Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Annoyed

I've had bad train experiences before.

Last night was the worst of all.

A train broke down in the tunnel between NY and NJ. No trains were going in and out of the train station.

My original train I take was cancelled.

The train after that was cancelled.

The train 40 minutes after that was cancelled.

By 9:30 I had been there for almost 3 hours and nothing was moving. To make it worse it was only my train line that kept getting cancelled. Everyone else was just on Stand By.

I was tired, angry and most of all in pain. Because of everything happening with my knee I was dying. I can't stand for long periods of time and here I was at a train station with no place to sit.

I called my mom up in tears. She offered to come get my but by the time she would have gotten to the city and we would get home it would be so late and honestly it was just to much. Also I didn't want to make her do all that driving.

I decided to sleep in a hotel. It was like 200 dollars but you know what?

It was worth it.

I found out later that the service wasn't restored for another hour after I left and since everything was so backed up it would have taken me another hour just to get out of the station.

Instead I went to Macy's bought some clothes, then the drug store to get Toilet Trees, picked up dinner at Chipotle, and made my way to the hotel. I was in bed by 10:30.

If I didn't do that I would have still been at the train station waiting, and freaking out.

The hotel I stayed out was literally a few doors down from my building. I was able to sleep in much later than I usually do and I still got to work an hour and a half early.

I'm just sick of the trains being so messed up. At least once a week there is a problem. Is it really too much to ask for one week to go by without any problems??

Do any of you commute? Have you ever had something like this happen to you?

4 comments:

Karen said...

And there is the reason I won't commute. I worked in the city for a few weeks and it was terrible. I will not apply for or accept a job that forces me to take public transportation.

Sure sitting in my car sometimes sucks too, but I can take other roads or listen to my radio or talk on the phone.

Couldn't you have taken a bus? Or the Path to Jersey and bus/train from there? Or a cab to Jersey and bus or train from there? There are plenty of options, but I like getting into my car and having the control to go when I want to.

Rachel said...

I completely sympathize. I hate the Jersey to City commute. I work in Jersey now, but when I worked in the city, one of the reasons I worked there was because commuting as not worth the time/money. Especially the time.

I forget where in Jersey you are exactly - I was able to commute by bus directly to my hometown - but if you have take the train, it is often faster to take the PATH to Hoboken and catch a train from there, just because tunnel issues seem to happen more often than not. At least if you're in Hoboken you have more options on how to escape.

Anonymous said...

Ugh. I used to commute when I lived in Chicago and it was such a pain, especially in the winter. I'm glad you made the best of a bad situation though and got some rest.

erin - heart in ireland said...

uugh, i heard about that on the radio the other night! i couldn't imagine being stuck in it!

at least you made the best of a bad situation!