakeshore Limited to NYP in a slumber coach and moved me there, where I could connect to Florida. What they hadn't counted on was the train running into massive snow drifts across Indiana. I could feel the sudden deceleration of the train every few minutes only to speed up and do it again. By the time we made Elkhart, I was enjoying dinner in the diner. All I could see out the window in the parking lot were the antennas of cars! A few minutes later, a lady was seated with me that had boarded at Elkhart and told me that Army tanks were bringing food and supplies to the needy, as the streets were very impassable. She had gotten to the station on a snowmobile with her neighbor and her husband brought the luggage along on his snowmobile! It was a very slow trip...12+ hours late into NYP, so Amtrak put me up at the Ramada Inn as I recall and rebooked me into another roomette to Florida.

Most recently, maybe it was this past April or March, I was riding the Vermonter from NYP north to Springfield MA. For those who think the 'gate dragons' at NYP are a force to be dealt with, I discovered as the train arrived at New Rochelle 20-25 minutes later, we stopped. NRO is NOT a stop on the Vermonter! It turned out the lady conductor must have gotten her Amtrak training from the gate dragons at NYP!

I recall her being very grumpy and almost prison-guard-like attitude (I've never been in prison) when she announced on the PA for everyone to have their tickets out or on their cell phone for scanning. Several minutes later, she reached my car and scanned my ticket as I was in the 2nd last row of a very full coach. She grumbled at several passengers for not having their tickets out/available when she got to their seat. Perhaps 4-5 rows from the front, she encountered a passenger that apparently didn't have a ticket for that train or didn't have a valid ticket at all, as far as I could tell with my 2 hearing aids. She proceeded to berate that passenger at full prison-guard volume and when the passenger talked back at her, she got angrier, radioed the engineer to call the dispatcher to call the cops to meet us at NRO. It was a good 5 minutes worth of her screaming at the top of her lungs at the man before we stopped at NRO. Two of New Rochelles' finest boarded and had to first calm her down, and apparently worked out some kind of arrangement between her and the passenger as the police did not remove the passenger. I'm guessing the cops told him to call and make a reservation while they waited and then provided the reservation bar code on his cell phone. Every time she passed by until crew change at NHV, I expected her to yell at another passenger. I rode the northbound Vermonter a couple of times since then and didn't get her. Maybe they moved her to another train or out the door...

 

[dlagrua]

On last years CZ trip coming out of MSP we heard a commotion in our sleeper between the SCA and three stow away passengers in a bedroom. The SCA was explaining that you needed a sleeper car ticket to be in here and the people resisted. The SCA also told them that they already made a mess of the room that someone had to clean it up. The people would not leave the room, the discussion got heated at which point the conductor was called in. He simply said that they must leave, pay for the room OR be ejected from the train by the police at the next stop (in the middle of the night) To our surprise the people called and paid for the room. I often wonder how the SCA keeps track of the passengers in the sleeper (as they are constantly getting on and off) Apparently there is a way but years of work on the train may provide enough experience to know who belongs and who doesn't.

 

[RPC]

The German tour party who had been assured by their travel agent that they were getting bedrooms though their tickets were for coach were very unhappy and very loud about it (and were refusing to leave the sleeper).

On the westbound LSL, we met a nice young lady on her way to be married. Her wedding gown was in checked baggage; the baggage car tripped a wayside detector and was set out in Elkhart. I never got to see the aftermath, for which I'm grateful.

But I think the cake goes to the fellow on the LSL (not the same trip!) who, along with his wife, was on his way to South Bend to see his daughter graduate from Notre Dame. He proceeded to get loudly drunk and was removed from the train at Buffalo. I expect he was not terribly popular with his family after that.

 

[neroden]

The worst was when the Empire Service I was on hit a track maintenance worker. The Amtrak employees did *not* handle this well and were losing it. No positive memories there.

There has still been no NTSB report, so (after asking some of my friends what could possibly cause the lack of NTSB report) I'm suspecting it was a known suicide.

 

[StriderGDM]

Well, let's see. There was the crazy lady in the dinner on the Southwest Chief on our honeymoon (so not around Christmas like a previous poster who at first I thought might have been talking about the same woman!)

