I found myself on an Acela train to New York again today, for depositions just like last time, indeed, for depositions in the same case as last time and on the same topics. Today's train was packed -- pre-Memorial Day travelers. Again, I was in the Quiet Car. Only this time, because the train was so packed, the conductor decided to make the Quiet Car the Unquiet Car somewhere around Philadelphia. There was a minor revolt. One man stood up and shouted, "Let's take a vote!" Another women complained bitterly in a not-very-quiet voice to the conductor when he next appeared in person. One man asked a man several aisles away whether he really thought it polite to talk into his cell phone so loudly about mortgage rates and prices for flights to Greece. Another man talked to no-one in particular about the Philosophy of the Quiet Car and the Need For Peace and Quiet in Today's Busy World. Someone suggested that if each current Quiet Car passenger told each new passenger who sat down in an empty space that it was the Quiet Car, then it would, by definition, be the Quiet Car. The rest of the passengers sat quietly, mourning the Quiet Car's loss. By Trenton (where we did not stop), the conductor reinstated the Quiet Car and there was blissful silence for the rest of the way.
Which turned out to be a good thing because the trip to NYC took a lot longer than anyone anticipated. After we left Newark, we passed a warehouse place with about 10 box vans parked in the lot, displaying the logo of Cafe Bustelo. I love Cafe Bustelo -- it's the only "coffee in a can" that remotely resembles the amazing Cuban coffee we used to get at the Cuban diner near Columbia when I was in college, La Rosita's (108th and B'way). On my last trip to New York I had found myself with a rainy afternoon to spare so I went up to La Rosita's and ate rice and beans with sunny-side up eggs and drank the amazing coffee and read the NY Times and stayed for about 2 hours. So, seeing the Cafe Bustelo trucks made me happy. Then we went underground into the tunnel that takes you under the Hudson and into Pennsylvania Station. This is normally about a 7 minute trip through darkness.
We would not emerge from the tunnel for at least an hour.
About 5.5 minutes after entering the tunnel we stopped. Nothing happened for a while. The Quiet Car became a tense in a way that was identifiable, even though people were still being Quiet. Really, all train cars are Quiet Cars in this tunnel, because you don't get cell phone or blackberry service anyway. On Unquiet Cars, people use the time between Newark and Pennsylvania Station to call their friends and loved ones to say, "We're just entering the tunnel! I'll be home at [whenever.]" Or, "we're just entering the tunnel, I'll see you in the station!" etc." Sometimes people say, "We're just entering the tunnel, who knows when I'll get home." The people who say this latter phrase strike me as people who are likely up to no good, and are planning to do all manner of extracurricular, unplanned and possibly illegal things between arriving at the station and getting to their Final Destination.
Ten minutes after stopping dead, the Quiet Car passengers began to talk to each other. What's going on? Why are we stopped? We didn't think anything was wrong with our train because we still had power and air. I have been on Amtrak trains that have broken down before, and sometimes when that happens the air goes off and the cars get hotter and hotter and you start to smell fumes. No air in a tunnel would have been bad. People began vaguely to mutter about the heightened terrorist alert that just went into effect yesterday. Ten minutes later still nothing had happened. Then the conductor comes on and tells us that a New Jersey Transit train had broken down at the platform in front of us, and that we would have to back out the tunnel into New Jersey and come back under the river through a different "tube." He actually called it a "tube." He explained that the engineer has to walk through the train to get to other end to drive the train back out the tunnel. That seemed right to us. But then we saw the actual engineer. It was girl in blue jeans and a green Gap pocket t-shirt and long brown hair that should've been in a pony tail. She looked about 15. And she was OUTRAGED! that she had to go through the whole train and drive the train backwards. I think she must have taken off her Amtrak Engineer outfit in anticipation of getting to NYC -- where there is a crew change -- and she probably had called someone right before the tunnel to say "We're just entering the tunnel!" She was miffed.
A few minutes later we start backing out the tunnel. I began to think what effect this might be having on the rest of the Northeast Corridor. There must have been trains behind us. We backed out very slowly. The orange lights in the tunnel passed regularly but as if in slow motion. Our pace was very smooth, just very slow. We went back up the incline, back out the tunnel, back to where you can see the Empire State Building above the ridge of land that has houses and an old church on it, back across some cattails in the Meadowlands and past the yard where you always see so many shipping containers and freight cars, and then we were all the way back to the parking lot with the Cafe Bustelo trucks. Then we stopped. The Quiet Car became angry. WHY ARE WE STOPPED NOW? I figured they must be clearing the track ahead of us, since it seemed that we were to take a route that was not scheduled, as it were. Eventually, we started again and 7 minutes later -- travelling at normal speed again -- we arrived at a new platform under the Station.
After getting up into Pennsylvania Station, I headed off to the subway to come uptown to my hotel. At the last minute I decided to turn my head and look at the Board to see if other trains were delayed as a result of this incident. This was easy to do because we had come up the gates right there in the middle of the station, instead of off under the food concourse like we usually do. Hundreds of people were standing under the Board -- more than I'd ever seen at Penn Station, even during Xmas or Thanksgiving. I caught a quick glimpse of the Board over all the heads and saw that every single train listed on it was delayed and a few were cancelled. On the subway platform a few minutes later, I heard the announcer say that all Amtrak and New Jersey Transit trains to Newark were cancelled, that there was no service to Hoboken at all, and that you could only get to the New Jersey Coast by bus.
After I got on the subway, it occurred to me that this was probably the only day ever when it would have been faster to change at Newark to the $1.50 PATH train I discovered two weeks ago. You remember, the one that makes seventeen thousands stops at non-existent towns through the clouds of mosquitoes at the bottom of the Meadowlands before reaching 33rd Street.
posted by Anonymous @ 8:56 AM
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