At one point the sun was setting and I looked over to see a set of train tracks go off in a different direction. I could not help but wonder where they went and what kind of an adventure someone would be going on that took that route.

It was quite a surreal and peaceful moment. It had not gotten dark yet on the train. I was still in fact enjoying the ride. I might have even still had a smile on my face at that point.

After a while, it was time to try and explore the train somewhat. I decided I wanted to check out the “café.” You would think when you are on a train for over 18 hours they would have some kind of real food. Nope, everything would be microwaved and I’ll spare you the details of how just nasty those $6 Breakfast sandwiches were in the morning.

The only thing I’d trust on that menu to not be nasty would be under the snacks if they came in a sealed bag that did not need to be heated. However for $3 for a dam Snickers bar, I’ll stick with the snacks I already had packed in my bags. The prices on that menu were highway robbery or I suppose train way robbery for this trip.

Being back here is also when I realized we were about to have quite a massive issue on the train. This was the bulk of the supplies they had remaining for the whole train for the night. I don’t think they were getting restocked for a while. That was not the real issue.

The real issue was the drunks on board. One of the drunks was getting cut off. He was not getting cut off because he was so plastered, oh no. He was only getting cut off because he drank the entire supply of the kind of drink he was shotgunning down. He would have to order something else if he wanted to keep drinking.

He took his last drink and walked away. He did not go back to his seat. Nope, that would not work out for him. He went to our bathrooms which were just a couple of feet away. He took his shot and looked at one of the bathroom stalls till he ran in there almost not getting the door closed. The man had to piss and he tried doing it standing up.

He then thinking he did a decent job went back to the café car. I can only assume to drink them out of another kind of booze drink. It became quite clear he missed. The bathroom only got worse from that moment on.

I swear they did not even attempt to clean the bathrooms. At one point it was so bad people in our train car were telling each other that we could use the bathrooms in the train car in front of us. That was till those bathrooms go so trashed as well that people stopped using them.

While I did attempt to make some daring bathroom usage breaks at my own risk of smelling like piss for the rest of the trip. There came a point where that was no longer an option. I had around six hours at the end of the trip where I just had to hold it in and pray with every bump and train wiggle I did not piss myself.

Eventfully it turned to nighttime and they turn off the bulk but not all of the lights on the train. I guess this was supposed to be “quiet time” but Lady B did not get the memo. There was no more looking out of the window. There was just trying to be quiet and not get any sleep.

At one point during the middle of the night, the train slammed on its brake. We could also feel something under the train wheels as it was a nasty kind of movement and feeling. The train then came to a full halt. The lights turned off as they shut off the train engine.

While they informed the rest of the train. I guess used in coach did not pay enough to be kept in the loop. It was also “quiet time” so they did not use any speakers like that would have helped since ours was broken anyways.

Then the rumors started to spread from the other train cars that we had broken down. At one point it even seemed like the train attempted to move backward and only after a foot it came to another massive halt.

After a while, a bunch of employees who might as well have been in the witness protection program for how little we had seen any of them on the entire train trip came rushing out from the back of the train. They were all talking about taking a look at seat XX.

Whatever transpired that stopped the train happened at some seat. Needless to say, the rumors kicked up even further from there. Some people seemed to be quite in shock at what it could even mean.

Others were like we must have broken down and we just got to wait for them to send a replacement train engine so we can get to a station. All the rumors however were quite wrong.

After a while with the train still being stopped an employee walked into our train car and was ambushed by people demanding to know what happened. The employee stated that we hit a “deer.” The train stopped over hitting a deer? The employee was long gone before any further questions could be asked.

Many others including myself thought “deer” was a code word for something else. As why would you stop over-hitting a deer? It had to be much worse. It was clear the train ran over something big with a lot of bones. . .

Thankfully a person not far from us started talking about its common in this area to hit a deer. That they did have to stop and report if they hit a deer. They had to document it and someone might have had to come out to inspect it before the train was permitted to go any further.

Not reporting about hitting a deer it turns out would be a massive fine and Amtrak would get in huge trouble. We were there for an hour to an hour and a half before we started to move along again.

It also meant the train was running quite late. It did not help any that early on even at our stop which I don’t know how they could have already been late. They were now running over two hours late. This meant everyone who was hoping to be off the train by now was still trapped on it and not happy.

This also meant you had people who had been sitting in a train station for over two hours only being told they don’t know when the train will come. Needless to say, we had some people join at those stops and they were pissed off about the wait time.

