Two years ago, we took a cross-country Amtrak from Seattle home to Pittsburgh.

We haven’t taken the Amtrak since then, so a couple months ago, Amtrak started emailing us telling us that our points were going to expire soon, so we figured we needed to take an Amtrak trip to keep the accounts active.

We floated a few ideas for what to do, but ended up deciding on a day trip to Greensburg. The Pennsylvanian was reasonably timed, getting us there around 8 AM and leaving from there at 7:01 PM, getting us home by 8 PM. We decided on yesterday as the day for the trip, based on working around other commitments.

The train out was fine, until the train was literally pulling into the Greensburg station. Then came the first thunderstorm. We waited it out in the station before stopping for breakfast at a cafe right by the station (Steep Mountain Tea Company, which is a really nice place, and which has a fantastic name) and then set forth on our first plan: walking to the Meadowlark Nature and Art Park through Seton Hill University’s campus.

Of course, we were halfway through the campus when another thunderstorm struck, thoroughly soaking my (not waterproof) shoes and leaving me with wet socks for most the rest of the day. Given the storm projections, we switched plans and headed to the Westmoreland Museum of American Art instead.
(Highly, highly recommend the museum. It’s not too big, but it has great exhibits and super friendly staff.)

We left the museum to clear skies and to find lunch, and then started for the park again, but by this time, the temperature had hit its muggy horrible high of over 87F, and the walk ended up being on roads with no sidewalks or shoulders (and quite a bit of traffic) so we abandoned that idea about halfway through the walk. Ended up at the library instead (gorgeous building) until it was time to grab some quick dinner and then head back to the train station for our 7:01 train departure.

About 30 minutes before our train was supposed to arrive (slightly delayed, due at 7:15), torrential rain and 80 MPH winds hit the region. Our phones were constantly giving emergency alerts with flash flood and tornado warnings, and the station temporarily lost power twice. (Apparently a tornado touched down in Latrobe? That’s only 10 miles or so from where we were.)

We were super glad to be in the station (instead of out in the weather), but the winds stopped the train for almost an hour. And by the time it was ready to go again, there were trees and other debris over the track. The train was over 2 hours late getting into Latrobe (the stop before Greensburg), but little did we know what was coming…

According to some people who came to pick up passengers at Greensburg (and who were texting those passengers on the train), the train had to stop 7 times in the 10 mile stretch between Latrobe and Greensburg so the conductors could move trees off the tracks. A little before 11 PM, we could see the lights of the train from the station platform (like a quarter of a mile away)… and the train was then faced with a tree hanging over the tracks that the conductors couldn’t handle themselves, so they had to call in a team from Latrobe to clear the impediment.
(Literally, we were looking at this sight for an hour:)

The train finally pulled into Greensburg a bit after midnight (5 hours late, taking 3 hours to go 10 miles), and sat at the station for another half hour as it waited for the track between Greensburg and Pittsburgh to be cleared. We finally arrived into Pittsburgh at 1:25 AM, and ran to catch the last bus out of downtown at 1:40. (Not the best bus for us, since it’d involve a non-trivial walk at the end, but it was literally the last bus until after 4 AM, so we couldn’t be choosy.)

Of course, most of the way through the bus ride, it starts raining, so we had to finish our day with a nice half hour walking in the rain. (And I finished the day how it started: with thoroughly wet socks.) It feels like a very fitting end to the trip, somehow.

On the plus side: Free Amtrak snacks, and the crew was *so so so* nice, and kept apologizing profusely for the delay, which absolutely was not their fault. One of the conductors was only on his second week on the job, so he’s really getting in a trial by fire. We also met some really neat people as we waited on the platform with them for 5 hours, including the Greensburg stationmaster, who was great.

So it was… a trip. I think we have very much learned not to take Amtrak when storms are forecasted. It’s not the worst trip I’ve had (that would probably be the ski trip from hell where the rental car tire first leaked air and then popped completely, due largely to my mental state and work stress around that trip, which I had already not wanted to go on even before it started), but I definitely wouldn’t call it a good trip.

But at least we got a story to tell out of it?

(I guess evidence for the fact that I’m mentally in a better place now is that this trip didn’t stress me out as much as it just got me frustrated with my own decisions around the trip. I didn’t bring a spare pair of socks because I figured my shoes would be soaked anyway if it got to that point, and I figured the thunderstorms would be brief and not a problem since we could schedule our day around them.)

Also, again, huge kudos to Amtrak staff. They had one heck of a night, and did the best they could, and managed to get us home that (more or less) night, so I’ll count that a win given the circumstances.