I was hoping to take a train from NYC to Atlantic City. The train is exceptionally long for a direct train ride, it takes 2.5 hours. So given that fact, you can imagine how awful it was when I found that the 8:04 train that I’d bought a ticket for would be delayed by 30 minutes. It was even worse when 5 minutes after that the announced that the train would be an hour late.
So now I’m doing the math and figure that I had little chance of getting to Atlantic City sooner than 11:30. I’ve been traveling all day. I took a 9:23 train into New York this morning and a train right after that into Long Island. All I want is to get to my destination, crack open a cold one and relax. Instead now I’m in limbo not knowing if this train is ever going to show up…oh and my iphone battery is dying quickly. So I decide to take it easy, not worry about it and just forget about what an inconvenience this is. I sit in the waiting room at Penn Station and plug in my MBP to charge my iphone and watch a cartoon or “talkie” as my fiancee calls them. Not 1 minutes after I settle in do they make an announcement that all passengers waiting on this train should get on a train to Newark and await further instructions. So now, after setting up shop in the Penn Station waiting room with my MBP to charge my iphone and watch a cartoon, I have to pack up and get shipped to Newark, or as I now call it ‘Don’t ever send me there again.” But on the bright side, I felt like things were moving. I expected that we’d get to Newark and then off to AC…Wrong!
What actually happened is that I just got to have a change of scenery for waiting. And they couldn’t have picked a nicer place than Newark, a dingy, small train station with a waiting room far less comfy than NYC. I approach the Amtrak customer service desk to see what my options are as the Departures sign simply says “Delayed” with no other information. I ask the guy behind the desk if it’s possible to get a ticket on the Amtrak train to Philly in exchange for my Atlantic City ticket and my inconvenience. He explains to me that even though Amtrak sells the tickets to Atlantic City, its actually New Jersey transit that I’d have to talk to about that. Keep in mind that NJ Transit can’t give me an Amtrak ticket to Philly, oh and the NJ Transit desk is closed. My follow-up question is whether there is any new information about how long it will be until our delayed train arrives. He says about 20 minutes which is coincidentally exactly when the Amtrak train to Philadelphia would be leaving.
Again, I feel good. I have a time to count down until. I can handle 20 minutes. I go and sit down considering my options wondering if there’s enough time to plug in my laptop, or if that’s even a smart (safe) idea. Then the announcer comes on and let’s us all know that there is a mechanical problem with the train and they don’t know when it will arrive. The certainty I just had…gone!
So now I’m in a pickle, I have to decide whether to wait on this train to Atlantic City, which may or may not come in the next 20 minutes before the Philadelphia train leaves, or shell out $70 for the Amtrak back to Philly where I would have to drive down that night or the following morning.
About 10 minutes later the “Delayed” sign is replaced with a message directing us to Track 3. But at this point the certainty doesn’t make me feel any better. I paid for a train that was supposed to have left an hour ago and have been shuffled from place to place with nothing other than hazy promises, conflicting information and loose timelines. It’s bad enough that I was inconvenienced, but the worst part was to feel no control or certainty in the situation. I was disempowered the entire time by poor communication. I would’ve preferred that they say “it should be no more than 45 minutes” than “we don’t know what time it will get here.” The last thing the customer ever wants to hear is we don’t know, and please be patient. With the prices of these train tickets I want accountability. What if I showed up and didn’t have the $70 for their train and instead came with $38 and said I don’t know when I’ll get you the rest? Why wasn’t I offered alternatives or something to make me feel better about the inconvenience?
I’m on the train now and even though I’m much calmer now, I will carry with me the feeling of frustration from this experience, merely from not feeling like my time was being respected. Simple fact is that I paid for a certain product, I did not receive that product. I will be calling some customer service and I hope that I will be taken care of.