The Savage Riders of Amtrak
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"Maybe you don't like your job/maybe you don't get enough sleep/Nobody likes their job/Nobody got enough sleep/Maybe you just had the worst day of your life/But there's no escape/There's no excuse/So just suck up and be nice..." -Ani Difranco We dragged our bags and bodies into Union Station and entrenched ourselves in the waiting area between Starbucks and McDonalds. Three hours early for our train: a marital record achieved only because we'd reached the human limit of museum-going and cherry blossom viewing. The queue for the 8:30 regional train back to New York started to form at 8 PM, and we were third and fourth in line. By 8:25 the line extended outside of the waiting area and past the tie shop, and a second line, and then a third, began to form. A woman returned from the bathroom and chastised her husband for not taking a place in the line. "Hmph! Line!" I heard him say. "When the door opens, just push and go." She rolled her eyes and sighed her own hmph. So did I. As a former Catholic school girl and student of the uber well-mannered Dr. Virginia Uldrick, former director of the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts, there are a few habits of politeness and social order I'm all but honor-bound to uphold for life. Walking down the right side of stairs and waiting my turn are two of those habits, and I'll admit that I become indignant when others violate that deeply held sense of what's right... even if it's not really important in the larger scheme of things. The door opened and the line surged; Francisco took off at a gallop as a guy elbowed his way in front of me. Francisco had our tickets and I ignored the agent as I reclaimed my "rightful" place in the line I'd earned through waiting. As I did so, I sassed a true New Yorker sentence to the line-breaker that neither Sister Ursula nor Dr. Uldrick would have approved of. I've long nurtured the fantasy that a train ride is a romantic, laid back, highly civilized form of travel. But between the price of the tickets (I could take the Chinese bus for about $150 less than Amtrak), the fighting for coveted seats by savage riders, and the fact that security is frighteningly permeable, planes are looking better and better. |
I was JUST having a conversation yesterday about how I wish our passenger train system was more like those in Europe and other places. I would take the train everywhere in the U.S. if it was a better experience for a better price. Also it was faster, much, much faster.
Has Southwest Airlines started assigning seats yet? Trying to board those flights is a similar experience to your Amtrak one!
"i dream of touring like duke ellington
in my own railroad car
i dream of waiting on the tall blonde wooden benches
in a grand station aglow with grace
and then standing out on the platform
and feeling the air on my face
give back the night its distant whistle
give the darkness back its soul
give the big oil companies the finger finally
and relearn how to rock-n-roll"
-Ani DiFranco "Self Evident"
That's a much better Ani quote! :)
Yes: faster. I think the service from one point to another would be faster--even given our decrepit rail system--if some of the organizational recommendations I mentioned were put into effect. They wouldn't waste time in the stations as boarding passengers scrambled to find seats and places to put their luggage.
Agreed. I was appalled to find people pushing to the front of the line after I'd patiently waited there since 6am, on my train ride home from New York on New Year's Day. You might enjoy VIA Rail someday - prices are higher and trains are just as frequently late, but assigned seating ensures people stand in line like human beings instead of behaving like animals! :P
I just can't understand why Amtrak management can't impose some order and structure on its service. Why are seats not assigned? Why is security apparently so low a priority? I'm not a fan of overly stringent security, but no bags were examined at all. Furthermore, as I myself pushed past the ticket agent and kept on walking to the train--and boarding it--without showing him my ticket, one has to wonder how safe the trains really are.
And why are tickets collected mid-trip? Why can't they be scanned in the station as passengers board? Why can't some order be established and enforced in the boarding process? Everyone's totally disgruntled by the time they're aboard.
I have no experience with VIA Rail, but I do remember European train trips fondly... largely because they deal with all of these issues more efficiently and effectively. Which is why it's astonishing that Amtrak doesn't seem to have a clue.