Pair left at side of TRACKS

Hmmmm.

Whistleblower: Amtrak left pair on the tracks in Minnesota

Job opening for new crew soon?

The crew of the Amtrak Empire Builder thought they were doing their passengers a favor. Vivian Rhode, 75, and her niece Peggy Larson, 64, had missed their stop in St. Cloud, and the next station was about three hours away.

So at 1 a.m. March 28, the train made an unscheduled stop 2 miles north of St. Cloud. Rhode and Larson took their luggage and stepped into the windy, cold night.

"We were right smack on the railroad track, and away they went," Rhode said.

If the account is accurate, the guiltiest party is the conductor for stopping the train and endangering two elderly passengers. And for that, the genius should be fired.

But I wonder if any of the other fully-grown adults involved -- sleeper attendant, engineer, other crew members who were aware of the situation -- even questioned the decision. If not, all of them should be fired.


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The responsibility is split between the passengers and the crew, the 2 elderly women should of exited the train when the attendant knocked on their door. The crew should of been smarter and kept them on the train. The article says SOP would of been to bring them to Fargo and have them take a cab to St. Cloud, why should amtrak be liable for a $100+ cab fare after the attendant knocked on their door and the passengers didn't get off?

fired !!! lets just see what other side of story is, again these woman agreed to get off at crossing, they did not push them . just sayin...

I have to 2nd what was just said there is always 2 sides to the story and we should wait before anyone jumps to conclusion saying someone deserves to be fired. We dont know what the engineer was aware of.

Hey kids,

Sixty-four isn't elderly.

It's between Depends and a DNR. (I'm 60.)

If they exited at a grade crossing 2 miles from town i honestly do not see an issue especially seeing the alternative which is a night out in the open at fargo 3 hours train ride from destination. 2 miles is certainly walkable, i myself have walked 7 miles in 2 hours with a 45 lb backpack. They could have called a cab on board the train and had it waiting for them at the crossing as well. I am a travel planner, i deal with customer service issues all the time, and i honestly see several failings by the passengers and none by the crew. They wanted off so they let them off. If they were not going to be ready in time to exit at their specified destination then they should have either planned better or asked for assistance.

The one problem of amtrak long distance service is that if there is a problem, most likely it's a minimum of 24 hours before you have an alternative. The only way to fix this is to add trains and we all know the issues involved with that.

I think we're getting ahead of things here. Is there a rule that addresses this directly in Amtrak's rulebook? If not, this affair likely falls under some general duty safety rule that says something like "the primary duty of employees is the safe transport of passengers". At that point, were the brass upset about the affair and have the spare time to do something about it, it would have to be proven that the actions fell under a precedent that says such actions were not safe. Given that certain railroads have stations that are just a level grade crossing, and Amtrak has been known to put rule breakers off at grade crossings, that's going to be an uphill battle. And it's not going to be a David/Goliath contest, if it's a grey area, you can be the UTU or BLE will vigorously defend their conductor.

Personally, I don't have a problem with the actions provided the ladies in question didn't. My parents are slightly younger than the passengers in question and would have no problem hopping off near home at a grade crossing.

I definitely believe there has to be more to the story.

I can't believe the conversation went as simply as
"Umm, folks, we missed your stop, but we can stop here and let you off."
"Ok, sounds good."

I wouldn't be surprised if it went more along the lines of: "Umm, you missed your stop, but we can let you off at our next stop in 3 hours and get you a cab back."

"No way, that's not acceptable, we want off now!"

"Ladies, it is the middle of the night and we're in the middle of nowhere. Do you really want us to let you off at the next grade crossing and perhaps you can call someone?"

"Yes, fine, we just want off this train."

I mean regardless of what really happened, it couldn't take more than a few minutes since it was only 2 miles down the track.

And rereading it, it sounds more likely the policy that was broken wasn't stopping to let folks off (as Tadman comments, Amtrak does that for unruly passengers as it is and I've personally seen it for someone who was on an ALB bound train when they wanted a PHL bound train. They were let off at an unscheduled stop at Yonkers).

More likely the policy violated is either not making sure there was someone there to greet them or it was a "safe" location or more likely, the policy of making sure the sleeping attendant made sure they actually got off the train.

And to be a bit judgmental, "didn't know it was a rural area?" I'm not from there, but I've got to bet that anything 2 miles from anything but the most major city counts as "rural". But that's me.

In any case, I'm sure there's more to this story.

St Cloud MN is a fairly large town nw of the twin cities,along with a couple of paper mills by the river,
if they were dropped off at one of crossings by one of the paper mills,security guards could(should)help them.
Somebody would/should noticed a train stopping on the crossing,and people getting off the train!

This will wind up as a "footnote" in the national news, an OOPS moment.

I'm going to ask one of my dumb questions, at risk of opening a can of worms....
If I'm reading this correctly, the sleeper attendant knocked on the patrons' door to let them know their stop was coming up. By the patrons' own admission, they were aware of the impending stop and began getting ready with their luggage, but then just sat in their room waiting to be told they could exit.

1. I'm assuming that because the attendant alerted the patrons to the stop, the train was going to stop anyway, regardless of whether anyone was standing at the doors waiting to detrain.
2. Common sense would seem to dictate that if you have warning that your stop is approaching, and then, assuming "a" is true and that the train stopped, wouldn't one think the train stopping means you should exit, not just sit and wait for the train to start moving again and then wonder why no one told you to exit? (Or at the very least, open your door and check if you're at the station yet???)

For the record, my unprofessional opinion is siding with 25Hz in that the vast majority of the fault here really seems to rest on the patrons for failing to detrain despite having ample warning that their stop was approaching. I do agree that there were some failings on the crew's part with how the patrons were let off, but as was said, I'm sure it wasn't as simple as the crew saying "You're getting off here whether you like it or not" - I would highly suspect the patrons chose to not go another 3 hours. The crew's side of the story really does need to be heard here and I get the feeling, with the way the media tends to be, even if Amtrak releases an official statement on the interactions leading to this, we'll never hear about it because it wouldn't be as "sensational" as people being "forced" off the train in the "middle of nowhere".

these are first class elderly passengers . the sleeper attendant , should not only had made sure they were aware of thier stop coming up , but assisted them to detrain . I'm not sure f they were in a upper or lower level sleeper ,( odds are its upper ) , but if first class service consists of a warning that your stop is coming up , then things are pretty bad .

If the passengers were presented with the alternative of being stuck on the train until Staples or getting off at a grade crossing...and they willingly chose the crossing 2 miles from their original stop I say kudos to the crew for being so flexible. One would think in this day and age it would be simple to call your ride from the train and have them pick them up at the new location, but I guess these two passengers so befuddled that they somehow thought there was an extra station there or the train was backing up or something. This is why employees can't can't go out of their way to try to help people, they get punished for it. Way to go society.

I reminded of a story I heard once from an old timer during the rainbow era of Amtrak where the conductor essentially screwed up and forgot there was a passenger for Rome, NY on the Empire Service onboard. Somewhere between Rome and Syracuse he had the train stop at either a crossing or a siding where a cab took the passenger back to Rome on the conductor's dime in exchange for Amtrak not to discipline him.