(The Richmond Times-Dispatch posted the following column by Chip Jones on its website on March 3.)
RICHMOND, Va. — Lois Cady recently learned the truth of that old adage, “There’s no free lunch.”
Only for Cady, there was no free train ride.
Cady was one of the intrepid travelers who had the misfortune of boarding an Amtrak train in Washington around 7 p.m. on Feb. 22 and not reaching the Staples Mill Station until 4:34 a.m.
She dubbed it “the Gilligan train” because, like the old TV comedy, she took more than nine and a half hours for what should have been “a two-hour tour” back to Richmond. (Yes, TV fans, “Gilligan’s Island” did have a “three hour” in its theme song; but after what Cady endured, she deserves some slack.)
“My husband and I decided to spend the day in D.C. on Saturday [Feb. 22] and chose to go back and forth on Amtrak,” she said. “Believe it or not, we had a $50 certificate from my husband’s aborted trip to New York on Amtrak last December, when the train was five hours late.”
This $50 freebie prompted the Cadys’ trip to Washington. “It’s almost funny now,” Cady said.
In some ways, her trip tracked the rest of the Gilligan theme song, as “the weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed &”
Just substitute “train” for “ship.”
On the way back, the rain fell, and the Cadys — like others on board — learned too late that a flood watch was in effect.
This had a ripple effect, as it were. The railroad track’s owner — CSX Corp. — told Amtrak to slow its trains down to 15 mph.
You may have read the rest of the tale: How Cady’s train rolled within four miles of Staples Mill Station, but inexplicably stopped in the middle of nowhere.
The crew hit the maximum work time allowed by law — 12 hours — and stopped the train.
The train sat in the morning silence, and Cady started hearing that old theme song — ” a three- hour tour, a three-hour tour.”
She kept a Gilligan-like sense of humor about the whole experience. One of her favorite characters was an Amtrak conductor who groused at her when she asked why the train stopped.
“The conductor showed his ‘people skills’ once more, telling me that if I had a problem with this, I should take it up with his replacement.”
It seems unlikely that Lois Cady will be talking with anyone on an Amtrak train any time soon.
But if she does, she could have the chance to tell the story of the “Gilligan train,” adapting the TV show’s lyrics:
“Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale,
“A tale of a fateful trip &”