Posted on 12/18/2010 4:24:33 PM PST by dynachrome
A train from Baltimore to Philadelphia stalled on the tracks for ten hours last night. With doors locked and electricity waning, passengers cried and fought for emergency rations. A local news reporter happened to be on board, and tweeted it.
D.C. reporter Stephen Tschida, of ABC affiliate WJLA-TV, was on the train as rations fell short, cold set in, and passengers swelled into an anarchic mob. As @ABC7Stephen, he chronicled it all, 140 characters at a time. Here is our brave correspondent's story, unabridged and arranged chronologically:
(Excerpt) Read more at gawker.com ...
Mass transit sucks.
Oh come on....It took 10 hours to get to these people...ridiculous..and you don’t starve in 10 hours.
Where’s Willie Green when one needs a booster to extol the wonders of public rail?
Reminds me of the story of the tourists stuck overnight on a jammed tramway car that goes up Sandia Mountain in Albuquerque NM (yes, New Mexico is in the USA). The tourists took it with a little better humor, however. Especially considering that the tramway car can get 200 feet or more above the ground.
Baltimore and Philadelphia? I’m thinking a certain demographic here.
Most of whom could miss a meal.
I don’t even want to think about what constitutes Amtrak Emergency Rations, much less fight over it.
Who misplaced the door key?
I’d be really, really annoyed but crying and fighting after 10 hours? Good lord.
Bah. Ten hours? I may have dipped into the emergency reserve of alcohol . . . .
Hasn’t been America since 65.
Trains suck, which is why the airplane was invented.
That’s the reason why Paul Simon’s search for it was in vain....
Few people want out of the door of an airplane mid-travel.
This “brave reporter” sounds like a real Nancy-boy . . .
Ah, he could have weathered it himself, but he needed a sensational story.
What I can’t get over is the fact that this reporter is a total weenie. If, God forbid, some sort of disaster were to occur wherein we were entirely on our own for any extended length of time, this guy would not only not make it, but would be in deadly danger from those of us who had to listen to his whining.
Airplanes in general are a lot more reliable than Amtrak. Riding Amtrak is like flying in Ethiopian Airlines or Uzbek Air.
Or better yet you can drive from Baltimore to Philadelphia in around 2 hours. If 95 gets backed up there's plenty of places to eat at any given exit.
I am not a Twitter nor FB fan (I still don’t think anyone cares if I am taking a bowel break) but I have to admit this is quite a compelling log.
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