9/11 thread. Were there any members who were riding trains that day ?

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WICT106

OBS Chief
Joined
Sep 8, 2003
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890
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I was just beginning my first semester of Grad School that day, with an afternoon class where the instructor chose to shorten the class that day. It was a sunny day, and as it wore on, things became quiet around town.
 
My wife and I were on vacation in Providence, RI that week using that town as our hub to go several different directions. That morning we were to take an Acela to Boston to spend the day, see the sights, have a nice evening meal and then Acela back to Providence.

When we arrived in Boston late morning half the town was at South Station trying to get out of Dodge (Two of the planes had left from Logan) and we ended up never getting out of the station and riding the commuter train back to Providence with standing room only. In fact, the conductor couldn't even get up and down the aisles it was so crowded, so no tickets were taken. Amtrak had shut down all east coast operations after our train arrived in Boston.

Along with the day WWII was over, the day Kennedy was shot, I will always remember 9/11 and where I was and what I was doing.

The highlight of the train trip was the conductor let me sit in his little office and watch the speed as we approached 125MPH.
 
I was in Toronto attending a week long meeting in a hotel right under the approach flight path into Lester B. Pearson International Airport. It was amazing how things got very quiet when the airspace was shut down. Later in the evening they did open up the airspace in Canada to move planes and passengers from the frontline Atlantic maritime airports to Toronto and Montreal since there was not enough resources in the initial airports where they had been grounded to cater for all the passengers. So there was some activity in the evening as those planes came in and then everything went quiet again. We were basically stuck in Toronto since there was nothing flying and Amtrak was sold out SRO. The border checkposts were jammed and it was taking many hours to cross the border.

Finally on Friday we packed ourselves, 4 of us into a friend's truck and headed homewards. We chose to cross the border at the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara Falls since it is a non-commercial crossing point. There were no trucks backed up there so we managed to get across fairly quickly,and then drove through the day to get back to NJ in the evening. It was quite a trip.

And then that Sunday I had to fly out to India on a family emergency. I flew out of Newark on a Virgin Atlantic 747 which had precisely 8 passengers in the entire plane!. We took off from runway 22L and the WTC site was in clear sight to the left. It was heartbreaking.
 
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MrFSS said:
Amtrak had shut down all east coast operations after our train arrived in Boston.
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Actually while Amtrak did shut down for several hours, they did resume some east coast service later that day. However, one had to prove that one lived within NYC to get off any trains at Penn Station. And even if one could get off, it was near impossible to get anywhere with 3/4ths of the city shut down and most subway lines out of service within Manhattan.

The commuter RR's also resumed service late that afternoon, but they were coming into the city empty and only taking passengers out of NYC.
 
As for me, I wasn't out riding that day. I actually had my hand on the door to go drive to a client when my wife stopped me to come look at the news footage of the first plane hitting the building. Had it happened 10 minute later, I would have been stuck outside of NY and would have needed to head to Pennsylvania to spend the night with family, since they shut down all the bridges into the city.
 
I was at work in Providence, RI at a Government office. When the Government closed all their offices later in the morning, I headed home. Because I lived 35 miles away, and took a city bus in to work that morning, I took a midday bus home. That bus is scheduled to stop at the airport.

That was the day they shut down all airspace. People got on with luggage. Normally, there is no luggage allowed on CDTA.

Nobody complained!
 
I was already at work, as a Customer Service Agent for a women's clothing store/website. I got a call from a lady who was in New York watching it unfold & telling me about it on the phone. One of our clothing stores was in one of the towers. Her daughter worked there, but had not gone in to work yet. She was calling to try to get us to contact the authorities in the tower. I was on the phone with her when the second plane hit. I got my supervisor to listen in, she thought the lady was a nut job, and took no action. I was pretty upset about it, but there was nothing I could do for her but console & try to comfort her on the phone. We did lose an employee, & didn't know for days where the Corporate Execs were. The store's headquarters is also in NYC. Later that day, after they shut down all flights, the sky was so quiet.

It was like the whole country was already in mourning. Everyone at work was clearly in shock, many just got up from their desks & work & went into the break room to see what was happening. I was able to get on a news website to follow it from my desk. It was so terrible, & still is. My heart & prayers are with the families of the victims.
 
I was playing with my brother when my dad called to us that a plane had hit the WTC. I was too young to get the real effect of it, but I was still shocked when I first saw it on CNN.
 
I was not on a train, having driven to work, but I was the ticket agent at the time at Convent Station on New Jersey Transit's Morristown line. The radio was off in my office that morning and the local taxi driver gave me the news and I remember listening to WOR Radio and slumping against my counter in horror. I lost six of my customers that day. The next week I sang at the funeral of one of the young men lost on the 105th floor, who I had had a serious talk with that morning at 5:30 just before he boarded his train to Hoboken. I am here in Alaska now, having left the railroad a few months later, but i too remember vivdly that day.
 