She was apparently upset that someone from the crew had not woken her up in time for dinner (I think might have been lunch). She apparently wanted to be seated "RIGHT NOW!". The steward was trying to deal with her and finally called the conductor. He managed to talk her down w/o putting her off the train, but that was clearly the next step. Honestly, to this day I'm not sure what her issue was. We were hours from the next stop, so it's not like if she waited 15-30 minutes for a table to open up, she'd miss her stop.

Then there was the situation on a NEC train at Wilmington. I'm still not sure what precipitated it, but from what I could tell, I believe a male passenger fondled his seatmate. Regardless, when we arrived at Wilmington, an Amtrak Police Officer came onboard and joined the conductor. They quietly and calmly asked the gentleman to leave the train. He refused. Now, I have to give the officer and conductor a lot of credit. The gentleman was clearly trying to escalate the situation. He was getting more and more vocally abusive. The officer refused to be baited and simply kept telling the man he was getting off the train one way or another, but that he (the officer) would clearly prefer it if he (the passenger) walked off the train. I believe the inducement was basically, "get off now and we'll refund a portion of the ticket or, I'll get backup, we WILL remove you and we WILL arrest you."

All I remember was once the gentleman did get off the train, he started to shout something like, "keep your hands off me" and something else. All of us passengers looked at each other and assumed that he was playing for our symphony and that somehow we'd believe this very calm police officer was now roughing him up off the train.

Finally, on the flip side, years ago (like 1999 I think) I did see a conductor basically conduct an assault on one of my employees. I forget the exact details, but I believe my guy had simply asked the conductor a question (I think it was about other empty seats before we started moving). The conductor turned and said something, "You're not changing seats" and gave him a push (the assault) back into his seat hard enough that he snapped the bracket on my guy's pager.

I was shocked and asked if he wanted me to do anything about it, but my guy decided it was simply too early in the morning and he was tired to care.

I ran into the same conductor about a year later and while my encounter didn't result in him putting hands on me, it was also unpleasant. He was obviously near retirement and clearly putting in his time.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Ok, ok, I'll recount my real drama. It was a trip of drama. Lots of drama, endless drama. The big drama is at the end, but I have to set the scene.

We were going to my cousins Bar Mitzvah in Colorado Springs, and my intention with my father was to take the Zephyr to Denver and FREX to Colorado Springs, from Trenton, making sure to build in nearly 24 hours padding, just in case, it was me and my dad, my wife (who doesn't love flying, but doesn't hate it like I do, flew on with my mom). We got from Trenton to DC just fine, got into Chicago just fine, ate lunch at Giordano's just fine. Got onto the Zephyr just fine. Got as far as Ottumwa, Iowa, when there was a bridge fire. Instead of bustituting us, they decided to send us back to Chicago. God knows why. We get back to Chicago around 9 AM, and I make a bee line to the ticket counter, where I knew an agent. Got rebooked on that days SWC, for La Junta. Rented a car, from a Hertz agency that was happy to send over the car and let us sign the paper on the hood and drive right off. Train was a few hours late; we walked in as my cousin was completing his reading. At least I got to hear that.

Few days later, my wife leaves with my mom, and we go to Denver to catch the train. As boarding is called, we get a phone call. My parents house had been robbed. I had lost about 20k worth of wrist watches, including an absolutely enormous and very comprehensive collection of First Moscow Watch Factory watches, (which I felt bad about), a $1400 Rolex, which I felt pretty bad about, my grandfathers slightly banged up Seiko, which upset me greatly, and a gold anchor he bought himself in Tiffany's in 1935, which made me feel bereft, frankly. Oh, and a 9 year old fahrkakt Apple PowerBook G4 worth maybe $100, which is the only thing the insurance company covered- with a brand new MacBookPro for $1799. Anyway.

We haven't gotten to the real drama, yet, though.

So, boarding the Zephyr, both my dad and I kinda drank ourselves to sleep- my mother had used this opportunity to remind him how selfish his train travel was, and how he would be there with her if he had only flown, so he was massively upset. I was massively upset because at the time it represented about 35% of my assets, and I suspected it wouldn't be covered, and more so, because much of what I had lost would be difficult or impossible to replace, especially my grandfathers stuff. Money can be replaced, family heirlooms can not.

