Bridge Collapse Outside of Indy

[PRR 60]

I had planned on taking this train from Philly to Indy in mid August, guess I won't now as I can't see them repairing the tracks and completely rebuilding a bridge that quickly. The derailment really must be hurting Amtrak.

I'm thinking mid-August might be OK. CSX wants that line back as well, and they have repair materials on-site.

Right now, the Cardinal is cancelled between Indianapolis and Cincinnati until the end of July with no alternate transportation. There is a coach and cafe stub train running CHI-IND and the regular train is running CIN-NYP, but nothing in between. The bus bridge that was closing the gap between IND and CIN ended today (7/12).

 

[The Davy Crockett]

I'm thinking mid-August might be OK. CSX wants that line back as well, and they have repair materials on-site.

I agree.

And as bad as this is, at least it was not The Cardinal that went for a drink! :mellow:

 

[jb64]

post on facebook page from a ticket holder who received a call from AMTRAK that bus between Indy and Cinci has been stopped and no alternate transportation is provided. How hard can it be to provide some kind of alternate transportation between an area of a washed out bridge? Seems poor customer service to just leave people hanging. While I understand the circumstances are out of their control, seems to me they could get their customers from point a to point b.

I have already changed my outgoing reservation from the Card to the Cap Ltd and was able to still score two roomettes. When I look at my return, if in fact they completely cancel the Card, Cap Ltd is already listed as a completely sold out train. So, looks like we will be flying back from Chicago. Not a happy camper and this adds significant expense since I booked last fall when things were low bucket.

Edit: one of our members here gave me a heads-up that he had heard this was going to happen. I called Amtrak and they assured me the bus bridge would be in place for my trip. Agent was apparently wrong. It is nice to belong to this community where folks look out for each other. So, thanks Bill. Glad I already switched my outgoing trip.

 

[jis]

I moved myself over to the Cap on Saturday after next after receiving a call from Amtrak earlier today.

 

[The Davy Crockett]

BTW, as of 7/12 at 6:15PM EST there is still no "service alert" about this on Amtrak's website. :unsure:

 

[spot1181]

Megabus stop is a short cab ride to downtown Cincinnati. I would take it over the Dog. Works from Chicago too.

 

[Linda T]

Megabus stop is a short cab ride to downtown Cincinnati. I would take it over the Dog. Works from Chicago too.

We're taking the Card from WV to CHI and got a call today telling us that she's been cancelled. Amtrak has left it up to us at our own cost to figure out how to get to IND. We've been looking into alternative transporation, and Megabus was one thing we looked into. Alas the Card pulls into the station in CIN at 1:13 AM and the Megabus leaves at 1:25. I don't know how long it takes to get to Megabus, but if it's more than 10 minutes or if the Card is late getting into Cincy well... bummer.

Greyhound seems like a good inexpensive way, but it leaves at 1:10 AM 3 minutes before the Card arrives. The next Greyhound leaves at 7:00 AM an hour after the Card leaves IND. Since getting to Chicago is only a small part of our trip we thought about taking Megabus all the way to Chicago but it's scheduled to arrive in CHI at 2PM, a mere 45 minutes before my connection with the SWC, and I'm afraid of traffic, etc slowing us down. I think we're gonna have to wind up driving to IND and find a place to leave our car for 9 days. And that's not cheap either.

I know hundreds of people are in this same boat, is anyone else finding other options? Oh, and when I asked the guest rewards customer service about food, I was told that despite the fact that we booked a bedroom that we're not getting, and despite the fact that we're using rewards points, we'll have to pay for our food on the Cardinal since she doesn't have a dining car. Hmm... seems like the least they could do is give us free food for the inconvenience of searching for alternative travel, and since it comes with the ticket that we hold. I'm gonna talk to the actual train staff and see.

Despite all this, I still LOVE Amtrak, and find it the only way to fly.

