As I have mentioned in previous posts, I ride a train to and from work. My commute is two hours when everything is running as it should. Lately though it has been a real pain in the ass getting home. I cannot remember the last time I got home when I was supposed to.

My train leaves Union Station at 4:55 PM EST Monday through Friday and is supposed to arrive in Martinsburg at 6:50 PM EST. For the past two weeks I have been getting home anywhere between 7:30 and 9:00. This is aggravating. The worst of it was last Wednesday. We had a severe storm roll through which ended up knocking down a bunch of trees along my trains path. I get an e-mail alert stating the trains will be delayed several hours while they clear the trees. Our only option is to take the Metro to the furthest station and then hope there is a bus available to take us to our destination. A few minutes later I get another alert stating due to the weather they will be unable to get enough buses. So here I am two hours away from home with no way to get there. Luckily I was able to catch a ride with someone who lives 20 minutes from my house and my wife was able to meet me there. During the ride home I get another alert stating the trains are canceled indefinitely. The next day the trains were still not running.

This week has been more of the same so far. We are experiencing a bit of a heat wave and they put heat restrictions on the train. These heat restriction suck. I understand they are necessary to prevent derailments but it is so frustrating. What makes things worse is I don't really have a viable alternative. I could do the metro/bus thing but I have to drive 20 minutes to the bus station and at current gas prices this is not an economical solution. Plus on a bus I could experience delays due to traffic conditions which are more unpredictable than the train.

So why doesn't Marc do anything to help out? The short and simple answer is there isn't much they can do. Adding more service is expensive and CSX owns the tracks. They could really care less about the commuter service since their money is in freight. If Marc was able to give CSX more money maybe but it would probably have to be considerable increase in funding for CSX to really care.

Instead of Marc adding more service, MTA and WMATA should look at creating more alternatives for commuters heading out to West Virginia. Then again that is more money in more buses, staff, fuel and maintenance. The way our economy is going I don't see that happening in the foreseeable future.

Sure I could look into ride shares but the way those typically work is you alternate driving. I own a pick-up and an SUV, it wouldn't be economically prudent for me to get involved in something like that. Plus finding commuters going to DC in WV is pretty slim. Another alternative is finding a job closer to home, while that sounds nice it would be damn near impossible to find a job at my pay level closer to home. Plus I like my job. So in short it appears I will just have to suck it up, adapt and overcome and stop complaining.

If any of you out there are experiencing the same thing please let me know, maybe together we can come up with a solution that will work out. Also I would love to hear your complaints about the horrible Marc service.

I guess now I should go make a pagan sacrifice to the train god in hopes of getting home on time tonight.