| | Before I get writing, I must express publicly my joy in now having received my copy of Nightmare Revisited. Marilyn Manson's contribution just finished winding up and tickled every bone in my skeletal body!!!
Now to get on with my post, which actually involves revisiting something of a nightmare of my own! True, much time has passed since the event, but the time now seems perfect to open up old (okay, just a couple months old) skeletons and tell scary stories, such as....... Riding the Train of EVIL!
So, in my new job for Fourth Presbyterian Church, I helped take our youth group down to New Orleans this past July to work on some houses, and a church and other work that remains undone since Katrina. To get there we all thought it would be a great idea to take Amtrak. You know, none of the adult leaders have to drive that huge distance; we get to freely move up and down the cars to stretch our legs; and it's a great bonding experience for the group to all ride the City of New Orleans along the route made famous by Willie.
Now, that ride was supposed to take 19 hours. It was only delayed a little over and hour, which isn't bad. It actually was quite enjoyable on the way down. On the way back, the tune of the song changed.
Our ride back to Chicago began on Saturday afternoon around 1pm. Keep in mind we were scheduled to arrive in Chicago at Union Station the next Sunday morning by 9am. (aside: Kurt's a little disappointed with the Polyphonic Spree rendition of "Town Meeting Song.") Our train was rattling along just fine until a good way into Mississippi when the train engine decided to die. After sitting in one place for about 20 minutes without hearing anything, someone finally comes on the loud speaker to announce that the engine died, and they were going to try to fix it. 20 minutes later we heard that they couldn't fix it and they were calling for a freight train engine to come get us and lug us back to McComb Station, the nearest station to our current position.45 minutes later, the freight engine arrives and carts us back to McComb.
When we arrive, they let us off the train to stretch our legs outside and hang out in the little station building (that serves a population of about 5,000). It was quite hot in mid-July and we had gone several hours without hearing any updates on what is going on, what will happen, and what to do about food. We hear tell of a McDonalds not too far away from the station. So, with 25 youth all hot and getting hungry, we head out to McDonalds together to buy them all food and hang out in air-conditioning. Our brief respite went well until the Sheriff of McComb showed up at McDonalds looking for all the train passengers. He informed us that busses were waiting for us at the station to take us to Golden Corral so that Amtrak could feed us dinner.
We head to the station. John V (my boss) and I decide we could use the Golden Corral time to work on siging each others journals with affirmation, since doing it on the train won't work out so well. As we attempt to board the train to get everyone's journals, our car attendant stops some of the youth and me at the head of our group and won't let us on the train. We have a short argument about whether we can simply get our journals off the train, and then he criticizes me/us for going to McDonalds. We were apparently supposed to sit around and wait, hoping that they eventually tell us their going to take us to Golden Corral. (aside: Kurt must admit, Korn and Rise Against offer two delectible songs to the Nightmare.) He agrees to let us onto the train, but only for the journals!
About this time, I begin work on what turns out to be one of the more pleasant products of the trip, a take-off version of Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues," which I rename, "McComb Station Blues."
We finish our time at Golden Corral, which did not offer us any actual space to work on journals together putting that activity off 'til later. We get back on the train outfitted with a new engine ready to take us the rest of the way to Chicago! We all snuggle in for the evening's journey. Throughout the night I occasionally wake up and notice the train isn't moving much and wonder whether I'm dreaming or whether that really was the same tree outside my window I keep waking up to see for 7 hours.
Sure enough, we all wake in the morning to find out the train had sat in one place for almost 9 hours the night before. Apparently a tornado had swept across our route taking out a freight train only 6 miles ahead of us. One of the adult volunteers who woke up early enough saw its remains out the window as we rolled past them. Around 7:30am on Sunday morning we hear that our train will not be going any closer to Chicago. We also find out that we have yet to leave Mississippi!!! The was now waiting for clearance to pull into Yazoo City station, also a town of about 5,000. (aside: Well done, Rodrigo y Gabriela with "Oogie Boogie's Song.") After waiting another 20 minutes, we slowly pull into Yazoo City station where we would wait longer for busses to take us the rest of the way to Chicago.
While waiting there, one of the passengers spots a watermelon stand and decides to get himself a prize pickin'. Then we find out that our train has to move out of the way of other trains passing through. Our train pulls away as the unknowing passenger is left at the watermelon stand. We sit and wait more a mile or so down the tracks and watch as trains fly along past us. It did not really urk us until we saw our own sister train, the City of New Orleans pass us by heading south. 20 minutes or so later they announce that we will soon be heading back into Yazoon station, so we should gather our things. 20 minutes after that, our car attendant comes through saying, no, really we should go back to our car now we really are going to be moving. "Are the busses there now?" "I hope they are." The dissemination of information was probably my favorite part of the trip.
Finally, we head back to Yazoo and unload to get on the busses. It takes us about 2 and a half hours to load three busses with a hundred and fifty people or so. At the end of that 2 and a half hours someone thinks, "maybe we should get them lunch." They send out for KFC. 45 minutes later (us waiting on unmoving busses) KFC lunch boxes start coming to the busses. Only four boxes make it to our bus and they realize that they didn't order enough. They order again, and another 45 minutes later we all have food and the busses are leaving.
It was amazing to be moving toward Chicago with such speed in such little time. Then dinner time came upon us. We found out that Amtrak was going to send someone to meet us in Sikeston, Missouri (since Amtrak couldn't offer us food if an Amtrak staff was not there to buy it). We arrive at the restaurant happy to hop out of the bus and get some hot food... until we found out there will be another 45 minute wait for seats. So, more waiting and more wondering if God simply didn't want us to go back to Chicago or not.
Eventually we did eat and head back out to Chicago. We pulled into Union Station in downtown Chicago about 3am on Monday morning (remember at the beginning of the story we were scheduled to arrive at 9am Sunday morning). That may be the last time I ride Amtrak.
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| | Posted 10/9/2008 10:38 AM - 27 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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