 

[jb64]

Linda,

I still love Amtrak, too, and am trying to figure out alternate ways to get home from Chicago without having to fly. I hate to fly. I just don't understand their thinking behind this whole Cardinal deal. It is almost as if they are just trying to ignore it. If no one talks about it and no one does anything to accomodate the customers, maybe it will all just go away seems to be their mindset.

As I mentioned above, I was able to get my trip to Chicago rerouted on the Cap Ltd. I went to the closest staffed station to me, which is about an hour away, to exchange the tickets and when I got there, only one agent was working and he couldn't help me because he didn't have the authority to over-ride the price difference. What is the point of a staffed station if they cannot help you? Really, this whole thing has gotten a little ridiculous. He suggested I call customer service about my inconvenience and gave me the hours that an agent with more authority would be there. So, I have to make another trip to actually have this taken care of.

Still in the process of trying to figure out how to get home and I foresee more phone calls to AMTRAK today.

Good luck to you.

 

[Linda T]

> I was able to get my trip to Chicago rerouted on the Cap Ltd.

Unfortunately Amtrak didn't post anything about this on their website -- I check the travel alerts daily. What I hate is when I got the call from Amtrak that the Card had been cancelled I hit the button to talk to a live representative and he told me it was due to flooding. I couldn't figure out where the flooding was between Cincy and Indy. My husband found this forum and that's when we learned that it's a bridge out, and that we probably should make plans for the return trip as well.

We don't have anywhere in particular that we need to go, we were just looking for the longest 2 zone trip we could take cause we love to ride the train. So we're taking the Card, the SWC,the Coast Startlight all the way to Seattle. Then returning on the CS, Zephyr, & Card. If Amtrak had posted the alert on their website I would have had time to make arrangements with the Cap Ltd. but she's all booked now. Besides I live 4 miles from the Ohio River and the nearest station after the Card would be on Lake Erie. It's actually closer to drive to Indy than to catch the Cap Ltd. :-( They really need a station/stop in Columbus.

 

[Linda T]

JB64, I hope you were able to get home okay.

As for how we're dealing with it, we're going to cancel our tickets to Indy, and drive there the day before. Stay overnight in a motel, and get to the station plenty early. I'm not happy about this, but it's the cheapest route we were able to find since we can use hotel points, leave the car in their parking lot, and take a taxi to the station. Once we get to Chicago and get to our bedroom I'll be a happy camper...

Speaking of Chicago, I have a question. There is an Amtrak Metropolitan Lounge there for those traveling in sleepers, what exactly is it? I mean do they have food, internet, or just more comfy accommodations? The places I've gone on the train have never had these lounges. Thanks!

A special thanks to the folks who run this forum. The info here is priceless.

 

[GG-1]

Speaking of Chicago, I have a question. There is an Amtrak Metropolitan Lounge there for those traveling in sleepers, what exactly is it? I mean do they have food, internet, or just more comfy accommodations? The places I've gone on the train have never had these lounges. Thanks!

Aloha

Here are pictures of the lounge.

 

[TVRM610]

Speaking of Chicago, I have a question. There is an Amtrak Metropolitan Lounge there for those traveling in sleepers, what exactly is it? I mean do they have food, internet, or just more comfy accommodations? The places I've gone on the train have never had these lounges. Thanks!

All of the above! Light snacks (chips, muffins, etc.), soft drinks, juice, coffee, comfy chairs, tv's, internet etc. Also, free luggage storage if you want to check your carry on bags in the lounge and tour the city. You also of course get early boarding usually. The lounge in Chicago can get a bit crowded at times, but it is quite nice, as are the others. My personal favorite is the lounge in Philadelphia, so much charm.

 

[Train2104]

Service alert posted:

http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?c=AM_Alert_C&pagename=am/AM_Alert_C/Alerts_Popup&p=1237608345018&cid=1248544140459

Hoosier state is getting cafe service, looks like the only way to go between Indianapolis and Cincinnati by train is via WAS.

 

[jb64]

JB64, I hope you were able to get home okay.

