Disrupted train travel

Sunday evening, I hopped on the Amtrak from New Haven to Philadelphia.  The total journey was supposed to take less than three hours, and I was supposed to arrive just after 9pm.  There would be plenty of time to take a taxi to my hotel, unpack, prepare mentally for the final stop on my Fabulous Working Journey of October 2013. 

The train stopped on the tracks about twenty minutes outside of New York Penn station.  A draw bridge was up.  And broken.  And mechanics were going to fix it, any time now, so we were just going to wait until that happened.  My neighbor asked the conductor if there was a plan B, and she said that plans A through Z were all the same: wait until the draw bridge was fixed. 

Around 10:30 pm, now running about three hours late, Amtrak implemented plan AA (you know, the one that comes after Z).  The train reversed back to the previous station, we all got out, crossed over the tracks, and hopped on a regional train to Grand Central Station. 

Turns out that Amtrak only goes into Penn Station, not Grand Central Station.  As an outsider, I didn't know this.  I think I heard the conductor of the regional train trying to explain how we stranded Amtrak riders could get to Penn station, but as there were hundreds of people packed into the cars at this point, it was difficult to hear what the conductor was saying.  Realizing that I would never make it out of New York City unassisted, I turned to the couple next to me and asked if they had been on Amtrak, and if they knew where to go to continue an interrupted journey south?

The couple I asked just happened to live in Philadelphia, and indeed, they had been on their way home before the draw bridge broke.  They were also very familiar with New York City.  I followed them down the long hall to the exit, into a waiting taxi, through Times Square, lit up like New Year's Eve at 11:30pm on a Sunday in October, and around the corner to Penn Station.  We hurried down the long hall, to find that a Keystone train was leaving for Philadelphia at 11:58, in just twenty minutes. 

The line to the ticket counter was long.  The broken draw bridge had stranded people on both sides of New York City.  But a woman waived me to a counter near the line's exit, and eight minutes before the train departed to Philadelphia, I had a ticket. 

My train arrived at 1:20 am at the Philadelphia 30th Street Station.  There were not quite enough taxis to meet the 1:20 am train, so I waited in the taxi queue for about fifteen minutes.  And then fifteen minutes later I was finally in my hotel. 

Reflecting on this experience, I feel lucky.  I feel lucky to have found a couple who knew exactly how to handle an Amtrak incident between New York and Pennsylvania.  I feel lucky to have screwed up the courage to ask someone for help.  If I had waited in silence, assuming I would find someone from Amtrak to assist me, I probably would have spent an extra ten or fifteen minutes in Grand Central Station before I figured out where to go next.  And then I probably would have missed the Keystone train to Philadelphia.  And then perhaps I would have had to spend the night huddled against my luggage in a train station. 

Everything worked out.  And it would have worked out even if I had spent a few extra hours in New York City awaiting the next train.  But while I am here, and writing, and reflecting, I think I ought to send a Thank You drifting out into the internet, just for the simple gift of a few more hours of sleep, and the peace of mind of having arrived safely. 

Thank You.