Derailed train delays travel

Nearly 100 people spent Monday waiting after train blocks Amtrak

Bruce Gronich wanted to go to Disneyland, and to get there spent the better part of his afternoon waiting for a train that would never come.

Close to 100 people spent their Monday in line at the Amtrak station Downtown after they were told a freight train had derailed somewhere between Flagstaff, Arizona and Albuquerque.

Gronich said he got a call from an automated Amtrak service around 11 a.m. alerting him of the incident, but that he was told to show up to the station on time and ready to go because Amtrak was taking care of it.

“They’ve been trying to get buses together since then, and they’ve just now come,” Gronich said.

He and his travelling companions waited close to four hours at the station, along with other local passengers and some who

had been on the Flagstaff-bound train they were supposed to board.

“There’s the train that came in from the East,” Gronich said, pointing to a stalled multi-car Amtrak train across from the bus loading zone. “They’ve stopped it here and they’re getting ready to go back where they came with the folks that are coming in by bus from Flagstaff.”

Railroad staff told him they would be busing passengers between the two cities because 13 to 14 cars had derailed and were blocking the railway in both directions. BNSF operates the railway where the incident occurred. They did not respond to requests for comment Monday night.

The train was scheduled to depart Albuquerque at 4:19 p.m. The buses did not arrived until around 6:30 p.m.

Amtrak spokeswoman Christina Leeds said buses were arranged to take passengers around the derailment but did not say why it took so long for them to get to the Albuquerque station.

“Customers will continue on their trip as planned after they board trains in either Albuquerque or Flagstaff,” she told the Journal.

Leeds didn’t know what happened to the train that derailed but said the incident impacted travel for about 345 Amtrak customers.

Some of those people had been planning on eating dinner on the train, but because they were asked to wait at the station for buses to arrive, they went hungry.

“We haven’t been able to do anything,” Gronich said. “I’m not crazy about it.”

Leeds did not say if passengers who had ordered dinner on the train would be fed on the buses, or if the voyagers would receive any sort of reimbursement.

After the hours long wait, the travelers were squeezed through bus boarding gates and hustled into three large white vehicles.

Subsequently, there was a great hustle and bustle to get luggage properly tucked away under the cabin, and then it wasn’t clear if all the passengers were on board.

“I guess not everyone heard the announcement,” an out-of-breath station employee said as she ran back to the waiting area.

A few minutes later, a garbled voice came over a loudspeaker announcing the final boarding call for the buses.

The passengers were told they would be able to board trains in Flagstaff that would take them to their final destination. For Gronich and his friends, that was Los Angeles, where he planned to visit his brother, eat at several restaurants where he had made reservations, and go to Disneyland Tuesday.

“Whether or not I get there on time is another question,” he said.