Local Residents Trapped On Delayed Amtrak Train For More Than 12 Hours
ANN ARBOR (WWJ) -- Stuck on a train for New Year's? Not the greatest way to celebrate the holiday but that was reality for a number of passengers heading to Ann Arbor.
Passengers were trapped on an Amtrak train for more than 12 hours without any answers.
David Arnsdorf says the train was supposed to leave Chicago just after 6 p.m. last night, and arrive back home in Ann Arbor around midnight. It was two hours late taking off and there were a series of delays ever since. The train didn't finally arrive to Ann Arbor until 12:30 p.m. on Monday -- nearly 13 hours later then originally scheduled.
Passengers trapped on Amtrak train for over 12 hours. @Amtrak reports it's over nine hours late due to "service disruption." No reason given. pic.twitter.com/E1krqwGUmM
— Sandra McNeill (@SandMcNeill) January 1, 2018
"Basically we rolled along reasonably well until we got to Kalamazoo at which point we stopped," Arnsdorf told WWJ Newsradio 950. "We basically ended up sitting there for five hours. They said some of their crew was out of time so we waited for crew, and then we moved to Battle Creek, which is the next station. Then we sat there for a couple of hours because again the crew was out of time and they had to replace the crew again."
Amtrak officials have not been available to comment on this incident.
The online train tracker reported the issue as a "service disruption."
Regardless of the issue, Arnsdorf is extremely frustrated with this entire ordeal. He says he doesn't plan on ever riding Amtrak again.
"My experience with them is that they are consistently bad enough to schedule, and not bad enough by just a half hour, bad by hours," Arnsdorf said. "I don't know why they are so bad but every time we take it seems to be a big problem."
Arnsdorf added that he's going to try and get reimbursed for his ticket.