My 2 Grand Adventure

Train of Terror

It's another early start. I catch a cab up to the US side train station and head down to Penn Station, NY for my round trip back to Boston; 9-6 Niagara to NY, 7-11 NY to Boston, check in, couple of beers and a good nights sleep.

Everything starts to go wrong when THE MOST obnoxious black woman gets on and sits behind me. After that the world only contains her voice. If she isn't talking loudly to every fiend and family member she has on the phone ("What you up to niger, why you not returning my calls?"), she's commenting on everything ("Well look at the size of these seats, man this is finer than getting the bus"), or talking at everyone that moves ("What you reading? Is is a romance? A thriller?"), or crooning along to her tape player ("Yeah, my broken heart, yeah!"), or cackaling like a witch (defies a written description). Fortunately she discovers the guy opposite from me is also from England and tagets him her 'intentions'. I'm safe for now.

That's when things get worse... I finish my book at about 1pm, just as we get caught in traffic. I know it's a train! We have to wait for an hour for a freight train to pass us on a single line section. As we set off the cafe car closes and our food and drink supply is cut off. Not so bad now, but the story isn't over yet...

When the foghorn behind me wanders off for a while, I chat to the English guy opposite me who's beet talking all the flack. Turns out he's called Ashley and he's from Stockport. We chat about our travels, eBay, the crazy woman and why the train is going so slow...

Then we stop. Apparently the engine has overheated and we can't go anywhere. We will have to wait for an hour until they can tow us to NY. We where currently just outside Poughkeepsie station, that's about 1 and a half hours outside NY. Then the mad woman finds out...

With no engine there's no power, which means no lights. With no forward movement, there's no air-flow and as we aren't at a station, they can't open the doors or let us off. 'Buried alive' springs to mind ... with a banshee! After about an hour they decide they're going to limp to the station. Once there we can at least get off, but there's nowhere to get any food or drink.

After another hour they give us a choice; stay on the Amtrak and they'll make a 'dash' for NY or we can transfer to the local service and pay again to get to NY. Ashley and me decided 'dash' doesn't sound good so we swap trains. The fact that the crazy woman stays on the 1st train, doesn't affect our decision.

By the time we get to the next station the Amtrak train's 'dash' has apparently ended, so the remaining passengers get on to the local. As we now have to stop at every local stop, we don't reach Manhattan until 8.30pm - 30 mins before my last train leaves for Boston. Also, because we're on the local service we end up at Grand Central Station instead of Penn where I need to get my train to Boston. So, Ashley and me hail a Yellow Cab and I have to run through Penn to get a ticket and then to the platform. I make the train with 5 mins to spare.

After a 4 hour train tide to Boston and a cab to the hostel, I check in at 1.30 am. I think I'm going off train travel...

posted by Mark Slattery @ 11:50 pm