Along with another person, I had an Amtrak trip booked from the Milwaukee Airport to Aberdeen, MD, via the “Hiawatha”, “Capitol Limited”, and “NEC Regional”. Plus I had managed to get a real good price on a “Bedroom” on the “Cap”, even though I booked it only five days before the February 9th departure.
The Hiawatha arrived on time for the 3:10 PM stop at MKA, but never got rolling again. The air system had suddenly gone faulty – they stopped and restarted the locomotive hoping that it would “reboot” it, but with no luck. We all sat there for quite a while listening to the “we’re trying” and “we’ll keep you informed” announcements. Most of the time the engine stayed running, so there were only limited interruptions to the power and heating inside the coaches. However, for us two, it reached the point, in time, when there was no way that we could make it to the 6:40 PM departure of the #30 in Chicago. By this time, they had decided to wait for the northbound Hiawatha, and it was going to push the southbound back to the downtown Milwaukee station.
I called the Amtrak Rewards reservation number and got through immediately and explained our circumstance (arriving 24 hours late would not meet our commitments in Maryland) and was issued a refund to the purchasing credit card. We then exited the train, as the northbound had just arrived, and the crew was working on the coupling process – we were not the only passengers on our train to bail. The two of us then took the shuttle over to the airport terminal – as we rode away the train still hadn’t moved, and the passengers on the northbound had yet to detrain as they were too far south of the platform. I have no knowledge of when the combined train actually reached MKE.
At the airport terminal, we negotiated a one-way car rental to our destination in Maryland. We drove all night, arriving at about 7:00 AM (Central time), whereas our train booking wouldn’t have gotten us there until 4:09 PM (Eastern Time). A friend of mine, who lives in the Milwaukee area, and who knew I had booked this train trip, called me the next day, asking if it was MY train, as the incident had made the Milwaukee television news.
In my 30 plus years of riding Amtrak this might have been the worst glitch. I hold no ill will toward Amtrak, knowing what their situation is and the problems that the cold weather can bring. My biggest disappointment was the fact that my traveling companion was a “rookie” and I was hoping to showcase the positive aspects of train travel.
Note: The two of us are both from the La Crosse, WI area, but Amtrak will not, at this time, sell you a (same day) connection from the #8 Empire Builder to the #30 Capitol Limited (or to the #50 Cardinal/Hoosier State). Thus, in order to avoid overnighting in either Milwaukee or Chicago, we had arranged to drive a vehicle to Milwaukee, for an auto dealer, in order to get to the airport train station.
The Hiawatha arrived on time for the 3:10 PM stop at MKA, but never got rolling again. The air system had suddenly gone faulty – they stopped and restarted the locomotive hoping that it would “reboot” it, but with no luck. We all sat there for quite a while listening to the “we’re trying” and “we’ll keep you informed” announcements. Most of the time the engine stayed running, so there were only limited interruptions to the power and heating inside the coaches. However, for us two, it reached the point, in time, when there was no way that we could make it to the 6:40 PM departure of the #30 in Chicago. By this time, they had decided to wait for the northbound Hiawatha, and it was going to push the southbound back to the downtown Milwaukee station.
I called the Amtrak Rewards reservation number and got through immediately and explained our circumstance (arriving 24 hours late would not meet our commitments in Maryland) and was issued a refund to the purchasing credit card. We then exited the train, as the northbound had just arrived, and the crew was working on the coupling process – we were not the only passengers on our train to bail. The two of us then took the shuttle over to the airport terminal – as we rode away the train still hadn’t moved, and the passengers on the northbound had yet to detrain as they were too far south of the platform. I have no knowledge of when the combined train actually reached MKE.
At the airport terminal, we negotiated a one-way car rental to our destination in Maryland. We drove all night, arriving at about 7:00 AM (Central time), whereas our train booking wouldn’t have gotten us there until 4:09 PM (Eastern Time). A friend of mine, who lives in the Milwaukee area, and who knew I had booked this train trip, called me the next day, asking if it was MY train, as the incident had made the Milwaukee television news.
In my 30 plus years of riding Amtrak this might have been the worst glitch. I hold no ill will toward Amtrak, knowing what their situation is and the problems that the cold weather can bring. My biggest disappointment was the fact that my traveling companion was a “rookie” and I was hoping to showcase the positive aspects of train travel.
Note: The two of us are both from the La Crosse, WI area, but Amtrak will not, at this time, sell you a (same day) connection from the #8 Empire Builder to the #30 Capitol Limited (or to the #50 Cardinal/Hoosier State). Thus, in order to avoid overnighting in either Milwaukee or Chicago, we had arranged to drive a vehicle to Milwaukee, for an auto dealer, in order to get to the airport train station.