The trip from New York to Washington, normally about four hours, took twice as long. Two bystanders who had jumped on the tracks in Elizabeth, New Jersey, were killed by a train passing in the other direction. The food ran out, the water ran out; finally, the liquor ran out. The thousand or so passengers stumbled off the train at Washington's Union Station shortly after 9 p.m., to the booming drums of the Navy Band.
I can understand a family drinking after losing 2 brothers/sons/fathers/husbands to assasination, but that excerpt makes it sound like a frat party... especially with a THOUSAND people on board...