Rant on Amtrak

Ok, bear with me here. It’s time for my annual rant about some inefficiency in our transportation system. In the past, I’ve written about the DFW airport, hub and spoke airlines, etc. Yesterday I was riding on Amtrak to Chicago…..very s-l-o-o-o-o-w-l-y.

The train was supposed to leave Effingham at 4:57 am, scheduled to arrive at 9 am in Chicago. I called them at 4 am to learn from Amtrak’s automated phone system that the train was running “13 minutes late, but the train crew was trying to make up time to put them back on time.” Right!

The train finally pulled into Effingham at 5:30, which wasn’t too bad and actually better than I feared. About 20 people got on the train in Effingham, also a larger number than I would have guessed.

About 30 minutes out of town, we were stopped for “a broken rail.” I’m glad they discovered it before we rolled over it. After a half hour wait, we were rolling again. Would you believe that we had an identical “broken rail” another 30 miles up the track? Incredible! Is there some conspiracy going on here?

At 7:40 am, my wife and I went up to the dining car for breakfast to learn that “the dining car just closed so that we can get prepared for our arrival into Chicago.” Hello!!! You aren’t going to arrive at 9 am folks!

They must have either heard my stomach growling or loved my winning personality because we were able get them to un-close the grill to get our second egg choice because they were out of their omelet special. Did I miss some culinary breakthrough? Are they are no longer making omelets out of eggs?

By the time we hit Kankakee, my wife was sick of my special rendition of “Ridin’ on the City of New Orleans.” I digress: Did you know that Arlo Guthrie is going to be in Effingham this weekend for a special concert for Katrina victims? Unfortunately, we’re going to be out of town and won’t be there to hear his version.

We finally made it into Chicago almost 3 hours later than scheduled. In the time that we spent traveling one way to Chicago, we could have driven there and back with time to stop for breakfast and lunch.

I could write several more paragraphs about other inefficiencies of Amtrak that I noted on our trip, but won’t bore you with those details. Let me just say, it is not hard to see why the federal government has to pour billions of dollars into keeping this horribly inefficient transportation mode. Why anyone rides it, is beyond my comprehension.

End of yearly rant! Don’t expect another Amtrak one for at least five years.