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Tag: Northeast Regional

By Ryan Stavely (ACS-64_FAIL_5 Uploaded by Mackensen) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Decisions

March 13, 2014 / / 0 Comments

This is part of a series of posts chronicling our difficult journey to the 2014 edition of B-Fest, the annual bad movie festival at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

In yesterday’s episode we were sitting in the cold at Metropark in Iselin, New Jersey, awaiting a late Northeast Regional (train 125), our connection to the Capitol Limited in Washington, D.C.

125 arrives at 1:40 PM, one hour and 35 minutes late. Its projected arrival in DC is 4:10, five minutes after the Capitol Limited departs. I’m not sanguine. Our chances hinge on 125 making up an unbelievable amount of time and/or Amtrak holding the Capitol Limited until we arrive.

This warrants a digression about Amtrak operations. We booked this as a guaranteed connection. What that means is that Amtrak will make it right, somehow, if we misconnect. This can take many forms depending on how late you are and the local situation. Options can include hotel vouchers, refunds, bus connections, etc. It all depends on what’s possible. Sometimes, if there are enough connecting passengers and it wouldn’t incur too harsh of a late departure, Amtrak will hold a train.

We make up some time on 125, but it’s not enough and the elements are against us. We arrive in DC at 4:35 PM, and then face a prolonged disembarking as the ice and cold have frozen many of the doors shut. The Capitol Limited departed on schedule at 4:05 PM. All our attempts to catch it up since jumping off the bus at Newark six hours ago have failed.

We head to the customer relations office to meet with the station manager. He’s very friendly and I immediately feel empathy for him despite my own situation. He’s had several tough days. I can see it in his face. We are offered two options:

  1. Hotel voucher, expense voucher, comparable rebooking on next day’s train.

  2. Full refund of entire trip and Amtrak-paid travel to point of origin (now Metropark).

This is more than fair. I think there were 4 or 5 of us who misconnected from 125. It’s not enough for a bus, assuming a bus could catch the Capitol Limited (debatable; every minute that passed it moved further west). Under most circumstances I’d probably have taken option 2 with a smile, but B-Fest starts in 24 hours. I can’t, and I don’t have time to explain why I can’t. I ask for the refund of the outbound portion only and head off to see a ticket agent about the particulars. I will never forget the crestfallen look on the manager’s face. I wish I could explain.

It was time to try our luck with the airlines. I’d been gaming this a little on the way down to DC as a backup. The legacy airlines were out: too expensive and too slow. We needed an airport with good transport links, which really meant National or BWI. Liz checked Southwest from both and located an 8:10 flight out of BWI to Midway while I finished up the refund. We then booked it for a MARC Penn Line train back up the Northeast Corridor to BWI. It’s my first ride on MARC.

Featured image courtesy of Ryan Stavely (ACS-64_FAIL_5Uploaded by Mackensen) [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Metropark

March 12, 2014 / / 0 Comments

This is part of a series of posts chronicling our difficult journey to the 2014 edition of B-Fest, the annual bad movie festival at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

When you last left us, we had bailed out of a badly-delayed Trans-Bridge Lines bus at the Newark Airport with the intention of hopping a train down to Metropark to catch up our Amtrak Northeast Regional (train 125) coming down from New York.

This plan unraveled almost immediately. We arrived at the AirTrain station around 10:30 in a bit of a rush. Two New Jersey Transit trains were scheduled to reach Metropark ahead of 125. One departed at 11:00 AM, the other at 11:30. The second train would be cutting things a bit fine (~10 minutes). Newark advertises four-minute headways on the AirTrain, and it’s about a 10-minute trip from Terminal A to the train station.

