Ramblin' on the rail...(no movies here)

It's about 8.30pm now and I'm on the gor-am frickin train headed back to Boston. Through a series of fateful mis-steps, I'll probably end up back in Beantown around 11pm or so, almost five hours later than planned.

I was supposed to leave Metropark, NJ on my train at 2.22, but I stepped onto a train that pulled in there around 2.15. There was no announcement about the train, but it was Amtrak and when I got on, I asked a conductor which way the business class car was, and he said to walk thru the cars to the front of the train. So that's what I did. I've never gotten a biz class seat before, but when I was buying my ticket online I saw that the price diff between coach and business today on that train was just a few bucks, and getting a biz class ticket would guarantee me a seat, so I figured, what the heck, right? Don't let the elevator bring us down - Let's go crazy!~

Yeah, well, I was almost to the first car and no business class so far. I stopped a conductor who was working her way back through the train and asked her about the business car, and she looked at my ticket, then looked at me and told me, "You're on the wrong train. You've got to get off at the next station and catch your train."

Frack. No business car on this train, so, and just about every seat I'd seen in the cars I'd walked through were already full. With a ticket for the wrong train, I couldn't get a seat on a sold out train, bleah. So, I hung out between cars until we reached the next stop, Newark International Airport, apparently also known as Liberty Airport. I hadn't heard that before. So out of touch with my homeland. Sad, that.

When we stopped there, I found the conductor woman on the platform with another ocnductor and asked to double-check, "So I should get out here and wait for my train?" And she confirmed, "Yup, should be maybe fifteen minutes behind us."

"Thanks!"

For nothin.

Bleah.

I can only be SOME miffed at her. It was MY first wrong step that set me on this ridonkulous roundabout path back to Boston.

So, I settled in at the NIA station for a while. Studied the departures screen a while and realized that MY train, the 2.22 out of Metropark, which would've been about 2.35 at Newark I guess, wasn't listed as stopping/leaving here. Sure enough, an Acela train sped right on by me at just about the time my train would've been due. Frack.

I got on the phone with 800-USA-RAIL and had to work a little to get an agent to tell me that there was a 3.19 train to Boston that I should be able to hop onto. This was at about 2.40 or so. I could hear her typing and clicking through her Amtrak database whatnot as she vocally wondered at why the conductor would tell me to get out at a station without a ticket window. The agent told me that I wouldn't be able to exchange or buy a ticket for the 3.19 train, so I'd have to explain my situation to a conductor once I got on the train. And oh, hey, look at that, it's running 20 minutes late.

Bonus.

So, I slacked away the time, stood outside on the platform for a spell, stood inside the waiting area for a spell, wondered as I do about these spaces between spaces that are built specifically for people to WAIT in and PASS through, having deep-ish hollow half-thoughts about how these are places that are sort of asleep, somehow, and they sort of push people into particular state of consciousness...


Half-thoughts.

Read some MAKE LOVE THE BRUCE CAMPBELL WAY, an autographed copy that my most excellent friend Brad sent me. It's a fun, charming read, but just then 'twas difficult to make much progress in cuz I kept breaking out of the reading to look down the railway for my new train. Well, 3.30 came and went and I was getting antsy. I wanted to go over this mess once more w someone at USA-RAIL. So, I got a new agent on the line and she explained that it was very likely that I wouldn't be able to get on the 3.19 train because of holiday sold-out-ness, and it was going to Springfield anyway, not Boston. And I explained that the departures screen had it listed as "Boston via Springfield" and then she told me, "Oh, you could get another train once you get to Springfield, but since this train is delayed now, I'm not sure what train you could get when you arrived."

"You're safest bet is the 4.19, which will go directly to Boston. But you will definitely need a ticket." So I explained, "The last agent I spoke to told me there were no ticket agents at this station." And she was a bit huffy, "No, there is supposed to be an agent there until 5pm. You go find that agent and get yourself a new ticket!"

*sigh* "Thanks."

So, I went to get myself a new ticket. The agent at the Newark airport station was very helpful and proactive. First she located the next train to Boston for me, a 4.19 train, then got me a refund for my original ticket, then walked me through the purchase of a new ticket on this 4.19. The ticket printer was down at her station, and she was transcribing my new reservation number for me - I opted for the more expensive biz class again, to be sure that I'd get a seat, after all this, I definitely wanted a frickin seat! - when she stopped scribbling, "Oh, here, let me just do this for you!" And she didn't actually do it, but with her let's-print-the-hell-out-of-this-ticket attitude, she SEEMED to vault over the ticket counter and bounded to one of their quik-trak ticket machines. I gave her my credit card and she swiped, touch-screened, and printed my new ticket for me. If I was gonna shoot this as a flashback in my movie, she'd probably dance and hand-jive the whole time she was working the quik-trak and finally hand the ticket over to me with a great body-wave flourish of some sort and a sparkled smile, and perhaps cartwheel off-camera back to her station.

Fun!

Well, I was upstairs at the ticket agent's station when that delayed 3.19 rolled on thru. If I blinked I would've missed it. No doubt they were trying to make up for lost time as much as possible every stop. Never did find out what "Boston via Springield" really means.