We woke up that morning with impressive hangovers, to find out we were running pretty late- and I happened to know that at the time, the Capitol Limited which we were booked on was leaving dead on schedule come hell or high water because of work between PGH and WAS. My father was grossly upset about this. I didn't particularly care. Long story short, we missed the CL by about 10 minutes, partially because we were stuck in the hole to wait for the Chief. I went back to my agent friend, who tried her damndest to get us into a sleeper on the LSL, even if only to Albany. No dice. My father was pissed, and I ended up manhandling him away from a lounge employee because he was being abusive. (The employee was not a grand Nordstroms model of customer service, but she was well within the range of acceptable, and didn't deserve it at all.) So off we went in Coach on the LSL, but only after my dad thought long and hard about spending $2500 to rent a minivan and drive home.

Here comes the DRAMA. doo doo do do, its been a long long boring story....

My dad and I ate lunch in the diner with a prick of a waiter who looked exactly like Will Smith and thought that projecting a similarly jerky attitude to some of Smith's characters was a perfectly acceptable thing to do. I disagreed, but I put up with it because life is too short to get ones heckles up over incompetent unionized waitstaff. Since we were in coach, of course, the meal was not included, and naturally, my dad paid for me. I walked my dad back to his seat, and then walked forward to the Boston lounge and get into a conversation with a complete stranger in which we fixed the government, repaired the problems with education, and deconstructed the world in general and rebuilt it in a more pleasing fashion. Then, the waiter appears and introduces himself with, "Yo!"

So I turn to look at him and said, "Hi."

Without preamble, unless you consider the "Yo" a preamble, says "You can't steal from Amtrak." Through my mind the thoughts of several blankets so stolen flashed by (it was more than seven years ago, so ha!). I responded, somewhat befuddled, "Of course not."

He responds, "You stole your lunch."

I said, "No, I didn't."

He said, "You didn't pay for it."

I said, "No, I didn't. My dad did." Remember now, I was in the middle of a conversation with somebody, and this exchange was rather embarrassing.

"Is this your father?" He remarked sarcastically.

"No, he was the bearded man who was setting next to me in the dining car." I replied.

"Where is your father?" he asked, implying that my father was not real with his tone.

I mentioned his coach number and seat number, which I knew then, but do not know now.

He then proceeds to grab my bicep and tug, saying "Come show me your so-called 'father'."

Of course, he saw my so-called 'father' with his so-called 'receipt'. He then said "Oh." No apology, turned towards the diner, and attempted to walk away.

I said, "Excuse me, but I want to talk to your LSA." He looked like he was about to steam his pants. The LSA was nice, but felt that me being publicly humiliated by this jerkweed was covered by a slice of cake, which I refused.

I know some people at Amtrak. More then than now. I don't usually go around exploiting my relationships, or bragging about them, but I do have them- although they have dwindled as I concentrated more on NJ and then largely exited the scene altogether. But I called up one of them, who was pretty high up the chain, and told him the story of Allice's restaurant with the five part harmony... except it did matter. I got a call back a few weeks later. That SA was brought up for cause, and dismissed through process. I was not his first complaint, but I did end up being his last.

 

[SarahZ]

Then there was the situation on a NEC train at Wilmington. I'm still not sure what precipitated it, but from what I could tell, I believe a male passenger fondled his seatmate. Regardless, when we arrived at Wilmington, an Amtrak Police Officer came onboard and joined the conductor. They quietly and calmly asked the gentleman to leave the train. He refused.

Now, I have to give the officer and conductor a lot of credit. The gentleman was clearly trying to escalate the situation. He was getting more and more vocally abusive. The officer refused to be baited and simply kept telling the man he was getting off the train one way or another, but that he (the officer) would clearly prefer it if he (the passenger) walked off the train. I believe the inducement was basically, "get off now and we'll refund a portion of the ticket or, I'll get backup, we WILL remove you and we WILL arrest you."

If he fondled his seatmate, he should not have been offered a refund, and he should have been arrested.

 

[Adrouault]

GML, the only thing i can say is OY. What an intense experience.

 

[StriderGDM]

Then there was the situation on a NEC train at Wilmington. I'm still not sure what precipitated it, but from what I could tell, I believe a male passenger fondled his seatmate. Regardless, when we arrived at Wilmington, an Amtrak Police Officer came onboard and joined the conductor. They quietly and calmly asked the gentleman to leave the train. He refused.

