wayman
Engineer
Oh, I totally agree! Had I had more than eight hours between securing the train reservation and the train's departure time, many things would have gone differently. Had I been able to make the reservation through any of several normal channels, many things would have gone differently.
(Just to be clear, the rest of this isn't a reply directed to Bierboy specifically even though I am "replying to his post"; it's a general reply on the thread.)
My original reservation, 14-28-448, was made through Guest Rewards. When BNSF forced Amtrak to annul 28, Amtrak became responsible for doing their best to take care of me since I had a reservation with guaranteed connections. But since it was a Guest Rewards reservation, under normal circumstances at that point I would go through Guest Rewards. Unfortunately, it was New Years Day and Guest Rewards was closed. Moreover, it was additionally tricky, because while January 1st was not an AGR blackout date, January 2nd was. Since I would have been boarding 28 on the 1st and traveling straight through the blackout date, my original reservation was fine by AGR. But because the reaccommodation would happen on the 2nd -- a blackout date -- there were additional complications. Portland asked me to try going through AGR first, before they took action on their own. They told me it was likely the bedrooms on 11(2) would still be there at 7:00am, when the stationmaster himself would next be on duty, and that he would be able to "make it happen" if AGR gave me any difficulty. And they told me that their gut sense was that it would not still be there if I waited beyond 8:30am or 9:00am. So, I woke up early and was on the phone with AGR by 6:00am local time (they had opened at 5:00am eastern), but as we guessed might happen, AGR agents were not immediately helpful, claiming the blackout date prevented them from overriding things. (This despite my being a Select member for four years running.) I spoke to two people, and was assured a supervisor would call me "in fifteen minutes" and have some ability to do something that they themselves didn't; that call never came, though, and I called back again and still couldn't reach a supervisor. At 7:30am I called Portland, spoke with the stationmaster, told him things with AGR hadn't worked out and that I wanted to make sure I could actually get on 11(2), and he said (close paraphrase) "ok, we need to do this, and we can't wait for them, so I'm doing it right now; ok, it's done, you've got these accommodations on these trains". It was a very unorthodox booking process, to say the least. It was done by some extraordinary station personnel who made an outstanding effort on my behalf. Having gotten the new schedule the day before, and having checked again that morning -- and by that time it was the only schedule made available by Amtrak on their website -- for a train originating on the date the schedule became effective, I had clear information from Amtrak about the time of the train. Unfortunately that information was wrong. The stationmaster and station agents stared at the timetable I showed them and said "wow, that is seriously wrong -- someone at Amtrak really screwed up; you should definitely contact them because this really is their fault".
Do those of you who have taken the tactic of blaming me for what happened have greater knowledge and authority than the stationmaster of a relatively major Amtrak station and his very able station crew? No? Then I suggest you take a step back, take a deep breath, and reconsider the rather bizarre complexity of this situation -- essentially a perfect storm of factors making many of the things you suggest impossible; consider the words and actions of Amtrak employees with some decent degree of authority and a deep understanding of the situation -- which unfolded in stages with new developments they couldn't even predict themselves (like the various annulments of trains -- they were getting multiple, and conflicting, reports from operations during the time I was speaking with them about whether 28(2) and 28(3) would run, and meanwhile reservations was making various efforts to rebook people as best they could changing the availabilities on various trains in ARROW); and then reconsider your remarks and your tone.
The one thing that the stationmaster doesn't have is the authority to make sure AGR and Amtrak deal fairly with what happened. That is what I asked the forum members here for advice about, because many of you have been through various sorts of distress, delays, annulments, or other foul-ups for which you have asked for, and received, compensation from Amtrak and/or AGR. This forum has been a great resource for travelers seeking advice. I had hoped it would serve in such a way in this situation. I have been quite surprised. I appreciate Alan's efforts to explain things, as for much of the past sixteen hours I've been booking and taking some expensive flights. His explanations have been patient and accurate, and I hope, helpful. I appreciate the thoughtful comments and insightful questions from several others. But I am baffled by the general turn this thread has taken.
As a further update, for those who may have an interest in when and how our adventure will eventually get us home: flights from PDX-EWR and EWR-BOS were relatively uneventful, aside from a rapid descent and rough landing at EWR. The TSA opened the bag I checked (and left an official notice that they had done so inside the bag), but it doesn't appear they confiscated anything or messed anything up (I haven't thoroughly unpacked the bag to check everything out). Thankfully, the TSA didn't make any fuss at all about my bringing a musical instrument as a carry-on (they have a clear, friendly policy on their website, but you never can tell how any individual agent will act). The view of sunrise over Manhattan as we took off from Newark and flew north up the New Jersey side of the Hudson was stunning. And my partner and I are now booked on the Lake Shore transferring to the Vermonter to Amherst for later today and are relaxing in Club Acela at South Station thanks to a day-pass coupon I brought along on this trip "just in case". We'll get home to Northampton a full day earlier than our original 14-28-448 itinerary, and since we both had arranged vacation in advance through Tuesday, we'll get a full day of rest after this ordeal.
For my partner, this was her first big rail travel experience -- out on the Lake Shore and Southwest Chief, and then back on the Coast Starlight and ... well, the whole mess. She flies a lot. You'd think maybe she'd be fed up with rail travel as a result of this. Instead, she was the one who said "can we please take the train from Boston instead of a bus? I know it's more expensive and gets us in later, but it'll be much nicer", and she's not too keen on future air travel either. Even a trip as loused up as this one has made her a convert to Amtrak! And it certainly hasn't dampened my spirits either; quite the contrary, I'm more fond of Amtrak as a result of the fabulous on-board service we had on our trains and of the fabulous assistance we received in Portland. It was the sort of trip that could easily have had the opposite effect for other travelers. So there are some positive, constructive thoughts to start the new day with
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