The first is on the train down the Hudson River to NYP. In the seat behind me is a you ng woman having a fight with her mother via cell phone. She would hang up on her mother then call a friend to talk about it, then call waiting would go off and it was her mother again. This went on for about 20 minutes until I packed up and changed cars.

So I get my new seat making sure that there are no cell phones near by and within 10 minutes I smell acetone. Real strong. The woman behind me is doing her nails and gaging me. I turn around and look over the seat and without a word she packs it all back in her hand bag. What is wrong with these people.

OK next one is kind of amusing. I am southbound on the adirondak and the kid behind me has one of these nextel walkee talkees. A woman who is apparently intimate with him calls him and they fight about why he didn't spend more time with her. Best part is you could hear both sides of the conversation with the walkee talkee feature. It was brilliant! Of course if my stop was not 15 minutes away I am sure I would have gotton annoyed.

So how bout it? Any tales to tell?

On the same trip, the car attendant that told me to go to the back of the line while patiently waiting to board in Orlando (this was the Meteor). I still don't know what I did wrong.

Couples talking to each other loudly at 5am when they've woken up, and expect the rest of the car to be awake as well.

Once on the coast starlight there were two teenager (20) behind us and they would not stop cussing! It was really annoying on a ten hour trip with lots of delays. They sure didnt keep there thoughts to themselves. "I'm calling F******* Amtrak to get my money back" so these low class losers were real messed up. But, I spent most of my time in the Lounge/Dining car/Cafe so everything was cool. Also once a lady next to us on the Surfliner had about 4 beers in an hour at around 11am....I am suprised they were serving that early..LOL

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A couple of weeks later coming home, a new group of Boy Scouts were in our car. They were completely the opposite. They were polite the entire trip. I told them and their leader about our previous experience. I also told them that it was nice to see that there still are Boy Scouts who practice what they preach.

San Diegan, in Coach: College-age kids talking smack and laughing and cussing loudly...there was gas coming out both ends...train was full (this was pre-Metrolink)

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Originally posted by Konstantin:
I rode the Southwest Chief from Flagstaff to Chicago. In Raton, a group of Boy Scouts got on our train.

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According to several crew members I've met on the Southwest Chief, Boy Scouts have been responsible for some of the petty thefts (CD players, cameras, etc.) that sometimes occur in the coaches.

And I once spotted a "kid in uniform" attempting to carve his name into the wall of a sightseer lounge.

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Originally posted by dilly:
As I recall, I promised to rip his arm off if he didn't stop. He stopped.

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Originally posted by mr williams:
(as drinking your own liquor is forbidden except in sleepers)

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I did not know that.
Here is something funny that happend to my mom. We were going from STL to San Antonio and on the return leg my mom had to get a small bottle of wine so that she could get to bed(she really has trouble going to bed on trains but she still loves them). So all of us thought bringing alcahol on board was illegal, so my mom slipped it in her purse because she had it anyways and that night we noticed that it smelled like wine in our bedroom and realized the bottle bursed open in her purse. Had we known its OK for sleeping car passangers to have alcahol, then she could have enjoyed the wine.

Your first story is my worst nightmare, which I have been through on planes and trains. Why does this always happen to me?

Your second story.....what is talking "smack"?? I am not familar with that.

Great stories all, keep em coming.

Second: I was on the CS #14 right around Chemult. In front of me was a woman on a cell phone (oh, God another rude cell phone user story..well, no she was just ridiculously funny). Anybody who knows this part of the route knows there's about 10 or more tunnels. Every time we went through a tunnel, here cell phone would go dead and she would mutter "F**k!". This persisted until she figured out after about the fourth time of it going dead and numerous people trying to explain that it wasn't her "piece of sh*t cell phone battery", she asked the coach car attendant every 5 minutes when we would be through all "these damn tunnels". And muttered to herself "You would think by now Amtrak would have the technology to just blow these mountains out of the way...God!"

Stupidity would be amusing, if not so tragic!

Then there was a guy many years ago on the Southwest Chief who approached me in the hi-level lounge car (pre-Superliner) who swore I was a "spy" or that I "worked for the government."

Then a few years later, also on the Chief, a weather-beaten homeless-appearing man was wandering around the train, and once some one looked at him and he screamed "DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT WITH THOSE BIG BLUE EYES." Later I saw the same man laying on a bench in one of the old-style single-level coach bathrooms (when they were called "gentlemen's lounges") fast asleep.

Then there was the guy on the Empire Builder who was wandering around with a dazed look in his eyes all the way from Seattle to Grand Forks, before he was finally taken off the train by AMTRAK police for drugs.

Another silly thing one woman did. On the SW Chief at Albuquerque. *** and handler (ATF?) comes aboard, *** sniffs around the bags and picks one out. Call goes out on the PA system "would the owner of the blue Nike bag please identify yourself". She comes downstairs and, much to her surprise, walks straight into the handcuffs and is carted off!

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Originally posted by JonA:
mpalmer,

Your second story.....what is talking "smack"?? I am not familar with that.

Jon

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I play in paintball scenario games and there is a ton of smack talk prior to a game.

Here's an example. Over Memorial Day this year, 43 Texans went to EMR in northeast Pennsylvania to compete against RTD, a scenario team that had NEVER lost a scenario game. They told us that Tea drinking, Skirt wearing, Poodle walkers need not apply....and Oh Yea, Better Bring your "A" game!!

We SMOKED them! We set records smoking them. We told them we left our "A" game in the hotel on Sunday to give them a small chance to catch up.

He look scoffingly at me and said, 'I'm on the phone, man'. Fortunately I had planned my next move since that response 'made my blood boil'. I went to the conductor and car attendant who happened to be together in the next car. The conductor said, "I think I know who you mean' and came and chewed the guy out, suggesting he take his calls in the lounge car. Amazingly he went to sleep, but of course, groaned and snored loudly.

I always check 'annoyance' people's destination tag. Sometimes it's easiest to 'wait them out' in the lounge car.

Funniest and most annoying was on a prior SWC trip where a lady got on in Alburqueque with four or five kids, one with a grand baby. When one kid would say something, three others would pop up over the seats and say 'what?'. Sometimes I felt like repeating 'what she said' to keep things quiet. It was actually funny since they were nice people. As the train got moving out of Alburqueque one kid asked mother, 'Where are we going? The answer was Anaheim.