Two 85 and 95-year-old sisters were kicked off Amtrak train 500 miles from home

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Two 85 and 95-year-old sisters were kicked off Amtrak train 500 miles from home

Berkeley Brean News10NBC
Updated: March 15, 2023 - 9:16 PM
Published: March 15, 2023 - 8:18 PM

ROHESTER, N.Y. – Two sisters from Rochester say they were kicked off an Amtrak train 500 miles from home. One of them was accused of being drunk and belligerent. ... Their choice was either get off the train or go to jail. That sounds pretty serious. But, wait until you hear about these sisters.

“I love that picture,” Mary Scherzi said looking at photos with her sister Angie Capone. ... Mary Scherzi and Angie Capone don’t look like troublemakers. ... Scherzi is 85 years old and lives in Gates. Capone is 95 years old and is from Spencerport. Two weeks ago, they went to New Orleans for a family wedding. The problem started on the trip back. They say they were playing cards in the club car when a conductor told them to stop, it was against the rules and go to their room.

Scherzi asked her why and says she got this answer: ... “I don’t have to answer you,” Scherzi quoted the conductor. “And if you don’t go back to your sleeper I’m calling the police.”

Brean: “The conductor of the train accused you of being what?”
Scherzi : “Drunk.”
Brean: “And?”
Scherzi: “Obnoxious.”
Brean: “And?”
Scherzi: “In her face.”

Scherzi says the conductor approached her and her sister sometime between 8 and 9 a.m.

Brean: “Was your sister belligerent, intoxicated and in her face?”
Capone: “No way.”

But when the train pulled into Charlottesville, Virginia police were waiting for them and told Scherzi to leave. ... “And I also said what’s my option if I don’t get off the train,” Scherzi said. “Quote and unquote, ‘Either get off the train or you’re going to jail.”’

Brean: “And when you heard jail, what did you think?”

Scherzi: “I said, I don’t want to go to jail.”

Scherzi got off and her sister followed her. They were confused and 500 miles from home. Since then, Scherzi filed complaints with Amtrak and Charlottesville police. The police wrote her a letter on March saying the investigation is “ongoing.” ... The sisters found a hotel and booked a different train home the following day. ... “I think I was treated not as an 85-year-old woman, not as a peacemaker,” Scherzi said. “I felt like I was looked at not as a human being but as a criminal, definitely like I was a criminal. And I don’t know what I did.”

Brean: “It sounds like, based on your story, you got kicked off because you were playing cards and asked questions.”

Scherzi: “You said it perfectly.”

Charlottesville Police did not respond to my email asking for its incident report, a record of any ticket filed against Scherzi, and their body camera video. In a statement emailed at 5:06 p.m., Amtrak wrote, “We do not comment on specific customer incidents. Amtrak is committed to ensuring the quality of travel and the safety and security of our customers and employees, and we may refuse to carry or remove passengers for disruptive behavior.”

{snip}

[Hugh_Lebowski]

1. Except only one of them was kicked off

Article headlines are really on my nerves lately (not your fault, Jeeves )

[NJCher]

2. true, but

no way is one sister going to leave the other alone. Still doesn't excuse the headline, however.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. I havea feeling there's a lot more to this story.

The encounter is described as being rather low-key. Did they actually stop playing cards and return to their sleeper as asked? Or did they keep on arguing about it. Plus, I've taken Amtrak a number of times, and if they were simply playing cards and otherwise not disturbing anyone, there would have been no problem. So I'm guessing the one sister was confrontational and obnoxious.

[Effete Snob]

10. If you book a sleeper on Amtrak

Then you have access to the traditional dining car, which is not the same as, say, the cafe car on ordinary Amtrack service.

In order to provide service to all sleeper customers in the dining car, you must reserve a time slot during meal times. Between meal times, the car may be closed for changeover.

So, simply taking the facts as stated in the story, they were playing cards at a limited dining table during breakfast hours, when there is high demand for tables from all of the other customers in sleeper service.

I could probably make some bets on some of the things left out of their side of the story, but I sincerely doubt they were thrown off for playing cards.

A sincere question for you, since you have taken Amtrak a number of times (and I am assuming on a service class other than, say, the Northeast Corridor). Based on your experience, what has been the general demographic composition of, say, persons in first, business, or sleeper service in comparison to Amtrak employees?

