Amtrak: Not Fit For Purpose?

by sarahcoggrave

After ditching New Orleans for Chicago, I failed to find an affordable flight to Boston from the latter. Instead I booked a long distance Amtrak train, thinking that this might be a good way to see some of the countryside, and a chance to fill in some gaps in my travel diary.

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The journey began with a late night walk down to Chicago’s Union Station. The streets here most certainly did not feel safe (especially at night), but fortunately the station was only a few blocks from my Chicago hostel. The station was a grim, cramped place – full of people with suitcases and such, many waiting for the same, long train journey as me.

As the appointed departure time approached, station staff herded all passengers into a tiny waiting area. There was insufficient seating and many were left standing. The departure time came and went, and still we waited. Little information was given; no reason for the delay, and the staff, far from being apologetic and courteous, were rude, obnoxious and unhelpful. First one hour, and then another, slid by.

Finally staff told us that we were waiting for a replacement engine to arrive from the depot, and then finally, over several hours late, we boarded the train at close to midnight. Whilst the long delay made me angry, it was the lack of information or apology from staff that really frustrated me. This can make all the difference when problems occur.

Once onboard, I found the seats to be comfortable enough – plenty of leg room and I even managed to sleep a little at first. My neighbour was a Chicago native, travelling to meet family in Springfield, one of the stops before Boston. Like many of the passengers he was friendly, and we enjoyed sporadic periods of conversation across the journey. He offered me a different perspective on the city. His obvious fondness for Chicago made me feel somewhat guilty for disliking it.

The scenery that accompanied the journey was, to say the least, uninspiring. Mostly snow, bare branches, and later, dull industrial expanses. So many bleak, barren places. I’d hate to live in the middle of nowhere, especially in this kind of landscape, and yet we passed isolated houses, swamped by snow. Naiively, I’d envisioned dramatic panoramas – lakes, forests and such, but clearly my knowledge of US geography is lacking; or winter does not show Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and New York (the state not the city) at their best.

There were occasional glimpses of the massive, but frozen, Lake Michigan, and even a sign or two for Niagara Falls (the route passes close to the border with Canada), but nothing that excited or inspired me.

There was no WIFI on board (not any my phone could detect anyhow), and the dining car had a tiny supply of heavily overpriced snacks. I was glad I’d brought provisions from Whole Foods beforehand, but had soon scoffed them all out of sheer boredom. Every few hours or so we’d arrive at some seemingly remote station, and eventually the train filled up. The train seemed to be moving at about 1 mile per hour and often made temporary, seemingly meaningless stops between stations.

I alternated between conversation, sudoku, and flipping through travel photos on my phone. How I craved a good book (or several) on this journey!

As darkness fell once more, we arrived at a station, but this time didn’t leave. For ages. Another delay, another wait for another engine from another depot – by this point I realised we’d not reach Boston before midnight (we were supposed to be there by 9pm). I was worried that my hostel bed would be given away. Thankfully I got a signal for long enough to be able to call them – a rude woman on the other end told me that they’d hold the bed, although snapped at me when I asked to double check this.

It felt as though I’d spent a lifetime on the train, escaping my carriage only once to buy a milk from the limited (and expensive) supplies in the dining cart before it was taken away (the train split at Albany so that the dining cart half could go to New York – Boston-bound passengers were left to go hungry).

In the closing hours of this neverending journey, the train staff finally offered some complementery refreshments – some sickly unhealthy snacks, but welcome nonetheless, along with a miniscule bottle of water. Why had these not been offered earlier I wondered? And why had there been no updates or information about our predicted (late) arrival times?

There was some confusion in Boston; on the map I thought that North Station looked closer to my hostel, but I should have stuck with my original ticketed stop – South Station. When I emerged from the station it was even colder than Chicago (due to heavy snow in the weeks preceding my visit; you could see the snow piled high on either side of the roads), and I first went down the wrong street in the dark, before discovering that I was at the wrong end of the right one, hundreds of addresses from where I needed to be.

Whilst Boston didn’t feel quite as scary and intimidating as Chicago, there were plenty of drunken revellers about – St Patrick’s Day was fast approaching, and apparently this is huge in Boston. So, lots of partygoers.

Following a long trudge through the snow, cursing and stamping along the way, I reached the warmth of the hostel (around 1am/1:30), tripped over in the dark trying to get to bed without disturbing my roommates, and got very little sleep. Nonetheless, I was relieved to have escaped the train, and to have finally arrived. This was the first and last time I will ever use Amtrak (they finally emailed over a month later offering a measly low value voucher as compensation – as if I’d risk travelling with them again!).

I thought British trains were rubbish, but this took the concept of bad service to a whole new level.

See also:

America

Europe

Japan