A nice story for you....
So Dave and I went skiing on Sunday. It was my Christmas gift to him - lift tickets to Winter Park and tickets on the.... ski train. The trip up there and the skiing were fabulous - we skiied pretty hard too - it was a great day. Then came the trip home. For those of you who may not watch or read the news... here goes:
We got on the train at oh, about 3:30 or 3:45. We're in a club car, meaning we have booze and catered food and lots of leg room. So we start going at about 4:15, and after about 45 minutes, we start to slow down. Huh? We're not there yet...
No, we're not. We stop on the track. After about 20 minutes, Jim the train manager comes on and says "Hey folks, there's a derailed maintenance truck in front of us. They're attempting to get it back on the tracks..." Sweet. Another 30 minutes... "Well, the truck is having problems, so there's a tow crane on its way up from Denver, it'll be an hour or so. Hang tight, we're working on it." Sweet. Next announcement states that the crane is there, working on the truck. Cool - we should be ready to go in a few minutes, right? Right?
Truck makes it a little bit down the hill and derails again. Mega sweet.
By this time it's after 7pm. Do you know what happens after 7pm? The train crew has been on duty for 12 hours and according to federal regulations, they can no longer function the train or they risk the wrath of the federal government. So what do we do? We call Denver for another crew.
Keep in mind that this is Sunday night, when it's semi-blizzarding in the mountains.
Some time later (I have no idea when, I stopped looking at my watch) we get a new crew. Jim comes on the loudspeaker "You are NOT going to believe this... the maintenance truck is STILL on the tracks. We're going to detach the front locomotive and see if we can't just SHOVE the thing off the tracks. All the power's going to go out briefly while we disconnect the engine... hang tight."
Can you believe this? Are you shaking your head yet? I think I laughed really loud at that announcement. All the power goes out except for the three emergency lights in front. It was actually pretty creepy. The power stayed out for 10 minutes or so, then came back on. That was a huge sigh of relief, actually. At this point I can see us losing power completely and being totally stuck in Crescent. But apparently the locomotive thing worked, because about an hour or so later they re-attached the engine and we were on our way. Another HUGE sigh of relief.
During this whole affair, the 17 year old kid across the aisle and I are joking around to try to lighten the mood. We were going to get off the train and take pictures of each other in the windows pretending to scream and claw our way out...but we couldn't get the train doors open. So we just talked and tried to stem some of the negativity around us - it was really pretty ugly. People were calling 911 and 9news and yelling at the car managers about federal laws... the car managers who are VOLUNTEERS, no less. Poor Dave had his headphones in because he couldn't handle any more. I understand that people were frustrated, but what could we do? Plus we had light, heat, food, water, and non-stinky working restrooms, not to mention cushy first class seats. Really - for a crappy situation it was really quite physically comfortable and at some point you have to just deal and try to make it as pleasant as possible for yourself and the people around you. So that's what we did. Well, we tried.
The train got in sometime after midnight and then we drove home through the ice and snow - I think we finally got home at around 1 or 1:30am, I can't remember. It was late.
So that's our adventure. I'm going to write a letter to the ski train people to commend the car managers - they really did a great job in an ugly situation.
And yes, I'll probably take the ski train again at some point - it's a really beautiful trip. Although I think I'll take a book next time. Or four.
We got on the train at oh, about 3:30 or 3:45. We're in a club car, meaning we have booze and catered food and lots of leg room. So we start going at about 4:15, and after about 45 minutes, we start to slow down. Huh? We're not there yet...
No, we're not. We stop on the track. After about 20 minutes, Jim the train manager comes on and says "Hey folks, there's a derailed maintenance truck in front of us. They're attempting to get it back on the tracks..." Sweet. Another 30 minutes... "Well, the truck is having problems, so there's a tow crane on its way up from Denver, it'll be an hour or so. Hang tight, we're working on it." Sweet. Next announcement states that the crane is there, working on the truck. Cool - we should be ready to go in a few minutes, right? Right?
Truck makes it a little bit down the hill and derails again. Mega sweet.
By this time it's after 7pm. Do you know what happens after 7pm? The train crew has been on duty for 12 hours and according to federal regulations, they can no longer function the train or they risk the wrath of the federal government. So what do we do? We call Denver for another crew.
Keep in mind that this is Sunday night, when it's semi-blizzarding in the mountains.
Some time later (I have no idea when, I stopped looking at my watch) we get a new crew. Jim comes on the loudspeaker "You are NOT going to believe this... the maintenance truck is STILL on the tracks. We're going to detach the front locomotive and see if we can't just SHOVE the thing off the tracks. All the power's going to go out briefly while we disconnect the engine... hang tight."
Can you believe this? Are you shaking your head yet? I think I laughed really loud at that announcement. All the power goes out except for the three emergency lights in front. It was actually pretty creepy. The power stayed out for 10 minutes or so, then came back on. That was a huge sigh of relief, actually. At this point I can see us losing power completely and being totally stuck in Crescent. But apparently the locomotive thing worked, because about an hour or so later they re-attached the engine and we were on our way. Another HUGE sigh of relief.
During this whole affair, the 17 year old kid across the aisle and I are joking around to try to lighten the mood. We were going to get off the train and take pictures of each other in the windows pretending to scream and claw our way out...but we couldn't get the train doors open. So we just talked and tried to stem some of the negativity around us - it was really pretty ugly. People were calling 911 and 9news and yelling at the car managers about federal laws... the car managers who are VOLUNTEERS, no less. Poor Dave had his headphones in because he couldn't handle any more. I understand that people were frustrated, but what could we do? Plus we had light, heat, food, water, and non-stinky working restrooms, not to mention cushy first class seats. Really - for a crappy situation it was really quite physically comfortable and at some point you have to just deal and try to make it as pleasant as possible for yourself and the people around you. So that's what we did. Well, we tried.
The train got in sometime after midnight and then we drove home through the ice and snow - I think we finally got home at around 1 or 1:30am, I can't remember. It was late.
So that's our adventure. I'm going to write a letter to the ski train people to commend the car managers - they really did a great job in an ugly situation.
And yes, I'll probably take the ski train again at some point - it's a really beautiful trip. Although I think I'll take a book next time. Or four.