'Canceled' signs and stoic commuters at Trenton Transit Center
"Canceled" was the operative word at the Trenton Transit Center at 6 p.m. Wednesday. Amtrak to Harrisburg, CANCELED. Amtrak to Boston, CANCELED
"Canceled" was the operative word at the Trenton Transit Center at 6 p.m. Wednesday.
Amtrak to Harrisburg, CANCELED.
Amtrak to Boston, CANCELED
SEPTA to Philadelphia, CANCELED.
Commuters at the Trenton station had their schedules disrupted by the suspension of service to and from Philadelphia, but were stoic about the inconvenience.
John Di Paolo, 45, said he was sitting on a train at Newark Penn Station Tuesday night when service was canceled because of the derailment. Texts started coming in from friends who knew he was an Amtrak commuter.
"Are you OK?"
He spent the night in Newark, where he works, and took NJ Transit late Wednesday afternoon to Trenton. He waited outside Trenton Transit Center around 5 p.m. for his cousin to drive him back to his home in Center City.
Di Paolo is traveling the rest of the week but says he might drive to work Monday.
Andrea Barnes normally takes SEPTA from Philadelphia to Trenton en route to her job at a university in New York. But on Wednesday she had to pay a taxi $68 to drive her from Frankford Train station to Trenton. "It's expensive," she said, but added that the derailment was sad.
She waited inside the Trenton Transit Center around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday while a friend came to drive her back to Philadelphia.
Angelo Bruno, of Paoli, Chester County, usually takes the train from 30th Street Station to his job in New York. Instead, he drove early to Trenton Wednesday morning and caught an NJ Transit train.
"It wasn't as bad as I thought," he said.
Jose Murcia, 54, and his wife, Diana Lozano, 50, of Orlando, traveled to Philadelphia and New York for the first time this week to explore the cities.
They were in New York when they heard of the derailment. "We said, 'Wow, what do we need to do now?' " Lozano said.
They said Amtrak refunded their tickets back to Philadelphia. They took NJ Transit from New York to Trenton Wednesday afternoon, where they waited for a friend to drive them back to Philadelphia. They plan to stay there the night and drive home the next day.
"That was easy," Lozano said.
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@AndrewSeidman