As for how we're dealing with it, we're going to cancel our tickets to Indy, and drive there the day before. Stay overnight in a motel, and get to the station plenty early. I'm not happy about this, but it's the cheapest route we were able to find since we can use hotel points, leave the car in their parking lot, and take a taxi to the station. Once we get to Chicago and get to our bedroom I'll be a happy camper...

Speaking of Chicago, I have a question. There is an Amtrak Metropolitan Lounge there for those traveling in sleepers, what exactly is it? I mean do they have food, internet, or just more comfy accommodations? The places I've gone on the train have never had these lounges. Thanks!

A special thanks to the folks who run this forum. The info here is priceless.

Well I think everything has finally been ironed out. They had no availability on the Cap Ltd same day as my return on the Card, but they did put me on the next days Cap ltd. So, I still get to ride the train but I have to now pay for a room in Chicago since I now have an extra day of vacation. Could be worse things, I suppose, like the Cap running late and being bustituted. Amtrak should change it's slogan to AMTRAK, Always an adventure.

 

[Bob Dylan]

JB64, I hope you were able to get home okay.

As for how we're dealing with it, we're going to cancel our tickets to Indy, and drive there the day before. Stay overnight in a motel, and get to the station plenty early. I'm not happy about this, but it's the cheapest route we were able to find since we can use hotel points, leave the car in their parking lot, and take a taxi to the station. Once we get to Chicago and get to our bedroom I'll be a happy camper...

Speaking of Chicago, I have a question. There is an Amtrak Metropolitan Lounge there for those traveling in sleepers, what exactly is it? I mean do they have food, internet, or just more comfy accommodations? The places I've gone on the train have never had these lounges. Thanks!

A special thanks to the folks who run this forum. The info here is priceless.

Well I think everything has finally been ironed out. They had no availability on the Cap Ltd same day as my return on the Card, but they did put me on the next days Cap ltd. So, I still get to ride the train but I have to now pay for a room in Chicago since I now have an extra day of vacation. Could be worse things, I suppose, like the Cap running late and being bustituted. Amtrak should change it's slogan to AMTRAK, Always an adventure.

If you had a Guaranteed Rez and Amtrak put you on the next days Train because of your connection being Sold Out your Hotel and Meals and Cab should be on Amtraks Nickel, not Yours! :excl: Call them back, you shouldnt have to pay for whats not your fault! :help:

 

[Linda T]

I'd like to really thank this forum for all the help they've given us. You have definitely been a life saver. We hadn't yet booked our hotel in Indy and as it turns out that was a good thing. The last we heard from Amtrak the Card was still running on the west side of Indy to Chicago. Now apparently not. The 851 is already booked solid, so driving to Indy is not an alternative for us. Toledo also sits on the zone line like Cincy so we've decided to try leaving Toledo and were pleasantly surprised to find that they not only had room on the day and time we needed to leave, but they still had a ROOMETTE both ways! So we cancelled our Cardinal tickets and will be driving to Toledo (about a 5 hour drive but it's worth the drive as long as I know there's a train on the other end. ;-)

I've been waiting 31 years to take the Zephyr through the mountains, and even longer to go to Washington state, I refuse to lose my opportunity due to a bridge being down!

Thanks again! You guys are SUPER!!! And thanks for the info about the Chicago station, we'll be at least 4 hours there each way.

 

[AlanB]

As I mentioned above, I was able to get my trip to Chicago rerouted on the Cap Ltd. I went to the closest staffed station to me, which is about an hour away, to exchange the tickets and when I got there, only one agent was working and he couldn't help me because he didn't have the authority to over-ride the price difference. What is the point of a staffed station if they cannot help you? Really, this whole thing has gotten a little ridiculous. He suggested I call customer service about my inconvenience and gave me the hours that an agent with more authority would be there. So, I have to make another trip to actually have this taken care of.

Frankly I'm surprised that the phone agent hadn't already taken care of the bucket issue when they rebooked you on the Capitol Limited. That should have left the ticket agent with just the need to exchange your tickets for you. However, AFAIK, any agent can override the bucket issue. They just have to be able to justify doing the override, and he had valid justification. You shouldn't have to pay more because of buckets because Amtrak can't provide the contracted service. I can see Amtrak charging you a bit more because it's a longer trip, but again things should be priced at the same bucket level you originally had.

