Categories: just-life
Date: 05 April 2007 22:37:17
I have made six trips on total using Amtrak, of which four have run late. The time lost has run to just shy of seven hours. SEVEN HOURS over only four trains. That's truely just not good enough.
In the case of the train I caught from Richmond up to Washington DC on tuesday (2.5 hours late) they held the train for forty minutes just the other side of town, then allowed the train to come through and held it for over ninety minutes in a yard just five minutes down the line. Why they couldn't allow the train into the station, if only to allow the people to get off I shall never know why.
But this isn't the most amazing thing about all of this.
The most amazing thing is the way people (and we're talking about Americans here) just don't complain. Really. They may raise a massive stink if their coffee is lacking just the right sort of cinnamon sprinkle but waiting for a train that FOR NO REASON is being held up just out of sight is fine.
I honestly don't understand it.
Of course, as it was sunny and 29C I wasn't going to grumble about sitting around writing postcards/reading my book.....