In all my time of riding Amtrak, I have only been on a train that has hit someone only once. So the odds of it happening are quite low.
True, but what are the odds of it happening on the very first U.S. train ride of my adult life?
But hey, there's the snack car and at least they sell cocktails and beer.
We were 30 minutes from Chicago - and restocking. i.e. they were out of food/drinks and had closed the snack bar and dining car. After about an hour and half, they offered free bottled water and snack packs - which they ran out of after about 20 minutes. There were 250 of us on the train and we waited for 5 hours. We started to wonder when the toilets would start to overflow and if this would become the Amtrak version of the BlueJet incident.
I had expected to get to town by 2 pm and have a late lunch with my friend and so didn't take the lunch offered on the train. With the accident, it turned out that it was nearly 10 pm before I was able to get something to eat.
I had noticed their weird practices earlier and thought it bizarre that a train that offered a dining car and snack bar would not stock itself completely. They actually ran out of food. They'd offer reservations for dinner and by the late dinner, they were out of all but a few items. They'd make announcements for first come first serve breakfast and lunch, then call a cut-off time because they were out of food.
Is Amtrak subsidized by the government or what?
And I don't mean to sound insensitive. But I mean, trains have been around since the early 1800's. And these days people are so pre-occupied with their Ipod's or texting on their phone, and they're in such a hurry, that a lot of folks are just not paying attention. It's unfortunate. And the suicides. What a selfish thing to do as it is. And then delay all of these passengers because of your selfishness... Grrrr!
I feel so badly for the family of the victims, but you're right, I forgot about the conductors/engineers/drivers whatever they call them. It can't be pleasant to know that someone was killed while you were driving, but there wasn't anything you could do about it.
But Del, I think it's great you were riding the Texas Eagle. How exciting! Where did you board the train at?
In Texas, it was a 22.5 hour ride to Chicago, stopping in every 1 John Deere tractor town between Texas and St. Louis...