Time passes. No train. More time passes. Still no train. Apparently there’s some kind of mechanical issue. I pace and fret. It’s quarter of 11. The window is closing. Finally a train comes. Each minute feels like an hour. We hit the train station at 10:55. We’re sprinting. I buy tickets from the vending machine and we race for the southbound platform. There’s a train there. Our train? I rush up to the conductor: “DOES THIS TRAIN GO TO METROPARK?!” Yes, she says, with a big smile. We’re on. Thirty seconds later we’re rolling down the Corridor. It’s my first ride on New Jersey Transit.

We arrive at Metropark in good order and set about inspecting the station. I’ve seen worse. Much worse. The biggest knock is that the station is elevated, and to reach the station building itself from the southbound platform you face a somewhat long walk through a dank tunnel. Otherwise it’s fine.

We arrived at 11:20. 125 was due to depart New York at 11:35 and arrive in Metropark at 12:05. Meantime, in New York, another drama was playing itself out. It was cold today. Very cold. The creations of Man do not appreciate cold nor fine, blowing snow which gets into electrics and causes all manner of problems. In New York, the pipes froze on the consist which was to be train 125. FDA regulations do not allow an intercity train to operate without running water. Probably for the best. Unfortunately, this meant Sunnyside Yard had to cobble together a new equipment set before 125 could depart.

Meanwhile, I’m sitting outside at Metropark as a form of penance, an offering to the Transport Gods. It’s very cold. I don’t know about the equipment problem yet. I do know that 125 hasn’t left New York and the clock is ticking. I assume (wrongly), that the problem is weather-related congestion in New York; perhaps one of the North River tunnel tubes is out of service. More time passes. I explain to other passengers what I know about operations. As we stand there an Amtrak train arrives at the station, unheralded and unexpected.

“What train are you?”, I call out.

“645,” comes the answer.

It’s a Keystone Service, bound for Harrisburg. Normally it doesn’t stop here. Jovial conductors offer a lift to anyone headed there and points in between. It’s much appreciated but we’re all headed south of Philadelphia. They pass on the news from New York: 125 has an equipment problem.

Featured image courtesy of Hermann Luyken (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

The Bus

March 11, 2014 / / 0 Comments

This is part of a series of posts chronicling our difficult journey to the 2014 edition of B-Fest, the annual bad movie festival at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

I’m sitting on a bench at the Metropark train station in Iselin, New Jersey. It’s January 23. It’s very cold. I’m pondering how it came to this. Some form of cosmic retribution for the near-perfect runs on the Vermonter and Silver Star earlier in the month?

It started well enough, with Ken dropping us off at the Easton Bus Terminal a little before 8 AM. We planned to take the 8:10 Trans-Bridge Lines bus, which would deliver us to New York by 10:00, more than enough time to catch the 11:35 Northeast Regional (train 125) for Washington, D.C.

It went wrong almost immediately, as multiple crashes in the cold, snowy weather turned I-78 into a gigantic parking lot. By 10:20 or so we had reached Terminal A at Newark Airport (nearly an hour late), and the traffic situation into New York didn’t sound promising. Google Maps predicted an arrival in New York at 11:20-11:30, which was far too close for comfort.

If we misconnected in New York with 125 we were out of luck on the Amtrak front. 125 is the last train with a valid connection to the Capitol Limited, and the last train period scheduled to reach DC prior to the Capitol Limited‘s departure owing to weather-induced cancellations. If we arrived late into New York the only choice would be to rebook for the Lake Shore Limited, accepting the necessary repricing and likely unavailability of sleeping accommodations. I’ve documented at length why the Lake Shore Limited isn’t a desirable option.

The alternative was to bail out at Newark, ride the AirTrain out to the airport train station (on the Northeast Corridor), and catch our train south of New York. Using the last of my laptop’s battery I worked out a plan. We would get off at Newark, ride the AirTrain to station, and hop a New Jersey Transit train to Metropark in Iselin. As we walked through the terminal I called Amtrak and adjusted our itinerary to originate from Metropark instead of New York. We left the Trans-Bridge bus to its fate.

Featured image courtesy of Adam E. Moreira (Own work) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

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