amtrakwolverine
Engineer
So what a trip. The plain was 351 the wolverine from Royal oak to Chicago then Hiawatha service 335 From Chicago to Sturtevant and back on 338. Well The Wolverine 351 ran into signal issues past Dearborn due to a string of storms that hit Michigan throughout the night. We could go no faster then 5-10MPH and that put us about a hour down. Then Past battle creek We ran into more bad signals and had to follow slowly behind train 365 the blue water we lost more time.Normally Wolverine 351 goes non stop to Chicago after stopping at Kalamazoo but because we were following behind 365 We were asked to make all there station stops so we lost time there. Then We had to make a stop in Michigan city Indiana to try and fix the A/C in one of the coaches as it was getting kinda hot.
There were at least 2 other people who were to connect to 335 and had to change there reservations. The guy behind me called Amtrak to change and I guess cause it was short notice the agent didn't want to honor his AAA discount and he was not having that. His response to the agent was " I'm on your train 351 I'm not even in Chicago yet, You ARE going to honor my AAA discount and there's not going to be any discussion about it. The train arrived about 1:30PM as the Texas eagle was getting ready to depart and doing last minute boarding on the track next to us. Since I had about 4-5 hours to spare before catching 354 home with the failed SVT turn I Went on a METRA turn.
First I printed 2 tickets for the BNSF line but because I didn't read the Saturday part of the schedule I couldn't do that turn. Found a time table for the Milwaukee district west line and went to print 2 tickets for that one not knowing I could have used my BNSF tickets for that line also. The vending machine printed one but was unable to dispense another so I took the service receipt to the counter to get the 2nd printed. He had to get his supervisor to show him how to amend it. Then I had to fill out a pink form with just my name and address since I was receiving a credit so I wouldn't get charged for the replacement ticket the machine failed to print. Caught the METRA train with 10 minutes to spare after that.
Got off at Roselle and had a hour wait for the return back to Chicago. The return was 8 minutes late into Chicago due to heavy loads.A couple family's had brought coolers of beer on board. One had a half empty 24 pack of beer and another had a Styrofoam cooler. When i got off the train I went towards my gate for the 6pm Wolverine home. The line was kinda long and we were delayed boarding. Up till 6PM they were still calling senors, active military, people with disabilities, and passengers with small children. The train did not depart till 6:14PM.
Even though the train departed late everything went fine until we ran into bad signals again around battle creek. Since wolverine 355 was also running late we only picked up a new engineer at battle creek then meet up with 355 down the tracks to swap crews so 354 wasn't waiting at the station for like a hour since 355 was having bad signals also. After the crew change we moved at a steady pace until Albion which was experiencing a power outage so the signals were dark not red so we had to go at a pace of 5-10 until we could get working signals. Cause we were going slow the cafe car attended decided to hand out the emergency snack packs and bottled water 1 each per person since we were running late and getting later. Once we got the good signals we were able to go track speed again and arrived into royal oak at 2:55AM and finally getting home at 3:30AM. Hats off to all crews on 351 and 354 who kept us updated with each delay.
There were at least 2 other people who were to connect to 335 and had to change there reservations. The guy behind me called Amtrak to change and I guess cause it was short notice the agent didn't want to honor his AAA discount and he was not having that. His response to the agent was " I'm on your train 351 I'm not even in Chicago yet, You ARE going to honor my AAA discount and there's not going to be any discussion about it. The train arrived about 1:30PM as the Texas eagle was getting ready to depart and doing last minute boarding on the track next to us. Since I had about 4-5 hours to spare before catching 354 home with the failed SVT turn I Went on a METRA turn.
First I printed 2 tickets for the BNSF line but because I didn't read the Saturday part of the schedule I couldn't do that turn. Found a time table for the Milwaukee district west line and went to print 2 tickets for that one not knowing I could have used my BNSF tickets for that line also. The vending machine printed one but was unable to dispense another so I took the service receipt to the counter to get the 2nd printed. He had to get his supervisor to show him how to amend it. Then I had to fill out a pink form with just my name and address since I was receiving a credit so I wouldn't get charged for the replacement ticket the machine failed to print. Caught the METRA train with 10 minutes to spare after that.
Got off at Roselle and had a hour wait for the return back to Chicago. The return was 8 minutes late into Chicago due to heavy loads.A couple family's had brought coolers of beer on board. One had a half empty 24 pack of beer and another had a Styrofoam cooler. When i got off the train I went towards my gate for the 6pm Wolverine home. The line was kinda long and we were delayed boarding. Up till 6PM they were still calling senors, active military, people with disabilities, and passengers with small children. The train did not depart till 6:14PM.
Even though the train departed late everything went fine until we ran into bad signals again around battle creek. Since wolverine 355 was also running late we only picked up a new engineer at battle creek then meet up with 355 down the tracks to swap crews so 354 wasn't waiting at the station for like a hour since 355 was having bad signals also. After the crew change we moved at a steady pace until Albion which was experiencing a power outage so the signals were dark not red so we had to go at a pace of 5-10 until we could get working signals. Cause we were going slow the cafe car attended decided to hand out the emergency snack packs and bottled water 1 each per person since we were running late and getting later. Once we got the good signals we were able to go track speed again and arrived into royal oak at 2:55AM and finally getting home at 3:30AM. Hats off to all crews on 351 and 354 who kept us updated with each delay.
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