There’s A Right Way And A Wrong Way To Chew Out Amtrak

Even though Amtrak sometimes makes you want to scream, “I’d much rather pay for 15 minutes of war in Iraq than take care of your $1.5 billion operating budget deficit,” there is a right way and a wrong way to express your dissatisfaction with its service. Yesterday offered an example of the wrong way:

A man who falsely claimed to have a bomb in his bag prompted the authorities to evacuate Pennsylvania Station for more than an hour yesterday, causing delays for travelers across the Northeast and punctuating a tiresome week of increased security in New York City’s subway stations.

During a dispute with an Amtrak ticket agent, the man, whom the police identified as Raul Claudio, 43, of the Bronx, placed a bag on a ticket counter and said a bomb was inside, the police said. The threat was unsubstantiated, but caused personnel including National Guardsmen in military fatigues to clear the station just after noon.

By way of advice, gentlemen, women do not find it appealing when you lose it in front of Amtrak employees — and trust me, I’ve been there:

“When we were in line, he said he had a bomb in the bag,” said a woman who had accompanied Mr. Claudio to the station who would identify herself only as Milagros, 46. She said that Mr. Claudio, who was pulling a suitcase on wheels, had become upset when the ticket agent could not retrieve his reservation.

. . .

At the Amtrak ticket counter yesterday, Mr. Claudio threw a sandwich in a bag against a wall and left the line after the agent could not find his reservation, “and then he got more mad,” said Milagros, who said she was his former girlfriend.

After he entered a different line, he was taken aside for questioning by the police. She said that she did not hear him make a threat to a ticket agent, but that people in the line may have heard his earlier remark to her about a bomb in his bag, though she knew he was not serious. “His mouth always gets him into trouble,” she said. [Emphasis added]