My brother flew here from California few days before the 9/11 attack. We were planning to go to the mountains in northern NM on that day. We decide to go for it despite the incident. We backpacked for 3 nights. It was so quiet out there, no planes in the sky despite a close proximity to ABQ. On the way back home, saw Southwest Chief despite couldn't see the passengers through the tinted windows. Also saw a Greyhound bus full of passengers wearing office attires! Knew that the airports are still closed. My brother flew home, I think a day or two after the airspace opened up.
 
I was not on train, but I will go on. I had just started the 6th grade and was sitting in my 3rd period class. The teacher told us what had happened even though she was not supposed to do so. Apparently the principal did not want the students to know what had happened, so our teacher told us not to tell anyone. I thought it was some kinda weird joke as was known for telling some weird ones from time to time. It was not until i got home and my dad showed me the news footage from the day, and although not exactly sure what to make of it. Some how I knew this country would never be quite the same as it was.
 
For those who are newer members, and for those who might have missed it the first time around or just wish to review things, I reposted a series of posts that I made on 9/11 and in the days that followed detailing the transit situation on the 5th aniversery of the attack.

The topic easily be found in the OTOL archives or you can click here should you wish to see how things went that day and the subsequent days.
 
I was in the City for Govt. business,had spent the night with a friend out in Queens,didnt have to go in to Manhattan for a meeting till later on that day!When we heard the news everyone was stunned! We could see the smoke from the fires but not until later on was it clear exactly what was going on!

Needless to say, all routine Govt. business was suspended,no-one was getting into Manhattan as Alan B. said,we kept up with the news wondering how much worse it might get! I stayed with my friend until the next Monday after getting ahold of my boss in WAS and taking a few personal days!(I had ridden the train up from WAS to NYP!)Lucky me,my meeting was in the area and if it had been early I would have been close by!

Id always meant to go to the top of the Towers,now they were gone!I went back in 2005 to see ground Zero,my thoughts today are with the families of the fallen heroes and for the first responders that are ready to serve us in times of peril,truely Americas heroes!

Late edit: Thanks Alan for the old OTOP posts,sounds like you were helping out too!
 
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AlanB said:
For those who are newer members, and for those who might have missed it the first time around or just wish to review things, I reposted a series of posts that I made on 9/11 and in the days that followed detailing the transit situation on the 5th aniversery of the attack.
The topic easily be found in the OTOL archives or you can click here should you wish to see how things went that day and the subsequent days.
Click to expand...
Thank you Alan.
 
I wasn't on a train, but I remember that day just as well as everyone else. I was a firefighter at the time, and I remember being on edge the whole day and just sitting and waiting, wondering if anything would happen again. Later that day my elderly aunt had to be taken to the hospital At the time she had to be on O2, but because of that day there were no deliveries so her doctor said to bring her into the ER. I have never heard an ER so quite. Everyone just sat there, in shock staring at the TV, all off us were thinking the same thing why?

a few weeks after 9-11 it was fire prevention week and he had the local grade school touring our fire house. The fire prevention program at the time was my thing, I handle the tour, and showed the kids a movie, an answered thier questions. After all it was the firemen who came to my school on fire prevention week that made me want to do this, so I wanted to give kids the same chance.

One of the kids asked me did I know any of the fire fighters who had died, and said he was sorry "my friends" died and he thought we were heroes. After his class left I broke down, it was the first time since that day where the impact of 9-11 really hit me. The sadness in the boys voice just broke me.

Later after that I had to run to the store and pick up some stuff, I was still in my uniform. There was a mother there shopping with her daughter. The little girl saw me and her mouth dropped. Then she goes running to her mom 'Mommy! mommy! a firefighter'. The next time she saw me she hugged me.

That day was probably one of the hardest since 9-11 for me.
 
mercedeslove said:
I wasn't on a train, but I remember that day just as well as everyone else. I was a firefighter at the time, and I remember being on edge the whole day and just sitting and waiting, wondering if anything would happen again. Later that day my elderly aunt had to be taken to the hospital At the time she had to be on O2, but because of that day there were no deliveries so her doctor said to bring her into the ER. I have never heard an ER so quite. Everyone just sat there, in shock staring at the TV, all off us were thinking the same thing why?
a few weeks after 9-11 it was fire prevention week and he had the local grade school touring our fire house. The fire prevention program at the time was my thing, I handle the tour, and showed the kids a movie, an answered thier questions. After all it was the firemen who came to my school on fire prevention week that made me want to do this, so I wanted to give kids the same chance.