Now, I have to give the officer and conductor a lot of credit. The gentleman was clearly trying to escalate the situation. He was getting more and more vocally abusive. The officer refused to be baited and simply kept telling the man he was getting off the train one way or another, but that he (the officer) would clearly prefer it if he (the passenger) walked off the train. I believe the inducement was basically, "get off now and we'll refund a portion of the ticket or, I'll get backup, we WILL remove you and we WILL arrest you."

If he fondled his seatmate, he should not have been offered a refund, and he should have been arrested.

I agree, but my guess is she didn't want to pursue the matter and without her for a witness, there wouldn't be much point.

 

[jebr]

On last years CZ trip coming out of MSP

That in and of itself seems like quite the story, considering that the CZ doesn't generally go through MSP.

 

[Steve4031]

I knew that was a typo and spent a few minutes trying to figure out where this occurred. Educated guess was between Winnemucca and Elko or Fort Morgan and McCook, Nebraska. I'm guessing the second.

Sent from my iPhone using Amtrak Forum

 

[Woodcut60]

I identify myself as retired LEO to the LSA or conductor. They have told me they really appreciate having LEO's on board. Recently on the CS the conductor and I moved quickly thru several cars to an unknown problem. Turned out to be nothing.. He told me if I was needed he would page me on the comm system by first name to respond if I was there was a problem.

I'm afraid sometimes the lingo on this excellent Forum is a bit confusing for me, with all the abbreviations, and English not being my native language. What is a LEO?

 

[Maglev]

L

I identify myself as retired LEO to the LSA or conductor. They have told me they really appreciate having LEO's on board. Recently on the CS the conductor and I moved quickly thru several cars to an unknown problem. Turned out to be nothing.. He told me if I was needed he would page me on the comm system by first name to respond if I was there was a problem.

I'm afraid sometimes the lingo on this excellent Forum is a bit confusing for me, with all the abbreviations, and English not being my native language. What is a LEO?

Law Enforcement Officer

 

[Asher]

Ive never had much drama on the train, but some of these post remind me of one trip I took on the Hound between San Fransisco and Sacramento.

 

[Asher]

The only drama I ever witnessed was a coach passenger losing her ever-loving MIND on the LSA.

It was absolutely beautiful.

Sarah,you have left us all wondering. Exactly what was the beautiful scene, the argument, or the family enjoying the sunset from the train station platform.

The conductor’s no-nonsense and slightly snarky response, which ended the argument.

I can understand the gratification. Alls well that ends well.

 

[choochoodood]

Last May, I was riding the CL to Chicago. From what I could tell, this woman missed her stop at South Bend, and decided it was the train crew's fault. Thus, she proceeded to walk from car to car screaming almost incoherent nonsense about her "ordeal." The next thing we know, the train is stopping in LaPorte, IN, and is met by a couple of police cars. Well, at least LaPorte is closer to South Bend than Chicago!

 

[crescent-zephyr]

Ohhhh that reminds me of a silver star trip in south florida... The car attendant told an older lady "wait here I don't want you to fall" and she thought she should wait for him to come and get her, and he never came. Later he told the Conductor that he meant she should wait until the train stopped, not that he would come and get her.

That was pretty annoying to me, as it was obvious to me me the car attendant forgot about her and was just covering his tracks... Fortunately we were in South Florida and the stops are pretty close together there.

 

[fillyjonk]

About 15 years ago, on a VERY delayed TE (12 hours late - it was after a big ice storm hit the Arklatex), a young woman in the lounge car who had either been "overserved" or who had taken some other form of chemical alteration, screaming and generally being disruptive. Conductor came and asked her to be more quiet, she was disturbing others. She started to scream at him, said her uncle owned CSX (?!?!) and he was "going to get Amtrak shut down over this" and she kept challenging the conductor to remove her from the train because she'd "get everyone on this (expletive deleted) train fired"

At that point I decided I didn't want to see more and went back to my regular seat but I wondered what happened to her.

I was also on a train once where someone apparently had a heart attack, but they were able to stop at a crossing, have an ambulance meet the train, and get the person to a hospital (In time, I hope. And how awful and scary to wake up in a totally strange town's hospital....I don't quite know what a solo traveler would do but I think of that, as I am a solo traveler).

 

[tricia]

If you've already done something such that law enforcement gets involved, I think its a safe assumption common sense was lacking to begin with.

This seems to be a case of someone typing before thinking.

No, not at all. Persons with common sense don't behave in such a manner that would call for the involvement of law enforcement.

Typing while delusional, then.