So I have to believe that you either hit a new agent that didn't know how to handle things properly or you hit a lazy agent who didn't want to be bothered. Either is unacceptable. If the agent didn't know how to handle things he could have gotten on the phone and obtained help either by calling his immediate supervisor or by calling Amtrak's tech support department.

And I know that it can be done by those methods. In fact last year with a bunch of us were in St. Louis for the Gathering, I needed to help one member get his coach ticket changed to an open sleeper ticket so that he could ride with another member from STL to Chicago in his bedroom. The agent didn't know how to do it, so he callled his supervisor at home. The super started to explain things and the agent wasn't following, so the super told the agent to just hold on for a minute, the super fired up his home computer and went in and made the change. Then the agent just had to exchange the old ticket for the new ticket.

So I'm sorry, that's nonsense what you got told and you should consider talking to customer service about that incident and if you have the agents name, report him!

To your other question, while I do agree that it's not really right that Amtrak is cancelling the busing, a few thoughts. 1) It is very expensive for Amtrak to do this and very hard. And it's not like bus companies have dozens of extra drivers just sitting around waiting for a call to work. The bus companies have other obligations too and supplying a steady stream of buses can be very taxing on the bus company's employees & buses. 2) I'm sure that Amtrak is getting a lot of complaints from people being woken up in the middle of the night to board a bus.

Not saying that I condone, or that those reasons condone, the cancelling of the buses; but I'm sure that they played a major role in the decision.

 

[jb64]

I really didn't understand why he couldn't help me either, by calling the agent center (correct term?) or some kind of support, but it was clear he didn't want to do anything involving those tickets since it appeared that the first agent messed it up and therefore showing that I owed full price for the new tickets (difference would have been $1004 since they are now high bucket and purchased them at lowest bucket). He gave me a little piece of paper with AMTRAK's 800 number on it and said I should call and tell them about my inconvienence (which he still claimed he couldn't help). So I called and waited forever for customer service and finally got a hold of an agent that said he didn't understand my situation. He finally understand that my first re-route (outgoing) was messed up which was why the ticket agent wouldn't take my old tickets in exchange for no additional monies and noted that my return had now also been canceled and that they had already reassigned us to the Cap Ltd coming back. I said "Really, because that train is showing sold out and my current reservation does not reflect that change when you pull it up online." He said we had been switched to the same day Cap Ltd and he would fix everything for me but it would take a while. I asked him to please send me an email with the updated itenerary and he said he would and encouraged me to not print the tickets until the morning of our departure in case there were further changes. He said to "relax, I'll make sure it all gets taken care of" but never once offered me any compensation or credit for the inconvience of a one hour one way drive and back for naught.

I never did receive an email with our new itenerary and online reservation stilled showed Card but the adjustment had been made to reflect an even exchange when I return the old tickets. So, before I head back to the station to exchange tickets, I thought I should call to make sure everything is in fact taken care of and guess what? They still had me coming back on the Card and the same day Cap Ltd was sold out so they couldn't put me on that. So, basically, the fellow in customer service was as useless as the two prior agents had been. I finally got a good agent who fixed EVERYTHING while I was on hold and then immediately sent the email with everything correct. She handled it very professionally and understood the situation the first time I tried to explain the long, convoluted story. Kudos to her.

So now I will leave on my trip next week and see how the rest of it goes. I will probably contact customer service when I get back to explain the lack of followthrough and the mistakes made with my reservations but thought I would wait in case there was anything else to add to it. I am hoping not and am not expecting anything.

