If I had only been paying attention to the time...

It's been a crazy couple of days commuting by MARC train. The past couple of mornings my normal train has been pretty severely delayed, and then there was last night.

I typically leave my desk at 5:15 to catch the 5:24 out of Silver Spring. This is calibrated to my computer display time, and typically means that I am getting to the station right as the train is entering it.

Last night the trains were delayed in and out of Union Station because of an accident affecting another line. No big deal, really. Unfortunately I was working on another job application and missed my 5:15 departure time. I can leave as late as 5:17, but then I have to run to catch the light that makes the difference between missing and catching my train. It was 5:22. Poop. I checked the MARC website and saw that the train two trains before mine was running 35-45 minutes late, which means that it is actually running 45-55 minutes late. I decided to go ahead and try and make it.

Just as I was crossing Colesville Rd, I saw a train pull away from the station. Rats! I had just missed it. If I had left at my normal time, I am certain I would have caught it. No worries, though, I thought. If they are at least running, it's unlikely that my train was too far behind.

I made it to the platform and saw people waiting for the express train to WV. I can't ride that particular train because it doesn't stop at my station. It only makes one stop before the "outer stations" (beyond Germantown). It comes about 5-10 minutes after the train I "missed" and leaves.

Shortly after the express train leaves Silver Spring (again, maybe 5-10 minutes) my "normal" train comes through. It's running only 15 minutes behind schedule, which is nice. I jump on and sit back for the ride home.

We get to Gaithersburg station, the stop immediately preceeding my own, and minutes after pulling out of the station we come to a halt. Hmmmm. The conductor comes on the loudspeaker and tells us "They think that there may have been an incident, and the police are on the way to check it out." This is not good news. About 15-10 minutes later we get an update "There has been a serious injury incident and we're going to be here for a while." In the meantime, those of us in the first car see a police car drive up with lights flashing, shining a spotlight in the general direction of our wheels/the tracks. You get the idea, as we all did. Ick.

Another 20 minutes goes by, we see fire engines and ambulances and whatnot all pass by. I go to pull out my cell to call DH and let him know I'm going to be really late and crap, the battery is dead. Luckily, there is an awesome camraderie on the train when stuff like this happens and the woman sitting next to me lets me use her phone to call home. Anyway, we get to chatting, and it's perhaps another 20 minutes (we've been sitting in the same spot for over an hour at this point - I could have walked to my car by now!) before they let us know that they are going to move the train back to Gaithersburg station to allow us to get off.

To make a long story short, I borrow another cell phone once we get off the train (this time from the woman who has a lime green Beetle at my train station!) and call DH to ask him to pick me up. I finally get home around 8:00, and I can hear the trains running again very shortly thereafter.

The moral of the story is that I need to try and leave on time and I need to make sure that my cell phone is alawys charged!. The train I missed made it through no problem, and it was the express train that hit the person in Gaithersburg (talked with a coworker who was on the train, apparently the conductor announced what had happened in a very shaky voice to the folks on that train).

Still... it's better than driving the Beltway.