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Several years ago my family and I were in Canada on a rail trip when we learned Amtrak was facing a strike the next night at midnight. As we traveled from Montreal to NY nobody on board could tell us what was going on. Our train mysteriously "broke down" south of Albany and we had to switch to another train in the middle of nowhere. When we finally got to Penn Station at about 9pm nobody could tell us what to do...there were no red caps, the limited station personnel still there were swamped, and we finally were told to "Try Greyhound". This was not an option at that hour with a toddler and lots of luggage in tow. We rented a car at great cost, drove to somewhere in NJ and spent the night, then on to Washington DC, our planned next stop. Luckily the strike ended and we got home just a day late and were compensated for our trouble. The moral to the story is: Don't buy a ticket or start a trip unless there is certainty that Amtrak will run beyond Wednesday.
Amtrak207 Member # 1307
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What is different now? We've never had any assurance that Amtrak would be running beyond *any* wednesday, so what is the differece now? I feel bad about your experience. That must have been in the summer of 1993 or 1994. Whenever it was, those FL9s were showing their age very thoroughly by then. I would not find it too mysterious that you were riding behind one that encountered mechanical problems. The thing was 35 years old, what do you want?
Eric Member # 674
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I had reservations on the Chief and Starlight a few days before the strike (I was like 6 or 7 yrs old), and I remember worrying that we'd have to cancel our trip. I just picked up my tickets today for a mid-July trip. I'm counting on going. The tickets are non-refundable due to a special promotion. I believe that Amtrak will be running...
disgusted Member # 1373
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As a ticket agent, let me say this. DO NOT let anyone b.s. you on these non-refundable tickets and not getting your money back due to the worry of a shut down. If you call the 1-800 number your going to get the standard company answers. Tickets clerks can do pretty much anything they want to try to keep a passenger happy. I've bent every rule in the book, we all have, within reason, to help a passenger. We were all given little cards signed by upper management pledging to not get us in trouble if all we were doing, was trying to satisfy a customer. How could we possibly get fired anyway? Were doing our job.
mechtech Member # 1459
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At cnn.com I read that SEPTA will be affected by the Amtrak shutdown too. This means that the rail commuter traffic in the northeast will be totally shut down, including NJ Transit? (or parts of NJ Transit at the NE Corridor)? Will Caltrain and TRI-rail continue their services?
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