Here is a wild one.
My wife and I boarded 41(7) at South Bend, IN - traditionally a station with luggage service. We were planning on checking 2 bags plus my bike (under the normal bike reservation).
When we arrived at SOB, we discovered only a "caretaker" - not the normal full service employee - so no checked luggage that night. The bike was fine because that doesn't require a station employee - it gets handed directly to a conductor in the baggage car under a separate policy. So it didn't have an official Amtrak luggage tag - but that's not that unusual. It happens every time a bike is loaded at a non-luggage stop under the bike policy. Of course, I put my own tag on it with my ID, and in this case I also added the destination MIA in large letters for good measure.
Because of relativity cood weather and rain en route, I didn't get off the train for a fresh air break until Savannah. Much to my surprise - No Baggage Car! Turns out they dropped it in DC due to a bad bearing. Soooooo....my bike hopefully is heading south on 41(8) or 97(8), but we'll see.
Worse yet was a family which boarded in NC. They showed up at the station for their (very) late train to discover no checked baggage service - and bags too big to fit in a roomette. The SCA kindly stored them in an empty room with other passengers' bags who were in a similar situation. Unfortunately, when they arrived in MIA their bag was nowhere to be found. It was likely unloaded in Tampa with the other bags it had been stored with. Yikes.
