Left out in the cold

I’m really disappointed in the service that my 72-year-old mother got while traveling with Amtrak recently.

She rode from Vancouver, Wash., and got off the train in Whitefish.  Although it was great — and we were told by Amtrak employees that it’s highly unusual — that the train arrived on time at 4:30 a.m. in Whitefish, there was no one to help her get her luggage off the train. She had two pieces of luggage, plus her purse and an oxygen tank/concentrator that she wasn’t able to unload by herself in one trip.

The conductor agreed to set her baggage off the train, but couldn’t help her get it into the station because he had to be on board and no one came out of the station to help her. When she got inside, the employee inside the station told her that everyone had to get out of there because it was closing. When she told him that her ride wouldn’t arrive until 8:30 a.m., he said, “That’s how it is,” and told her she had to get out of the building.

There are no seats outside the building so some gentleman helped her with her bags and she had to walk across the street to sit at a corner picnic table and wait for her ride. It was 50 degrees that morning.

She tried to call a taxi, but her call was picked up by an answering machine that told her to leave a message. After she waited a little while longer, she was cold and scared, and she tried to call the Whitefish police to see if they could help her get to some place warmer.

They told her they were busy in Kalispell with an emergency suicide threat and no one was available to help for at least 45 minutes. She told them that she would be OK because it was getting lighter and her ride should be there by then, and a police officer actually did call her to see if she was OK and to apologize, and she would like me to thank them for that courtesy.  However, she still had to sit there until her driver arrived at 8:30 a.m.

She wants me to mention that having to wait for a ride happens all the time. She has no problem with having to wait, but she wishes the station could have provided chairs outside the building and maybe a warmer cubicle to wait just in case it’s raining or snowing.

Why did this have to happen? Is the bottom line more important to Amtrak than the safety and comfort of their passengers?

— Debbie Thomas, Prineville, Ore.