The 4.19 was running 45 minutes delayed.

Gotta love holiday travel.

I spent a chunk of my waiting time upstairs and indoors, sittin on the floor in the corridor connecting all the track platforms. Around 4.20 or so I decided to go back down to the platform and plant in one of the waiting rooms. Pretty spiffy waiting areas. The sky went from pink to purple to black as the clock advanced to just about 5.05 or so. No train in sight. No announcments of a train in sight. Okay, so maybe the "45 minute delay" message on the departures screen would be updated to "1 hour delay." I really wouldn't be surprised.

I looked down to read a bit more Campbell, then looked back up, and hey-presto, the 4.19 had disappeared from the screen! WTF? I supposed it was possible that I might've missed the train while reading a paragraph or two, and the train would be in a hurry to make up lost time, and would speed off again as soon as possible, right? Feckall.

But arrive, spew passengers, suck up new ones, and depart, without me noticing, in the timeframe of a few sentences of Campbell camp? Doubtful. How could the train have come and gone in that short a time?

Alien abduction? Might explain the clocks and departure screen... Or perhaps they kept me for a whole day, or several? No, the same people who were in the waiting area before the train blinked out of existence were still there after. And my butt felt relatively unprobed.

Maybe I had some kind of episode? No one was looking any more afeared of me than typical, and I didn't see any blood on my hands or clothes, but y'know, I'd like to think I'd be smart enough to dispose of any evidence, even in a psychotic break, so that didn't prove anything.

Oh, but I had to get to the bottom of this, so I decided to investigate the most likely possibility. I went into the bathroom to check for signs of probulation or implants...

No, I didn't.

Well, not til later, y'know, when I usually do it, every evening before wrapping myself in foil, arming the traps, and going to sleep.

What I DID do - I got my stuff together and went back upstairs to see the ticket agent (who according to the USA-RAIL agent was probably done for the day) and see if she could shed some light on the mystery train... Which is a very fun quirky film by Jim Jarmusch, btw. I mentioned it when writing about BROKEN FLOWERS, but I think now that maybe I meant "eccentric" and when I typed "eclectic" somewhere in there...? Or maybe I meant both...?

Anyhow, at the gate between the corridor to the tracks and the ticket agent, I encountered a woman in a long black puffy coat who was waiting to get through to see someone at Amtrak as well, about the disappeared 4.19 train. When the attendant opened the gate, we both went up to my friend the super-agent and explained that the 4.19 had been wiped from the departures list. "Oh, they do that here!" She said it like, I dunno, like it was some quaint custom or something. I wonder if that was a consultant's suggestion. If a train is more than 45 minutes behind schedule, just take it off the list cuz it hurts the reputation of the brand...?

Anyhow, she checked a clock on her monitor and was suddenly shocked that we were upstairs and at her counter and not on the platform waiting on our train. She looked past us over our shoulders at where our train would be coming from on the horizon and acted as if she could see it. She told us it's definitely on its way and we should go back down to the platform to wait. Even as she was telling us this, I felt like she was using a little trick that should only work on kids, y'know? Psyching us out with a "don't look now!" sorta move?

Whatev. It worked.

Back down on the platform, we met a half dozen other people who were wondering about the mystery train. We chatted for a few minutes, then just stuck w the awkward silence for a few minutes more and, lo and behold, train 194, departing at 4.19, rolled into the station at just about 5.30pm.

We got under way pretty quickly I guess. I ended up following the woman I met at the upstairs gate to the business car. The business car... Let's see... They've got curtains on the windows. I saw that one woman had a blanket that she got from somewhere that I don't know. There's definitely more leg room. Seats... I don't think they're wider, but there's no middle armrest between them. There are fold-down foot rests built into the backs of the seats. The heat was turned up pretty high compared to other cars I'd walked thru to get to this one. And once we were rolling, a conductor stood in front of the car and took a poll by applause to find out if the temp was too hot, not hot enough, comfortable, or uncomfortable. Called to mind the SEINFELD episode about first class seating on the airplane, heh. Oh, also, complimentary drinks from the cafe car with your biz class ticket stub. If it's soda, you only get those little half cans, but hey, "free," right? I think the scrolling marquee thingie is a bit suped up compared to the regular cars'. It's got animated type and muti-colors. I haven't watched a whole cycle of messaging, but it's got a "don't drink and drive" message in there, along with a "customize your own message" message...? Is this a test loop? Haha, it must be. "Introducing Beta Brite" Random.

Y'know, I think the coach cars may only have backlit signs telling you "no smoking" and which end of the car the restroom is located. Poor coach bastards.

And I just heard a conductor tell another passenger that we'd hit Boston around 10.15. Feck. No CASABLANCA for me. And I told my parents that that's what I was looking forward to once I got back tonight. I always figured, factoring in holiday travel, there was a very real chance I'd miss the 9.45 show, but, feckall, this isn't holiday travel... this is... this is... a holiday comedy of errors. A poo-filled diaper. Bleah.

*sigh*

Keep on keepin on~