(The following article by Larry Sandler was posted on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel website on April 13.)
MILWAUKEE, Wisc. — Dozens of stranded Amtrak passengers completed their trips Wednesday, after the passenger railroad treated them to apologies and lunch in the downtown Milwaukee station.
The dining car of the cross-country Empire Builder ran off the tracks in the Menomonee Valley about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, shortly after leaving the downtown station on its way from Chicago to the Twin Cities and the Pacific Northwest, Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said.
No one was injured and the cars didn’t tip over or lose power, so the 20-member crew kept serving dinner to the 189 passengers, Magliari said.
A Canadian Pacific locomotive eventually helped pull the disabled train back to the station about 9 p.m., he said.
Amtrak then offered the passengers hotel rooms in Milwaukee.
Many of the passengers took that offer, although some boarded a Greyhound bus for Minneapolis-St. Paul and others rode Amtrak’s Hiawatha back to Chicago, Magliari said. The rest took the next westbound Empire Builder on Wednesday, he said.