No direct service: Getting untracked on Amtrak

Last week before returning to Princeton, I logged onto the Amtrak website to see what train was best for going from Washington D.C. to Princeton Junction. The website displayed a train leaving Union Station at 5:40 p.m. on Sunday, which seemed like an ideal time to return. However, when I arrived at the train station on Sunday at 5:15 p.m., there was no such train listed on the schedule. To my dismay, there was a train leaving at 5:20 p.m., a mere five minutes from when I arrived at the station. So I rushed to the automatic ticket machine to print out my ticket, but it was out of order. I tried another machine adjacent to it and got a similar result. So with seconds to spare, I successfully printed out my ticket from a third machine, just in time to see the train pull away without me. Slightly frustrated, the information desk clerk told me that there was another train leaving for Princeton Junction at 6:20 p.m., so I only had to wait an hour. One hour later, I boarded the next train without event, thinking my ordeal had ended.

When I got on the train, the lights were flickering on and off in a rhythmic fashion. Every five seconds, the lights would come on, and then turn off again when the train's air conditioning system turned on. This resulted in me reading the same sentence of my Pequod Packet about 300 times and getting slightly more annoyed. When the conductor came on to announce the messages for the trip, the loudspeaker sputtered on and off in very much the same fashion as the lights had been doing. However, when I heard the train would be stopping at unintelligibleton New Jersey, I felt much better. As long as I get there, I thought. I sat back in my seat and was determined to enjoy the rest of my trip. That's when my real problems began. Usually, when the a conductor takes a ticket on the train it is almost a formality, as the passenger and the conductor exchange cursory glances of thanks and then resume their respective businesses. Not this time. That day, when the conductor's assistant took my ticket she sternly told me "I hope you have someone picking you up at Trenton, because this train don't stop at Princeton Junction." Slightly taken aback, I objected that the website had told me that the train stopped in Princeton Junction. She (im)politely explained "I don't know nothing about no website," swiftly pivoted, and walked away.

Everything to this point had pointed to the train stopping at Princeton Junction, including the website, the station information desk and (what I thought) was the message at the beginning of the trip. As I was presented with two authoritative but contradicting sources of information, I needed to figure out what the true story was. I asked her again if she was sure the train didn't stop in Princeton Junction, innocently not knowing whether it did or not. The conductor's assistant replied that I was accusing her of lying to me, and her tone immediately reached a fever pitch. She rolled her eyes and gestured wildly, seeming to extol the other passengers to aid her in defeating this "unruly passenger." I meekly responded, "Is there anyone else I can talk to?" to which she said, "You can talk to the conductor, but you don't want to talk to him." Although curious as to why this might be, I decided to give civility one more chance and sat back in my seat.

I had just settled back into my routine of reading when I heard the announcement flicker over the loudspeaker that one passenger had been confused about the train schedule and that the train would NOT be stopping in Princeton Junction. As if this were not enough, the assistant promptly returned to my seat to brag that she had made an announcement "just for you." She then told me that my ticket (that I had bought on the website) was for non-peak hours only and that this was a peak train, meaning I needed to give her an extra $20. I handed her the money, but this was too much. She was definitely "sticking it" to me. I waited until she went to the back of the train and then went up to complain to the conductor. He seemed very nice, but explained that he worked with this particular person many times and couldn't get her in trouble since she would give him the same kind of treatment as she had given me. I was beginning to feel better about the whole affair until the assistant arrived and gave me one final tongue lashing. She declared that she was going to be the "bigger person" and apologize because I "felt offended." For some reason, I didn't feel much better.

As I sat in my $30 taxicab ride from Trenton back to campus, I thought about why this kind of total incompetence is allowed to exist in the business world. Amtrak is a heavily subsidized hybrid of public and private interests, with no apparent competitor or competitiveness. It is not surprising that they are accruing such terrible debt with this kind of business model, and even less of a surprise that their business is failing. There must be some sort of accountability and standards for the personnel and a real interest in making the travelers happy if Amtrak is ever to survive. My experience was horrible from start to finish, an example of how a business should not be run. I hope Amtrak does get their affairs in order, because it has the potential to be an excellent way to travel. However, at present the exact opposite is the case. And just to warn you, their website is wrong. David Sillers is a politics major from Potomac, Md. He can be reached at dsillers@princeton.edu.