I took REGIONAL 185 down in the morning. It was nine minutes late out of Philly and, thanks to the weather and the trackwork betwen Edgewood and Aberdeen, pulled into Union Station 18 minutes behind schedule. But considering the circumstances, the trip wasn't that bad. The train was virtually empty. The only unusual event was that some joker had slipped a page from a porno magazine into the copy of Arrive in my seatback.
The trip home was a different story.
I did not know what time I would be finishing up in Washington, so I had decided not to make an ACELA EXPRESS reservation and just take one of the unreserved REGIONALS instead. That turned out to be one of the biggest Amtrak mistakes I've made.
My chosen train was REGIONAL 136, which was scheduled to leave Washington at 5:10. In addition to the usual Friday evening crowd, seemingly every displaced air shuttle passenger from Dulles and Reagan was trying to board this train with their GIANT wheeled suitcases in tow. The train was boarding from Gate H in Union Station; the line stretched all the way back to Gate C. The only way I got myself onto this train was by convincing the assistant conductor to open up the seats in the café car, which I guess he was trying to save for pax boarding further up the line.
We finally got moving at 5:23, already 13 minutes down. Things did not improve. We were 15 minutes late leaving New Carrollton and 23 minutes late leaving BWI, where even more displaced air travelers tried to squeeze their way onto the train. Our worst station stop was Baltimore. We spent close to 20 minutes in that station. Three trains passed us while we were sitting on Track 6: REGIONAL 85 (running 35 minutes late), METROLINER 119 (30 minutes late), and ACELA EXPRESS 2114 (which actually left on time!). Our delay was caused by some pax who were riding in the vestibules and refused to get off the train. Amtrak Police had to be called to remove them. We finally left Baltimore at 6:35, 42 minutes behind schedule.
The conductor got on the PA and warned any pax still in the vestibules (even though there are no speakers in between the cars) that the police would be waiting for us in Wilmington and would remove any passengers that were not within the bodies of the coaches. Fortunately, the cops ended up not being needed in Wilmington. Still, thanks to the trackwork in Maryland, we were 50 minutes down leaving the little state of Delaware.
I finally stepped off the train in Philly at 7:50, 51 minutes off the advertised. Whew!
