As you can imagine by the title, I had a train itinerary canceled while physically on the train. A HORRIBLE experience. Do not recommend. Several posts ago, I mentioned taking a 35-hour journey on the Coast Starlight train. What does that mean? In short, we board, we ride, we sleep, we eat, we meet new people, we check out the views, we get off the train. In this case, we get our journey cut short and have to leave early.
I talked about it before. We were meant to get our journey canceled because otherwise we could have been part of a serious train wreck. Thankfully we were not. God was looking out.
Day 1 was going great until I received a notification there was a cancelation. Apparently it was due to a disruption on the track which we would later find out was the wreck. This notification came through on the app and via text message but nobody knew what to do (not even the onboard staff). In an attempt to get ahead of the game and get some money back, I failed. A combination of unclear information, customer service problems, and heading into the mountains (with no cell phone service) led to this failure. A great way to stress out on [what was supposed to be] a relaxing journey.
These are the plans I came up with:
- Plan A: If immediately ushered to our promised transportation to Los Angeles, I would ride on, book a hotel on the way, and worry about next steps at the hotel.
- Plan B: If we were not immediately ushered, I would go straight to the airport and worry about making plans at the USO lounge.
- Plan C: Book a room on the California Zephyr train to Denver and fly home from Denver.
Now that we were all off the train in Emeryville, CA, it was clear Plan B was going to be executed. One would think that the company (Amtrak) who closed down an entire railroad track would have been prepared for customers to disembark a canceled trip. Nope. It was shear chaos at Emeryville Station.
Some folks had other transportation arranged because Emeryville was their final destination. The rest of us went straight into the station to arrange our promised follow-on transportation. Get this, there was nobody at the counter and we were all attempting to use a self-service kiosk that didn’t understand the situation. Chaos. The worst. Hated it.
Time wasted, nobody working at the station aware of why 200 people were lost in the sauce, and nobody (eventually somebody showed up) at the counter capable of assisting with refunds, I went to Plan B. Just know, if you are on an Amtrak journey and something happens, you will not be taken care of adequately. “Adequately” is the key word here. Everybody technically made it to wherever, but it was an all-around horrible experience. If there was decent customer service and company employees were empowered to help, the feeling would be different.
Enough of that negativity! Hopefully you get the point: Amtrak doesn’t care about you. Okay, I’m done for real. The next part of the journey was a true adventure. I hopped in a Lyft, made it to SFO (San Francisco International Airport), and headed straight to the USO lounge as was a part of Plan B. Where to next?
Having such a negative experience with Amtrak, it would make sense to refuse doing business with them again. There are very unique itineraries, good food and okay accommodations which has my interest peaked. Would I book with Amtrak again? Yes. I would book the unique itineraries so I can see the beauty of the United States. Once that’s over, I would only ever book commuter trains by Amtrak. The customer service is so bad. You don’t even get to talk to a person until you jump through all the hoops.
There is a happy ending to this story though. I finally got a refund for the remainder of the trip, and I ended up booking a flight to Hawaii. 😮
Signing off from San Francisco, CA.
A Couple New Things 
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