One of the kids asked me did I know any of the fire fighters who had died, and said he was sorry "my friends" died and he thought we were heroes. After his class left I broke down, it was the first time since that day where the impact of 9-11 really hit me. The sadness in the boys voice just broke me.

Later after that I had to run to the store and pick up some stuff, I was still in my uniform. There was a mother there shopping with her daughter. The little girl saw me and her mouth dropped. Then she goes running to her mom 'Mommy! mommy! a firefighter'. The next time she saw me she hugged me.

That day was probably one of the hardest since 9-11 for me.
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As a volunteer firefighter, I thought about the same thing. It's amazing that volunteer firefighters in either state of New York or NJ came as first responders, in different experience with high rise towers.
 
My son and I were on the Crescent, #20, and remember distinctly the reception we received in Meridian, MS The mayor, fire chief, chief of police and a SWAT team, complete with bomb sniffing dogs met the train. We were in the sleeper and the police bull horned everyone off the train WITH their luggage. I saw one cop starting down the outside of the train with a dog sniffing for bombs. He tried shoving the dog into the brake rigging and before I could say anything the dog burnt his nose on a brake shoe. There was mostly bewildered turmoil among both pax and crew. There was talk of terminating the train on the spot. A half hour went by before they decided to go as far as Atlanta. We opted to stay on board as we were turning in Tuscaloosa. Turns out #19 had to BACK UP into Anniston because they had a very suspicious character, complete with Arab headress, and a phony Canadian passport on board. They had to wait for the Feds to come get him off of #19 which put us waiting about three hours in Tuscaloosa. I was told later by an Amtrak manager that #20 was the only long distance train to make NYP on 9/12/01. It was a day neither one of us will forget...
 
AlanB said:
For those who are newer members, and for those who might have missed it the first time around or just wish to review things, I reposted a series of posts that I made on 9/11 and in the days that followed detailing the transit situation on the 5th aniversery of the attack.
The topic easily be found in the OTOL archives or you can click here should you wish to see how things went that day and the subsequent days.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Alan.
 
Heh, wow, its hard to think of it being 8 years ago already. I remember it vividly, of course.

I was a senior in high school. I walked into Physics class, and the teacher said to us, "There has been a historic accident. A plane has crashed into one of the twin towers." He turned on the television. In the few minutes it had been off, something had happened, and it made something else clear. The other plane had struck, and it was clearly no accident.

Living on the Jersey Shore, of course, it hit pretty close to home. My Aunt lives on Greenwich St, about a block and a half from where the towers once stood. We all had friends and family who worked in the City. Three of my teachers had husbands that worked on Wall street. They couldn't teach. They hadn't heard anything and they didn't know anything.

For once, my school totally botched handling the situation. I don't say that sarcastically- my school has handled many pretty nasty situations with impressive orderliness and calm. The great Nor'easter of '93 comes to mind, when we were trapped in the school, the wind and rain too nasty and the roads too flooded to send people home. We had a good principal that time. They gathered everyone in to the Library, which was at the center of the school and a very solid structure, and explained very carefully just how solidly built that section of the school was before explaining to us the 100 mph winds, pouring rain, flooded roads, and the lack of ability to get us home. I don't know how you manage to explain to a bunch of elementary school students something like that and keep them calm, but he managed it.

That day, they simply tried to cut-off communication with the outside world. They didn't want us thinking about it. They wanted the day to go on as normal. I remember most clearly my calc class, walking in. Rumors had been flying around, of course. 50 planes captured. The white house, the capitol, and so on destroyed. Twin towers collapsed. Bunch of exaggerated nonsense.

So I asked her, "I've heard some pretty nutty rumors," then I selected what I considered the nuttiest of them all at the time with a laugh, "like I've heard the twin towers have actually come down-" "The twin towers have come down." she cut me off.

It rocked my world. They'd always been there, you know? Besides, Windows On The World was one of my all-time-favourite restaurants. That was one of my first thoughts, actually. How DARE they destroy my favourite reataurant, those [illegitimate children]! The mind works in strange ways.

They weren't letting kids go home, or letting parents pick them up without signed doctors notes. That was brilliant. You know, in the "completely moronic" kind of way.

I was with a group of about sixty seniors who decided they were going home, and to hell with what the faculty thought about it. I was worried about my aunt and cousin. I figured I could get more information at home. It wasn't like anyone was concentrating or learning, or teaching. We basically stormed our way out into the senior parking lot, got in our cars, and paraded our way out.

I got home to find my father home. My father who has braved every storm ever thrown his way, every cold, every flu... I don't think he's missed a day of work in his life. And he works for himself, so... He was home then. My aunt and cousin, by the way, were fine. Shaken, but fine.

They ended up on an NJT train, I think the next day, and spent about a week here.

I have an unusually vivid memory. But this one is the most vivid by far.
 