Perhaps an hour after the deer incident the train just starts to gun it full speed for no reason that we were aware of. The train then slammed on the brakes sending everyone forward. We then could feel the train hit the rail part that changes the rail you are on.

The train then came to a full halt. We then for around two minutes wondered if we hit another deer or if the train engine died as a result of hitting that deer. It turns out it was not either of these two things.

A train on the tracks we had just gotten off on came speeding past us in the other direction. Because we were over two hours late we were now in the way of oncoming train traffic and had to get out of the way.

The rest of the night the train would be speeding as fast as it could go and then they slam on the breaks. Many times it seemed like they had to slow down to get around a nasty turn or we were getting close to another station stop. It was clear however they were trying to make up time.

Sadly we did not makeup time. Sometimes they would get ahead by half an hour. Then suddenly the train would almost come to a screeching halt and it would feel like we were moving two miles per hour for a long amount of time.

I can only guess we were messing up the train traffic. So they were doing whatever was required to not cause any further issues for any other trains out there. It however made the rest of our trip with all the speeding up and slowing down kind of suck.

After far too long of a sleepless night. I realize it was daylight again and opened the shades on the window. At some point, they had turned the lights on the train on. I did not even have to open a map to know we were near DC and that was a monument.

I was kind of shocked at how empty a lot of the roads were around this area past 7 AM. There were also quite a few tunnels and bridges that we went over. It is quite strange to be on a train and going right over a roadway.

At this point, I was trying to work out when we would be in Philadelphia. We had some people that were going to pick us up and I did not want them waiting around all day for us.

I was also a bit nervous about being in Philadelphia soon. If you believe a dang thing on any news you would think there was nothing but looting, stabbing, and building burning down in that city. Everyone was just on drugs walking around like zombies according to the news.

Even when I talked to some people about where the train station was. It kind of seemed like it was not going to be in the “best” area of Philadelphia. The last thing I wanted to get was stabbed or robbed getting off the train. So I was already starting to go on high alert despite not sleeping and needing to pee like a racehorse.

Our time in DC however would be quite a while. While the schedule I had it looked like it was going to be up to a 30-minute stop. They told us they needed to switch engines while here. Many of us including myself thought that might be because we hit that deer and all that.

It turns out the part of the country we were coming from uses one kind of engine and the part we were heading into uses another. I can only assume the way we were coming from we used diesel. The way we were going to go uses electricity.

So they announced that the bathrooms and café would be shut down during the engine swap. They also told us don’t go anywhere as once the train gets its new engine they would be leaving with or without us. They seemed to be really into telling passengers they would leave them behind on stations if they did not make it on board in time.

We were there for about an hour. A bathroom break would have been quite kind and I could tell many needed one at this point. No one even dared to check the status of the bathrooms on the train anymore on our part of the train at least. Besides, there was no power with the engine being detached so you could not even use them anyways.

After a while, we get going again. This part of the trip had some of the worst and bumpy rails I recall of the entire thing. Not great when you are trying to hold it in. Thankfully we were getting close just two more stops out from our destination.

I tried looking on the Amtrak app to see when we would be arriving. At one point it was claiming we would be two hours early even though that was not possible. Then it would switch to us being over an hour late. In the end, I think it was about two hours late.

Once we got into Philadelphia it turned out the train station was underground. Not only that but they had us exit into a tunnel. I tried to turn back but there was only the tunnel to see. So I did not even get a photo of our train on the way out like I wanted to do.

We then were at some escalators that took us to the top part of the station. From there we had to work out where our rides were and we left quickly.

Final Thoughts

This was the last photo I took of that train ride. It ended up being around twenty hours long. I would have no idea the train ride back while it would be less eventful in terms of what happened on board. Would end up taking a few more hours.

I also still cannot believe the things that transpired on and around that train. In-person, my storytelling of this trip is quite more colorful. I’ve toned it down slightly to be posted online on my blog. It is just pure insanity how crazy life can be.

It also appears long train rides are not for me. I have no regrets about taking this train ride up. It was my first train ride. I think it will also help me appreciate other forms of transportation. Even more so if they don’t have toilets you have to attempt to ride like a bull to use. Some say I still hear the whistle of the train blasting every couple of seconds.

Other Content

• My First Train Ride Part 3: Tray Slamming Darkness Approaches
• Switching Worlds | My First Train Ride Part 2: Trouble Brewing

Information

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