Hurricane Sandy

[Jersey_Mike]

I am actually out in the field this week and I just had a run in with the oncoming Hurricane Sandy. I am scheduled on Sunday's northbound Train 20, which will now be terminated at Washington, DC to avoid having the trainset stranded north of any potential Hurricane damage on Monday. I got the call from Amtrak, but because I was traveling to Baltimore they explained only that my train had been cancelled (not truncated) and I should call the rebooking desk.

Well checking out Amtrak.com I saw that the change was only an early termination, not a cancellation, however because we are now using E-Ticketing, not regular ticketing I had to call Amtrak and stay on hold for 35 minutes just to change my ticket to the new terminal. I could not make this change myself because that would have resulted in a much higher ticket price, nor could I use my original E-ticket because he had been cancelled. I eventually got the situation dealt with, but for a system that has been promised to increase customer convenience it has done nothing but the opposite.

At the very least Amtrak needs to preemptively re-book passengers as soon as trains are cancelled or annulled. If a train is annulled, at the very least allow the existing reservations to remain valid through the portion of the trip that is still running so that if a passenger is unable to get the word they at least get part way to their destination. In this case I should have been automatically put on a Regional as it is clearly the best option available. Furthermore Amtrak should allow passengers who have had reservations impacted by these types of events to rebook online without penalty between their original city pairs with in some time period of the original reservation. This will prevent the mad scramble to speak with a human agent.

[2nd trick op]

Shutting down the system early and encouraging all patrons other than those driven by absolute necessity has become the norm in recent years, probably an offshoot of the evolution of the work force into something no longer shaped exclusively around the behavior of mature males. Increased awarneness of liability has also discouraged practicies such as the Pennsylvania's former custom of hiring casual labor to sweep switches at major junctions during snowstorms. Those with an absolute need to show up have sometimes received direct support from their employers -- when I worked Internet tech support a few years ago, the company would put us up in a nearby hotel as an encouragement to make ourselves available early-on.

The one major caveat in this practice is that occasionally, a substantial number of people "fall through the cracks" -- the misery that surfaced at the Louisiana Superdome is the worst example I can think of, but the occasional stranding of an Amtrak train for hours when "pinned down" by a derailment on main lines which seldom consist of more than two tracks is another.

But realistically, the practices which have evolved at Amtrak over the forty years since its inception probably represent the best option available. It would be encouraging to see some positive "fine-tuning" emerge.

[acelaphillies]

Well, it's official. All Amtrak NEC and Keystone Corridor trains shut down tomorrow, as reported on Amtrak NEC twitter. https://twitter.com/AmtrakNEC

All NEC and Keystone trains for 10/29 are cancelled.

[jamesinclair]

Amtrak competitor megabus has cancelled all northeast corridor trips tonight and all day tomorrow. The NYC airports are getting close to closing, meaning all travel outside of private automobile will pretty much not happen tomorrow.

[hi55us]

Well, it's official. All Amtrak NEC and Keystone Corridor trains shut down tomorrow, as reported on Amtrak NEC twitter. https://twitter.com/AmtrakNEC

All NEC and Keystone trains for 10/29 are cancelled.

Better Description on Amtrak.com

The predicted landfall of Hurricane Sandy, with associated high winds and heavy rains in the mid-Atlantic region, combined with emergency declarations in several states, has led Amtrak to cancel Northeast Corridor service north of New York starting at 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, October 28, and to cancel nearly all service on the eastern seaboard on Monday, October 29.

All Acela Express, Northeast Regional, Keystone and Shuttle services are canceled for trains originating on that date. Also Empire Service, Adirondack, Vermonter, Ethan Allen and Pennsylvanian train services are suspended, along with the overnight Auto Train, Capitol Limited, Crescent, Lake Shore Limited, Palmetto and Silver Meteor trains.

[Jersey_Mike]

Pussies cancelled MARC service so it looks like I'll have to take the B30 Bus.

[EdSchweppe]

Does anyone know if the East River and Hudson River tunnels can be sealed off in case of storm surge?

[acelaphillies]

Where are they storing all the equipment?

[Greg Moore]

Does anyone know if the East River and Hudson River tunnels can be sealed off in case of storm surge?

No. But honestly, if the surge is that big, NYC has bigger issues.

[JimBoylan]

There are flood gates at the East end of the North (Hudson) River tubes, but I don't know if they work any more.

[lirr42]

Does anyone know if the East River and Hudson River tunnels can be sealed off in case of storm surge?

The LIRR used a gigantic piece of cookie dough block off the entrance to Penn Station to keep water out during Triopical Storm Irene. Maybe they'll do the same thing this time again.

[hi55us]

Does anyone know if the East River and Hudson River tunnels can be sealed off in case of storm surge?

The LIRR used a gigantic piece of cookie dough block off the entrance to Penn Station to keep water out during Triopical Storm Irene. Maybe they'll do the same thing this time again.

That's simply amazing

[Tadman]

This falls under the category of unfortunate necessity.

Look, everything is shut down, including Starbucks, Megabus, Amtrak, and a lot of other transport . Take your licks like everybody else is, and within a few days we'll be back to normal.

Amtrak can't predict each natural disaster and set up their e-ticketing system to account for it.

[hi55us]

This falls under the category of unfortunate necessity.

Look, everything is shut down, including Starbucks, Megabus, Amtrak, and a lot of other transport . Take your licks like everybody else is, and within a few days we'll be back to normal.

Amtrak can't predict each natural disaster and set up their e-ticketing system to account for it.

NYC is very omnious right now, almost everything in my neighborhood (from what I could tell) was closing up between 4 and 6, with the subway shutting down at 7 (busses @ 9).

[Ridgefielder]

The Governor of Connecticut has said that this storm could be as bad as the 1938 hurricane. I'm sure Amtrak management knows what happened to The Bostonian in '38 and has no desire to run a repeat performance.

http://photos.mycapture.com/DYCL/731205/23156385E.jpg

For those who don't know, that train was a GCT-BOS shore line express that got trapped by the storm surge on the causeway west of Stonington, CT. The crew loaded everyone into the baggage car and the locomotive cab, cut the rest of the consist off, and came into Stonington through 5' of salt water with the throttle wide open and the brakes frozen-- after colliding with a house and a sailboat.