I was in second grade. I remember very well looking at my watch while waiting for the bus, seeing it was 8:45, then looking up at the sky and thinking it looked so nice that morning. One of the bluest I have ever seen. Not a cloud for miles. Had no way of knowing what was happening in that same sky over New York, Arlington, and western PA. Later in the day, we had a big assembly at school (I was in second grade at the time). The assistant principle explained to us that four airplanes had crashed, and that the events of that day would probably have an effect on our lives. He didn't go into much detail, other than where the planes had crashed, and I got home thinking it was some sort of bizarre coincidence. When I got there my dad was there (a lot of offices in the D.C. area cleared out), but I didn't really consider why. I started telling my parents about what the assistant principle had said, thinking I was bringing news. Obviously they already knew about it, and showed me the reports on TV. I was too young to really grasp the significance of it, but somewhere in my 8 YO brain it registered that this was a catastrophic event. Spent the next few days watching the footage over and over again. The WTC hit me kind of hard, because I have been in NYC for the first time in April 2001, and we were going to visit it, but didn't have time, so I was promised we would go there on the next trip. I remember the only time I saw it, looking up at it through fog and misty rain, and just being barely able to see the top. The Pentagon also hit home with me a bit, because I live fairly close to it. I'm also very close to Dulles Airport, which American flight 77 took off from. Scary, knowing the hi-jackers were probably right in my town the night before.
 
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I was on vacation at Kelso, WA, about to visit Mount St. Helens. After watching coverage most of the morning, my brother an I went to the mountain. We were going to take a helicopter tour, but they were grounded as well. Everybody in the visitors center was gathered around a small TV one of the rangers had.

We were due to fly out of Vancouver, BC back to Cleveland on September 13th. I do remember the Vancouver airport tarmac being covered with jumbo jets (747, A340, 767, 777, etc...) that had been diverted from LAX, SFO, and SEA. This was an impressive sight. The terminal was a madhouse, even two days later.

We were not going to get a flight until Wednesday 9/19, so we checked with Hertz (we still had the car we rented from them). Fortunately, because we had not returned the car, they let us keep it and we DROVE from Vancouver, BC to Cleveland, OH. They waived the one-way fee, and for the extra days, we paid the same rate as we had rented for.

We stopped to see Mt. Rushmore and the badlands and detoured to visit relatives in Minneapolis. Took us 4 1/2 days (would have been 3 1/2 without the detours we chose to take). In the end, we followed almost the exact route the EB takes for much of the journey. At that time, I wasn't aware of Amtrak as an alternative (or at least would not have considered it). Today, Amtrak would be my first call.

Hertz was exemplary in how they dealt with the situation, as was Continental. Continental reimbursed me half my frequent flyer miles though they were under no obligation to do so.
 
AAARGH! said:
Hertz was exemplary in how they dealt with the situation, as was Continental. Continental reimbursed me half my frequent flyer miles though they were under no obligation to do so.
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I had the same thing happen with Hertz and Northwest. We had flown to Providence and had a Hertz car. Northwest refunded ALL my frequent flyer miles I had used for the trip for myself and my wife.

Hertz let me drive back to Columbus, OH where we had started from with no additional fees or mileage charges.

I remember pulling into Port Columbus Hertz lot and the agent met me. I said, "I have a car from Rhodie Island." He said, "Who cares, all 150 cars that have come into here today are from somewhere else!"

I heard they sold them all and bought new ones rather than trying to get them back where they belonged.
 
I had just gooten to work on the bus,and a lady ttold me,"Did you hear what happened? Someone flew a plane into the World Trade Center." At the time I thought some guy had flown his Cessna into the building. She then said" no, it was terrorists. They flew an airliner into the building." We all spent the first couple of hours around the radio listening to the news. We heard about the second plane hitting the towers,then the Pentagon, and finally about the field in Pennsylvania. Then the boss came around and told us to get to work. All of us were numb all day.
 
I was a junior in high school at the time, and we were in geometry class when we first heard the news about something bad happening. The administrators at my school sort of shut down and it was a free for all. A buddy of mine and I walked home and turned on ABC News. I will never forget watching Peter Jennings that day and seeing all those dust and soot covered people in the streets of NYC. My father's family is from Rockland County and one of my cousins is a NYC firefighter and was that day. Thankfully he was home during the attacks, but at the time I didn't know if he was safe or if he were one of the firefighters that had been lost at the Twin Towers. I remember trying to call my family that night and continously getting a message that said that all circuits were busy. It was Thursday by the time I got in contact with my uncle and found out that my cousin and the rest of my family were fine. 9/11 and the days that followed, when patriotism swept this nation in a way that I have never seen before or since, was the first time I ever thought about joining the military. Even though I was only fifteen that year, the events of that day were the foundation of the thought process that eventually caused me to join the Navy.
 
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