Amtrak passengers stranded by storm
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The New York Times - Published: February 7, 2010
After the powerful mid-Atlantic storm grounded flights and shut down highways Friday night, Amtrak's Capitol Limited, bound for Chicago from Washington, seemed to offer its 115 passengers a cozy alternative as it sped through the snow-swept countryside.
But around 2:45 a.m. Saturday, the train made an unscheduled stop outside Connellsville, Pa., a former coal-mining town 57 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Downed trees and power lines blocked the Capitol Limited, stranding and infuriating passengers.
"This is outrageous," Sheribel Rothenberg, 65, of Chicago, said Saturday afternoon in a telephone interview from the stranded train. "Nobody can do anything about the weather, but be truthful, keep us informed."
Besides the power lines, a freight train had derailed in Cumberland, Pa., behind the Capitol Limited, an Amtrak spokesman said.
And there was another problem: the crew had worked its maximum allowable hours, but whiteout conditions on the highways prevented replacements from getting there.
The train cars had heat, electricity and food to last through Saturday lunch. But by the 15th hour, the passengers were getting restless, the bathrooms were getting dirty and the view — murals paying homage to the mining industry — never changed.
Amtrak reached out to a local Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, which supplied dinner for the passengers. The train's chef disembarked to forage for breakfast food at a local grocery.
"It's pretty stressful," said Reginald Townsend, who was with his two daughters, ages 3 and 4. "No one's cleaned up the bathrooms, and I'm worried about the germs the kids could get."
Meanwhile, passengers were getting to know their seatmates better than they had thought they ever would.
"I feel like I am camping," said Rothenberg, who traded three issues of The New Yorker for an old copy of "Huckleberry Finn." "They're up the river somewhere in Kentucky," she said of Huck and Jim, "which is better than up the river somewhere in Pennsylvania."
NYT-02-06-10 2156EST
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