I was beginning to worry at this point, as I realized that I had just missed my stop. To my surprise, after a few minutes, the train began moving again, away from where I was supposed to be let off. There was no attendant in sight, which was confusing to me. I waited there for several minutes while the train was stopped. I stayed in that seat for the entire 3-hour duration of the ride.Īround 5:25pm when the train got closer to the Portage WI stop, where my ride was waiting, I made my way to the bottom of the train near the doors. I boarded the train, found my seat, and soon after my ticket was checked by another Amtrak employee. While boarding the train to Chicago at 2:15pm, I asked an Amtrak employee what car I was supposed to be on to be let off at Portage WI, and they kindly directed me to where I needed to be. I’m writing about the bad experience I had while riding the Empire Builder route on December 20th, 2021, from Chicago IL to Portage, WI. Ridiculously lousy service and not a care in the world with these clowns. I could catch a lyft here and make my flight! Nope they won't let you off until you get to a station. On top of that I asked to get off here where they were are adding these private cars since we've been at a complete stop in this train yard for 30 minutes. 5hrs difference from when my flight was scheduled is not enough! I'm likely going to miss an important funeral that came up because of this. If you do have to take an amtrak to get somewhere like I did (blizzards in ND, no flights going out and need to get home for a funeral) make sure you give yourself 12+ hours from when your scheduled to get off to where you need to be next. You can tell these sleepers are never cleaned at all. 100% gonna have dust mites if you're sleeping down there and would not be surprised if you wake up with bed bug bites.
![chicago gay bar side track chicago gay bar side track](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/5a/b1/af/5ab1afeb6362f690adc9413a72a57ac6--small-bars-a-small.jpg)
And around the seat all kinds of filth, dust and such. A quick glance and there's all kinds of goop each side of the seat and along the walls, armrest, table area. You can tell they don't get cleaned at all, I would even bet they ditn get cleaned annually. The roomette I have is spacious enough for 1 to 2 people, but you'll definitely want to sleep on the top bunk (instead fo the seats that turn into a bed below) to avoiding the disgusting filth around the edges of the seat. The bathroom on my sleeper car is not kept clean, I contemplated taking a shower, but once I seen the state of it, there was no way I was setting foot in there. The staff is very cold, even with how polite I've been with my interactions (simply asking things like where can I find this or that on the train, what time will we arrive here?). Even with being 4 hours late already they are stopping to add "private cars" a mere 6 miles from the next stop, Union Depot St. Train was over 3 hours late from when I was supposed to board, now projected to arrive 5hrs late at my destination (St.