Amtrak Passengers Thought They Were Being Held Hostage Because Train Was Delayed For 20 HOURS
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SOURCE - The train rolled into the station in Sanford, Florida, on Wednesday morning, ending the 37-hour trip. The 563 passengers and 333 vehicles onboard had been delayed by almost 20 hours.
Passengers were apparently calling 911 from the train when it was stuck, according to several videos obtained by ABC News in which a conductor can be heard asking people to stop calling police.
"For those of you that are calling the police, we are not holding you hostage," a conductor can be heard over the loudspeaker. "We are giving you all the information in which we have. We are sorry about the inconvenience."
If you paid money to be somewhere and they literally have to tell you that you are not being held hostage, you have every right to be pissed off. Amtrak told the media that they gave out "meals, snack packs and beverages" to the customers and that ended up not really being true because they ran out of food that night. It also sounds like a wild overvalue of what a snack pack is.
These people were especially screwed because they really couldn't even just say "Fuck it" and get off the train. This was a special kind of Amtrak where you could have your car brought along on the trip. So if you ditched the train, getting your car back could be a pain in the ass.
About a decade ago, I made the mistake of taking a Greyhound from New York to Boston. Sure enough the shitty bus broke down at some rest stop in Connecticut. We were all trapped on this bus (and rest stop) for several hours before they could send another Greyhound to pick us up and take us the rest of the way. There was a vending machine at the rest stop and I've never valued a bag of Gardetto's snack mix more than I did that day. I haven't taken Greyhound since and still think about that day when I see one of their buses on the road.
The travel industry really has us by the balls. Amtrak has a monopoly on the rails because it wouldn't be profitable for any private company to run regular passenger trains. Without the support of our tax money, Amtrak wouldn't exist. That same reason gives Amtrak the ability to provide service so bad that people actually think they are being held hostage.
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Air travel is no better. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been stuck on a tarmac for an hour with no explanation. And now, not a week goes by where we don't hear about mass cancellations. The airlines don't seem to really give a shit and we just have to sit there and take it because we have no other alternative. No one thinks snack packs are valuable. We just want to get from point A to point B on time and comfortably. It shouldn't be that much to ask.
Then again, it can always be worse.