There's an obvious subtext to me here.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

15. I have taken Amtrak from Santa Fe to Portland, OR,

and from Santa Fe to Kansas City twice. I always book the sleeper car.

Aside from coach passengers no longer being allowed in the dining car, you can have your meals delivered to your roomette or bedroom, and a significant number of those passengers chose to do so, at least when I was on the train.

I'm thinking that time reservations were only required for the dinner service, but I could be mis-remembering.

I didn't particular notice any real demographic difference between the employees and the passengers. It could be that I'm singularly unobservant of such things.

I notice there is a general friendliness among the passengers on the trains I've taken which is quite unlike flying, especially ever since 9/11. There's room to move around, walk, chat with people, get a snack or beverage. I love the observation car. Oh, and the last two times I've taken Amtrak, adults get a free alcoholic beverage with dinner. Nice.

I love taking the long-distance trains, and hope to do more of them.

[Effete Snob]

16. They cut back a lot of services during covid

Last edited Thu Mar 16, 2023, 03:25 PM - Edit history (1)

...and are re-introducing some services that were discontinued.

And, yes, given the general atmosphere, it is difficult to imagine what one must do in order to be kicked off. I saw that happen one time, but it was because a passenger was stealing from other passengers, got caught, and was taken into custody at a crossing in the middle of the night where police met the train.

More than one person had to be involved in the decision to remove an unruly passenger, and I don't see how age factors into it. People are capable of gross misbehavior at any age, so without more information it is difficult to know what happened.

Significantly, this is not one of those "...according to a lawsuit filed by the passengers" story, but is a completely uncritical account of how two nice old ladies could not possibly have done anything to get kicked off a train.

I've always been impressed with the standard of service aboard Amtrak. Railroad work is a multi-generation tradition in some families, going all the way back to the Pullman company.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

25. Right. The changes during Covid were profound.

My Portland trip was in 2015, well before the Pandemic.

The second two were in October/November 2021 and August/September 2022. Those last two were both roundtrip from Santa Fe (Lamy, NM, to be accurate as that's the nearest station to Santa Fe) and Kansas City. The 2021 trip not only were coach passengers no longer allowed in the dining car (they had the cafe car for food and beverages) but they absolutely were not seating together people who were not already travelling together. The 2022 trip I wound up sitting with strangers, but again, not coach passengers in the dining car. I both liked sitting alone on that first trip, and liked sitting with strangers on the other trips.

And again, the being able to roam around and talk to new people is always fun for me.

And I am likewise sure that at least one of those two old ladies misbehaved rather egregiously.

[Phoenix61]

4. I hope I have the energy to get kicked off anything when I'm 85.

Hell, I’ll be happy if I can get kicked off a park bench at that point.

[PJMcK]

7. I'll be happy to make it to 85 (n/t)

[Effete Snob]

12. I never get the point of including age in stories like these

Mean racist dickheads diss Amtrak employee and other customers by refusing to vacate reserved dining car table at which they were not eating during limited breakfast hours doesn't make as sympathetic a headline.

I don't know the rule that says octogenarians can't assholes....

"At approximately 12:50 p.m. on June 10, 2009, 88-year-old James Wenneker von Brunn entered the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. with a slide-action rifle and fatally shot Museum Special Police Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Holocaust_Memorial_Museum_shooting

People in their 80's are just like anyone else.

[hippywife]

19. All of your responses in this thread are merely conjecture.

You don't know anymore than anyone else in order to guess what actually took place until there are more details.

[Effete Snob]

23. Ah but everyone else's conjecture is fine, right?

People shit on service workers all the time and then pull the “poor little me” routine.

One Amtrak employee did not have the discretion or authority to deboard these passengers and their luggage. This was a crew decision.

I don’t reflexively believe stuff on social media. YMMV

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

26. "Shit on service workers all the time"

is so true. I was an airline ticket agent for ten years, 1969-1979, back when flights weren't always full, there was much better space between the rows, real food was served even in coach. Even then, the abuse we sometimes took was amazing. I've been known to say that NOTHING I have ever done since then, including childbirth, was half as hard.

Heck, I belonged to a support group of brand-new first time parents when I had my first son, and one day one of the moms sighed and said, "This is the hardest job I've ever had." I stared at her and said, "I can't imagine having a job this easy." We'd clearly experienced very different worlds of work.

