Northeast Regional 168, June 17, NYP -> RTE, 7:10pm - 11:21pm
I took the Northeast Regional from Penn Station to Route 128, near Boston, a couple of evenings ago. At a number of the lesser stops, the conductor announced that only the doors near the Cafe car would be opening. But at Providence and elsewhere, he said all doors would open. He also said "all doors" for the Route 128 station. About half a dozen of us lined up at the doors between the Quiet car and the adjacent coach car. But when the train stopped, the doors did not open. We waited patiently, and after about 30 seconds, began to get nervous. No amount of button punching opened the doors. Finally a teenager sprinted down toward the Cafe car, and we followed, for two car lengths. We saw the conductor, just standing in one place, and I shouted that the other doors were not opening. He said something about the doors which I cannot remember exactly, but it was not reassuring. We exited.
Have you experienced a similar situation? Needless to say this was nerve-wracking. I wonder whether we would have missed getting off if we had simply remained waiting. Was the conductor going to walk the length of the train to check? I did not see any way to alert the conductor remotely. Would Amtrak have arranged for us to get back to our station? It was about 11:20pm, and there were no commuter rail or Amtrak trains in the opposite direction until many hours later in the morning.