The plus side is that an additional day for our Chicago connection means a hotel bed and shower in between two nights in coach instead of two straight nights in coach and we are going to go watch the Red Sox beat the White Sox

 

[ATXEagle]

I really didn't understand why he couldn't help me either, by calling the agent center (correct term?) or some kind of support, but it was clear he didn't want to do anything involving those tickets since it appeared that the first agent messed it up and therefore showing that I owed full price for the new tickets (difference would have been $1004 since they are now high bucket and purchased them at lowest bucket). He gave me a little piece of paper with AMTRAK's 800 number on it and said I should call and tell them about my inconvienence (which he still claimed he couldn't help). So I called and waited forever for customer service and finally got a hold of an agent that said he didn't understand my situation. He finally understand that my first re-route (outgoing) was messed up which was why the ticket agent wouldn't take my old tickets in exchange for no additional monies and noted that my return had now also been canceled and that they had already reassigned us to the Cap Ltd coming back. I said "Really, because that train is showing sold out and my current reservation does not reflect that change when you pull it up online." He said we had been switched to the same day Cap Ltd and he would fix everything for me but it would take a while. I asked him to please send me an email with the updated itenerary and he said he would and encouraged me to not print the tickets until the morning of our departure in case there were further changes. He said to "relax, I'll make sure it all gets taken care of" but never once offered me any compensation or credit for the inconvience of a one hour one way drive and back for naught.

I never did receive an email with our new itenerary and online reservation stilled showed Card but the adjustment had been made to reflect an even exchange when I return the old tickets. So, before I head back to the station to exchange tickets, I thought I should call to make sure everything is in fact taken care of and guess what? They still had me coming back on the Card and the same day Cap Ltd was sold out so they couldn't put me on that. So, basically, the fellow in customer service was as useless as the two prior agents had been. I finally got a good agent who fixed EVERYTHING while I was on hold and then immediately sent the email with everything correct. She handled it very professionally and understood the situation the first time I tried to explain the long, convoluted story. Kudos to her.

So now I will leave on my trip next week and see how the rest of it goes. I will probably contact customer service when I get back to explain the lack of followthrough and the mistakes made with my reservations but thought I would wait in case there was anything else to add to it. I am hoping not and am not expecting anything.

The plus side is that an additional day for our Chicago connection means a hotel bed and shower in between two nights in coach instead of two straight nights in coach and we are going to go watch the Red Sox beat the White Sox

I try not to let the agent off the phone until the email pops up in my inbox. There have been a few times the email hasn't shown what the agent said it would, and then I'd immediately asked them about it and they resend a corrected version.

 

[the_traveler]

we are going to go watch the Red Sox beat the White Sox

Yes, they will!

 

[summer from wv]

This is the first i heard of the bridge being collapsed in indy. i had received a call from an amtrak agent telling me that a 18 wheeler had hit a bridge in cincinnati and that i would not be able to ride the train home to wv. from chicago and that i needed to cancel my ticket, and that they could not make arrangements to an alternative way home. I have been riding on amtrak for 10 plus years and i think personally this is ****. now im stuck here and i refuse to pay 140.00 to take a greyhound back to wv. Not only for the reason of the price is ridiculous but it will take 24 hrs to get me home. Its only a 7 hr ride... COME ON AMTRAK> GET UR **** TOGETHER>>>>

 

[Amtrak George]

CARDINAL Bridge: I saw on another thread (trainorders) that the bridge between Indy and Cincy is back in service and the Card is due to run through to Chicago Wednesday July 20th. Anyone else heard anything?

 

[Ryan]

Last I heard they were getting close, so that isn't too surprising to me.

 

[Linda T]

Last I heard they were getting close, so that isn't too surprising to me.

Yup, I just called my local Amtrak in Huntington, WV and they confirmed that she's running her full route again. Called Amtrak and managed to get a bedroom again from Cincy to Chicago and back. We're taking coach to Cincy (the next zone) to save our Amtrak points.

Wow, I just can't believe we'll be leaving in less than a week and now don't have a 5 hour drive to Toledo, and we got our hotel points back... It'll be sad though when we get to Cincy on the way back and get booted back to coach for the rest of the trip. :-(

 

[the_traveler]

Depending on how far you're going and if the room was resold from Cincy east, if you ask the Conductor/SCA the night before they may let you stay in the room!

(No guarantees!)