Amtrak President Joseph Boardman and the Quiet Car on ‘Acela Express’

A friend of mine asked for advice in picking an Amtrak train on which to travel from the Tidewater Virginia port city of Newport News to Boston. He was also interested in the accommodations available.

Noting that he was traveling with a small child and his wife (who’d just endured back surgery, and who thus needed to get up and move about frequently to relieve her pain), I suggested morning departure No. 94. It’s substantially quicker than the evening train, No. 66, the former Twilight Shoreliner, itself an extended remnant of the old overnight Night Owl, which is scheduled for a morning arrival in Beantown — Boston. As such, the train has an overabundance of dwell time that makes the end-to-end travel time nearly 3 hours longer than the other Northeast Regional train.

“There’s no sleeper?”

“No longer,” I typed. “Hasn’t had one for many years.”

“How about first class?” he inquired.

I explained that for an additional charge, he could enjoy complimentary tea and coffee, as well as a newspaper, which he could enjoy in a more spacious seat in Business Class, with more legroom and usually leg rests. There are also ample electrical plugs in the wall of each row to facilitate the use of laptops and the charging of cellphones. “The Business Class coach is normally directly behind the locomotive, which reduces the frequency of passengers walking past you to get to the lounge car, two cars further back. Very peaceful.”

“More peaceful than the Quiet Car?” he asked, eliciting a muffled laugh on my end.

“You’re better off not attempting to sit in the Quiet Car because of the small child. Youngsters simply don’t understand that they must be silent and refrain from running up and down the aisles, creating a distraction.”

I went on to say that if another passenger has to ask you to lower your voice, you are talking too loud, and the conductor will urge you to find seating elsewhere. I then broke out laughing.

“Okay, I know there’s a Doug Riddell story here. Spill the beans.”

“Actually, it’s a Joe Boardman story,” I admitted and told him the tale.

The Amtrak president, along with the head of the American Public Transportation Association and the administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration were to appear at a joint news conference at Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station. We were taking the 9 a.m. Acela Express to get there. Part of the corporate communications staff was already in Philly, setting up the visuals and allowing floor space for the expected army of reporters, newspaper photographers, and television cameras that would be covering the event. As Amtrak’s company photographer, I was accompanying Boardman and his guests.

At the last moment, I received a frantic call from the event coordinator at 30th Street, who realized that a large banner had been left behind that was supposed to be prominently displayed behind the podium. Noting that we had less than 5 minutes before departure, I called upstairs to our fourth-floor offices and got our corporate communications director to grab it, take the elevator to the first floor, exchange the banner in the main hall, and hopefully allow me enough time to rush to the train and jump aboard. Boardman’s executive assistant stayed on the platform of Track 20 at Washington Union Station and saw to it that the three members of the party got aboard.

I should have been awarded an Olympic medal in the relay event for my dash into the station, the quick handoff of the banner, and my race back to the train, just as the conductor looked down the platform, raised his arm, and gave our engineer the highball.

“Where’s Joe?” I asked Patricia, his executive assistant.

“They’re in that car,” she grinned.

“That car? No, that’s the Quiet Car,” I noted. “They’ve got to prepare for the news conference.”

“All aboard,” the conductor shouted. “You going, or ain’t you?”

“Going!” I jumped into the vestibule as the warning bell rang out and the door began to close. Peering into the car, I saw Boardman and the other two gentlemen, and found a seat across from them.

“Thought we were going to leave you, Doug,” Boardman laughed. “They don’t hold these trains for anyone.”

As I melted into the comfortable seat, the three began discussing what they were going to say. The Acela glided away from Union Station, gracefully negotiated the double slip switches at H Interlocking, and began its signature rapid acceleration as we leaned into the curve at New York Avenue, passing the Maryland Transit Administration MARC and Virginia Railway Express commuter equipment at the Ivy City Coach Yard. In no time, we were flying down the straightaway, turning the rest of D.C. and its notorious morning traffic jams into one long seamless blur.

No sooner had I drawn a much-needed deep breath than a tall man in a green business suit, his face flushed with anger, his teeth gritting, and his eyes bulging, stomped down the aisle, planted his hands on his hips and both of his polished loafers on the blue carpet next to the facing seats occupied by the threesome.

“I guess you people don’t ride this train very often. I do. This is the Quiet Car, and you’re disturbing me and everyone else around you,” although no one looked up until the angry patron began his rant. “If you can’t keep it down, I’ll call the conductor and have you thrown out of here or put off the train. And I can have it done, believe me, I can; I know the president of Amtrak. Joseph Boardman. I’ll call him if necessary, so you’d better pipe down and put a lid on it if you know what’s good for you.”

The man then turned around and stormed back to his seat.

The four of us sat in total silence for what seemed an eternity, but was actually only a few seconds, until I could no longer hold back my laughter, and burst out laughing so hard that tears began cascading down my cheeks.

“Joe, have you got your cellphone silenced?” I asked.

“I’ll check. Why? Say, who is that guy? I don’t know him,” Boardman emphasized, his raised eyebrows and big white teeth framing a clearly puzzled expression.

“I don’t know either, but he says he knows the president of Amtrak, and if he calls his friend, and your phone starts ringing, we’ll all be thrown out of the Quiet Car on orders from Joseph Boardman,” I snickered before I could compose myself and offer to go forward and see if I couldn’t find us seats in another coach.

“Please do,” the president of Amtrak agreed. “I’d hate to be thrown off my own train.”

Retired Amtrak locomotive engineer and company photographer, DOUG RIDDELL, is a book author and former Trains columnist.