Just say no . . . to Amtrak

Just a PSA to anyone who thinks Amtrak might be a good bet. Ever. It's really, really not, unless you totally do not care what asscrack time of the morning/night the train leaves/arrives or don't necessarily need to be anywhere on time, give or take a day or so (depending on whether you need to be conscious).

At first, Amtrak seemed THE option for travel from Rochester to South Bend and back. $100 round trip? Runs from 10ish PM to 8ish AM? Usually an hour or two late? My initial reactions ranged from good to, eh, no big deal. I could usually get by with the sleep I snagged on the train (sprawled across 2 seats) plus a 2-3 hour nap at some point during my arrival day. It wasn't really THAT BAD. Until . . . WINTER. Evil, nasty winter. Honestly, I had good luck from oh, September through December when I traveled. But it all came back on me. With a vengeance.

I was scheduled to leave the Bend on Thursday night. Around 3:30 my phone rang. Caller ID says "TRAIN." Train should not be calling me; that's the number I call to see how late the damned thing is. The nice operator lady tells me that my train's been canceled and schedules me for Friday night's train. Small inconvenience. Hey, I don't want to be traveling if the weather's bad, and I hardly mind another night in the Bend. Plus, my friends Scott and Emily were having a celebration of his birthday Thursday night, so I got to be there stress-free without worrying about rushing off to the train (a la Halloween). It was a really good time, and I'm glad that hopping a train was the furthest thing from my mind. All was well and good.

But then. . . . Amtrak couldn't seem to tell me if the train had left Chicago on time Friday night. Seriously, were they incapable of looking out a window and identifying a train? How was I to know if it had left and some idiot just didn't update the website, OR whether it was sitting at the station and some idiot didn't update the website? Luckily I found out before I went to the SB station that it hadn't left, or I might have killed someone. It was about 2 hours late. A 12:30 start time from SB was not an auspicious beginning. And it got worse. I should have remembered the lesson to leave for the station at the last possible moment so that I can check online to see if the jerks delayed AGAIN in telling me that the train would be 2 hours late. Turns out that the train going to DC, which should have been through South Bend at 9 was actually stuck on the tracks with a dead engine. My train was stuck behind it. Until 2:30 AM. Seriously, it eventually got around the DC one, why did it not make this maneuver sooner? Oh, and why didn't anyone tell me this until 2AM? I was asking about a refund, and that's when the agent filled me in. Whatever. I stupidly waited on the train because he said it would be "right there" because it was finally pulling around the other.

I got on the train. Not such a bad deal. We did wait/slow down for about a thousand freight trains to go past us. We were moving slow as hell, for no reason other than the freight traffic. I get it: in winter, trucks don't want to be on the northern roads, so trains are a better freight option. And freight trains have right of way. Amtrak is the redheaded stepchild of the rails.

Regardless of the fact that we started 4 hours late, I still maintain that we should not have been NINE freaking hours late arriving in Rochester. I barely slept any, and I was so pissed and anxious that I barely ate anything (plus I was not going to pay Amtrak any money for their crappy train food). I ate granola bars and valentine's M&Ms. I swear to God I was about to lose my mind between PA and Buffalo, when Amtrak's phone system told me that I was going to be in Rochester at 2:38, yet I wouldn't be in Buffalo until 2:45 PM. What strange bending of the space-time continuum is this? Note to Amtrak: update your info consistently, jerks.

I must have been more than fatigued and mentally enraged, because my body physically told Amtrak just what I thought of it in the form of valentine M&Ms pink vomit outside the Rochester station. At least it didn't happen ON the train. Then I would have felt badly. And I was trying to rush to get inside the station to the restroom once I realized what was happening. But I failed. I think it's a fitting end to our relationship. Perhaps the most symbolic breakup I've ever had. Oops, had you gotten me to my destination earlier. . . .

It took me a whole day to recover from the damage and be able to eat, think, speak like a normal human being again. And I wrote Amtrak like 3 nasty e-mails. Hey, customer service needs to know that they suck. The only consolation the whole trip was "Hey at least it's not Jet Blue." However, if I were on one of those planes, I would have gotten off that plane far before 11 hours had passed. I would either have a) called the police to tell them that I was being held hostage; or b) been such a basketcase that they would have had to get the police to come haul me off the plane. I'm not sure if I would have gone with violence or just straight-up crazy, but either way, I would have gotten off that plane. I truly hope that I'm never in that situation.

At any rate. Amtrak did get me to my destination. I still wish that I had gotten a refund and rented a car the next day. . . . The one, tiny bit of pleasure that I've gotten from riding Amtrak? The South Bend station abbreviation. It's not SBN as it is for the airport. It's the ever more appropriate S.O.B. But that's small consolation for the days of my life that Amtrak has cost me.

So remember, kids. Friends don't let friends ride Amtrak.

P.S. I also want to burn the blanket that I have been traveling with to keep me warm on the train. I only paid $7 for it, and I don't know if it can be rescued. But it's so soft and cuddly. Maybe I'll wash it, bleach it (even though it's black; I don't care if it's discolored, I just want to kill the Amtrak cooties!), and give it to Tasi.