Kate07
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Angry Amtrak passengers arrive in New York 28 hours late
December 31, 2005, 6:44 PM EST
NEW YORK (AP) _ Amtrak's Silver Meteor train arrived in New York from Florida more than 28 hours late on New Year's Eve, releasing more than 100 exhausted, hungry and angry passengers.
"I'm tired. I just want to sleep," said Jonathan Papik, 11, who was headed home to Long Island with his mother, Teresa Papik, after their marathon trip from Orlando, Fla. The train was idled in Jacksonville, Fla., for 12 hours while a derailed CSX freight train was removed.
Teresa Papik said the only free meal Amtrak offered them during the marathon delay was "a crappy sandwich, a can of soda and chips. No water. I'm starving."
The Silver Meteor pulled into New York's Pennsylvania Station at 11:24 a.m. Saturday _ more than two days after leaving Miami. A litany of complaints echoed through the station as passengers stepped off the escalator from the tracks below.
"Many people take the train because they're afraid of flying. Well, Amtrak made a lot of flyers out of a lot of people today," said Karen Chiel, who boarded the train in West Palm Beach, Fla., with her two young children, traveling in a sleeping car.
Some train cars ran out of toilet paper. "It was nasty. There was tissue everywhere," said Georgette Neal, heading home to Brooklyn after 47 hours on the tracks.
Amtrak said it was unfortunate the CSX freight derailment occurred along the main corridor between the Northeast and the Southeast regions.
"We were unable to take an alternate route," Amtrak spokeswoman Tracy Connell said. "We deeply regret the inconvenience to our passengers and the delay."
The Meteor left Miami just before 7 a.m. Thursday, picking up passengers in Orlando _ many of them children visiting Disney World. The train left Jacksonville at about 4 a.m. Friday but stopped again in a patch of forest outside Savannah, Ga., about two hours later.
The train initially was held because Amtrak expected the tracks to be open by midnight Thursday, Connell said. Instead, one of the two tracks reopened Friday at 7:30 a.m., the other at 12:30 p.m., CSX spokesman Gary Sease said.
The long wait in Jacksonville "was a nightmare. It was claustrophobic _ and I'm not a claustrophobic," said Chiel. The conductors "didn't let us know what was happening," she said.
Many passengers said they wanted full refunds, but the Amtrak spokeswoman had no comment on that. It costs from $100 to $200 per person to travel from Orlando to New York, depending on the seating class.
Others ran out of money to buy food, young children were cranky and scared and older people were concerned about running out of their medication, passengers said.
Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.
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