One thing I was not expecting is that I never got off at any of the stops on the way up. I was kind of thinking I’d get off at every station and take some photos. The longer we went along our joinery the more late the train became.

On top of that, I just did not feel safe with how our bags were. I also was not going to drag them out every time either. So I always stayed behind.

I was kind of shocked by how few smoke breaks over the dozen stops we had to Philadelphia. Even when we had stops that were supposed to last over eight minutes (I had taken screenshots of the travel plans ahead of time). They were flat-out not letting the ever-growing line of people trying to get a smoke break out.

I also kind of found it strange the lack of communication. Granted the train car we were in seemed to have a buster speaker. So sometimes they were saying something and you could not understand well. Other times they 100% did not say anything to our train car. So sometimes the train would just stop at a station and no one in our train car had any clue it was time for a stop.

Not that far into our trip we had a twenty-minute stop at a major city. It turns out it was time for a shift change. When we first got on the staff were getting hugs, everyone was thanking them for the amazing trip, and so on. Those loved staff members were getting off.

The new staff that got onboard made their quick rounds to see where people were getting off. Wrote down some notes and went and hide in the back of the train. The only time we saw the staff was before the train would stop at a station. Otherwise, good luck finding help if it was needed.

Trouble Brewing

After a few hours on the train is when the trouble started to occur. At one of the stops, a family with a bunch of younger kids got on. One of those kids was crying and crying. While many in our train car I’m sure felt like “Dang it, I hope it won’t be like this at night time.” I feel all of us at least understand that you are going to have crying kids on a train and the mother was doing the best she could.

After a while, however, one person was not having it anymore. I’ve never in my life seen a full-grown adult cuss out a random stranger's young child. That is however what happened. A guy scrammed some cuss words to tell the child to shut up.

The poor mother was in crying from this incident. She asked some people near her to look after her children. She then disappeared for at least ten minutes.

The lady then came back with an Amtrak staff member. You would think that poor mother would not have had to go hunting around on the train for help. Let alone that it takes a good 10 minutes. The staff member tried to get the guy to move and he was not.

Shortly later there was now four or more Amtrak staff. At one point after another ten minutes of the guy refusing to move, they asked if that was his bags above him. The guy more or less told them they were not touching his stuff.

In the end, they picked up his bags and he followed them. Everyone for sure thought he was going to get kicked off the train at the next stop. Turns out NOPE. A person next to us after going to the bathroom reported back they just moved him to the back of our train car. We also had several stops since the incident so it was clear he was not getting removed.

That also meant every single time that poor mother had to take her kids to the bathroom or the café for food she would have to pass him by. This was not the first time I felt Amtrak staff did not deal with a situation well.

Since they did not kick the guy off. I’m shocked they did not just put him in a different coach car. You would think they would want him far away from any of us. Let me tell you. While many were not happy about the crying kid in the first place. The entire train car was angry at the guy for cussing out a small child.

The Ladies

After a while, I was just happy to see we were over some kind of large river or lake. I don’t recall what the map showed. It was a nice and needed change from the pace of things. Things were already starting to get rather strange on this train more so than a child getting sworn at.

There was this lady not that far from us. I’m just going to call her Lady A. She had ants in her pants and could not stand to sit in her seat very long. The only time it seemed she did sit in her seat and ready for a very short amount of time.

While Lady A had the seat next to her empty there were not any issues. There however came a point where they seated who I’m going to call Lady B next to Lady A. Lady B came onto the train talking on her phone about how she hopes no one talks to her and everyone leaves her the heck alone.

Lady A kept her inner seat despite the fact she could not stand being seated for any amount of time. Lady B had the outer seats which meant Lady A would have to get over her an insane amount of times during this trip.

At first Lady B would get up and let Lady A get up or in her seat. Lady B however quickly realized that Lady A would come back 5 minutes later just to sit back down for 30 seconds if that before needing to get back up again. Lady B was not having it any longer.

After a while Lady B who was busy on her phone stop getting up. She just motioned to Lady A to crawl over her to get in her seat. Lady A was not happy about that. As such Lady A would keep coming back to place her purse down or take a jacket but not attempt to sit in her seat

It was clear they did not like each other. Staff were also never around and I doubt would have attempted to resolve any of these issues that were occurring at quite a high rate.

After a while, it was time for dinner. It was a nice break from what was going on next to us. We thankfully had some subs packed and since we had frozen water bottles they kept them somewhat cold and still fresh. These made for an amazing dinner.

I also did not get a single moment of sleep on this train. So I more or less watched the back and forth between Lady A and B the entire train ride. At one point Lady A had been gone for hours. It was now 3 AM and she finally decided to come try and sit in her seat.

Well by then Lady B was off her phone and sleeping. So Lady A kept coming back shaking her head and hands going “wtf I can’t get in.” Well, no shit it was 3 AM the poor lady was not going to wake up 500 times an hour to let the lady in and out of her chair every 10 seconds.

Now why on earth did the two ladies not switch seats? I have no idea. You would think Lady A would have wanted the outer seat so she could come and go as needed. That never happened.

Even worse when either of the two was not around or one of them just left. I’d get one of the ladies looking at me and telling me “Can you believe this crazy person.” I’d just shake my head and try not to laugh at how stupid and silly this was. I also did not want any involvement! I did however feel bad for Lady B since the amount of times Lady A had to get up was just unreasonable.

For most of the night, however, till Lady B was sleeping she was chatting on her phone. That is a big do not do once they turn off part of the lights. Everyone is supposed to be super quiet to allow people around them to sleep.

The Amtrak staff never told Lady B to go back into the café train to talk on her phone. Not like they were ever out in our train car anyways. They did however have to pass by on a few stops and clearly could tell she was talking on the phone.

We even had a few people who when they went to get off would whisper over to us that we could call Amtrak and complain. Seeing as the Amtrak staff onboard did not want to do much and not wanting to cause any trouble we just dealt with it.

It was not like I was getting any sleep anyways. So it’s not like any of the ladies were keeping me up with what they were doing. This is however not the strangest thing.

There were many rumors I’ll say starting to float around our section of the train car about Lady A. Many were talking about every time she get up and leave she would go to a higher-priced seat section of the train and find an empty seat next to male passengers.

Lady A was also seen walking around the train with a few different younger guys. She even got off long before the train stop with one of them. I’m going to leave it at that. For all I know it was just friends traveling together. Many others on the train had a difference of opinion.

Final Thoughts

As far as human interactions went on this train. This was not the only strange stuff going on. In the next post, I have quite a few more stories to tell. Who would have thought the strange behavior of people would be the most interesting thing going on a train?

Other Content

• My First Train Ride Part 1: This Could Have Been Nice
• The First Hike Testing Out AllTrails
• Blueberry Fest

Information

Photos were taken and content was written by @Enjar about my personal experiences in the real world away from the computer at home.