[Rebl2]

5. Why would

it be against the rules to play cards in the club car? Never been on train, so don’t know the rules.

[Grins]

6. That was my Q. Amtrak has a no card-playing policy?

I’m calling bullshit. And they should sue Amtrak.

[Effete Snob]

11. The dining car for sleeper service is by reservation during meal times

If you book sleeper service, you can have meals in your room or in the dining car. The dining car is not large enough to accommodate all sleeper customers, so you have to reserve a time slot if you want to eat there. You cannot occupy a table which you have not reserved outside of that reserved time, and you must vacate the table when you are not dining.

The story says that during breakfast hours (6:30-9:30), they were playing cards at one of the tables.

Then, for some reason not stated, they did not feel obligated to vacate the table when they weren't eating.

Perhaps there was something about the employee who asked them to vacate a reserved table, which caused them to feel they did not need to vacate the dining table when they were no longer dining.

If you have never been on a train, then there is probably a lot about (a) Amtrak service employees and (b) sleeper car customers, that might provide some insight into what the other side of this story may sound like.

[snowybirdie]

8. Amtrak could use some compassion

These two older ladies could have some form of dementia and perhaps one or more were a bit obnoxious. But throwing them off a train far from home is in no way the best option. What if one or the other wandered off and were lost or attacked? The conductor needs some better training.

[Effete Snob]

14. First off

A "conductor" does not have the authority to kick them off the train. This had to be a decision involving more than one employee.

Secondly, the staff in the private dining car in sleeper car service are not "conductors". They are highly trained customer service employees who attend to passengers in sleeper car service - including management of the limited-seating dining car available to sleeper service customers on a reservation-only basis in advance for time slots. Absent a reservation, meals will be provided in your room. Absent dining at a dining table, you must vacate the table during meal times.

Amtrak breakfast service in the traditional dining car runs from 6:30-9:30. This couple were playing cards at a table between 8 and 9.

An attendant asked them to vacate the table and they did not feel they needed to do so, and instead had "questions" for the attendant.

I guess something about that attendant gave them the impression that their social status did not require them to care that they were not dining at a reservation only dining table during the peak breakfast period.

Go ahead to Amtrak.com and price out sleeper service from New Orleans to Rochester.

Garsh, I wonder what happened?

[snowybirdie]

17. Guess

No compassion here!

[Effete Snob]

18. I have oodles of compassion for abused customer service employees

Last edited Thu Mar 16, 2023, 04:47 PM - Edit history (1)

My heart goes out to people who do their best to make customers happy and receive abuse and scorn in return.

Oh, wait, we're not supposed to have compassion for people doing their job and taking crap from people are we? No compassion left in that basket?

It takes a lot to get thrown off of a train.

[Faux pas]

9. I

guess they're guilty of LIVING TOO LONG.

[Effete Snob]

13. White Karens Not Dining In Reservation-Only Dining Car Don't Let Black Employee Push Them Around

Better headline most likely.

[hippywife]

20. There is nothing indicating a racial component to this story at all.

You're making stuff up out of whole cloth. I did some googling, and while there isn't much, there are other complaints about Amtrak employees sometimes being rude and on an Amtrak discussion board that the employees like to lounge around in the dining car between meal services.

Still not one person not there, including you, knows yet what actually took place during this incident.

[Effete Snob]

21. That's right

But here we are, slamming Amtrak for no reason.

The sleeper dining car is not “between meals” at 8AM, and, absolutely, Amtrak employees are entitled to work breaks like everyone else, except they have to do it on the train.

I sincerely doubt that the attendant had Amtrak contact the police and de-board two premium passengers because they were interfering with their break.

Entitled assholes on planes, trains and elsewhere have gotten worse, and I would put good money on the proposition I’m a lot closer to the truth than all of the other people deciding to take a shit on hardworking union employees.

[hippywife]

22. Maybe, maybe not...

but you act as if you know. You don't know anymore than anyone else in order to guess what actually took place until there are more details. Others may be blaming Amtrak, but you're doing exactly the opposite. So no better.

Ignore.

[Effete Snob]

24. Too funny

No, I act as if I don’t reflexively jump to the conclusion that everyone else does. But that makes me the one engaging in conjecture.

Considering other, and more likely, scenarios is called having an open mind.

It is very unusual for a passenger to be kicked off of a train. It is not done lightly and not for “playing cards and asking questions.”