Jacob Goes By Jack
Train Attendant
Hi all - last weekend I took the Lake Shore Limited (49 and 48) from New York to/from Chicago for a holiday visit to the family, and I'm curious about a couple odd statements from the onboard staff.
First, when we were pulling out of NYP on Thursday (July 2), somebody complained to the ticket taker that there was no wi-fi. The employee apologetically explained that this was an old Heritage coach built in the 60s, and that those old cars don't have any wifi. But I didn't think we were in a Heritage car?? It looked a lot newer than that and tubular shaped, I was assuming it was an Amfleet II. But I'm no expert on these things. Picture of our coach attached (taken at Albany) ... you can see it's car # 25118.
If this is an Amfleet and not a Heritage, then how should she have correctly explained to the customer? Is there just no wi-fi on long distance trains in general?
Second and more exciting, on the trip back to New York, we were between Albany and Rhinecliff on Monday afternoon (July 6) when we started seeing a lot of smoke outside the window, and smelling it pretty strongly inside the train. We stopped and the power was shut off for a while while an employee on the PA gave vague assurances. He eventually explained that leaves building up underneath one of the sleeper cars (several cars ahead of us) had caught fire! We ended up rolling into Hudson, NY and stopping for the local Fire department to deal with it, delayed us more than an hour. Everyone applauded when the power was finally turned back on, which allowed the blowers to start again and the smoke inside the train to clear.
During the incident the PA person kept talking about how this was "normal", posed no threat and we had nothing to worry about. But none of the passengers ever remembered something like this... how routine is it? Is there a reasonable way to prevent leaf fires underneath the cars? Seems like a strange hazard... and one that railroaders should have figured out how to avoid after 150+ years...
Anyway, I figured this board would be able to explain things to me!
First, when we were pulling out of NYP on Thursday (July 2), somebody complained to the ticket taker that there was no wi-fi. The employee apologetically explained that this was an old Heritage coach built in the 60s, and that those old cars don't have any wifi. But I didn't think we were in a Heritage car?? It looked a lot newer than that and tubular shaped, I was assuming it was an Amfleet II. But I'm no expert on these things. Picture of our coach attached (taken at Albany) ... you can see it's car # 25118.
If this is an Amfleet and not a Heritage, then how should she have correctly explained to the customer? Is there just no wi-fi on long distance trains in general?
Second and more exciting, on the trip back to New York, we were between Albany and Rhinecliff on Monday afternoon (July 6) when we started seeing a lot of smoke outside the window, and smelling it pretty strongly inside the train. We stopped and the power was shut off for a while while an employee on the PA gave vague assurances. He eventually explained that leaves building up underneath one of the sleeper cars (several cars ahead of us) had caught fire! We ended up rolling into Hudson, NY and stopping for the local Fire department to deal with it, delayed us more than an hour. Everyone applauded when the power was finally turned back on, which allowed the blowers to start again and the smoke inside the train to clear.
During the incident the PA person kept talking about how this was "normal", posed no threat and we had nothing to worry about. But none of the passengers ever remembered something like this... how routine is it? Is there a reasonable way to prevent leaf fires underneath the cars? Seems like a strange hazard... and one that railroaders should have figured out how to avoid after 150+ years...
Anyway, I figured this board would be able to explain things to me!