Train derailment brings laughs
<p>Best buds: Kathy Schantz, left, and Charles Pinner.</p>
<p>Micah Lundstrom, left, and Terrance Phillips.</p>
<p>Nico Lopez, left, and Matt Mulcare.</p>
<p>Dee Shea, right, keeps the stranded Amtrak passengers supplied with coffee, doughnuts and cookies Thursday morning.</p>
<p>Amtrak's Joann Latin explaining to stranded passengers their options of traveling by bus or staying with the train.</p>
A train derailment in Crossport, Idaho, left 235 Amtrak passengers stranded in Libby on Thursday morning.
“There’s worse places to be stuck,” Nico Lopez, 18, said while sitting on a park bench near the delayed train. “It’s pretty here. I just spent four months working in the Bakken. It’s nothing but rolling hills out there.”
Delayed passengers were surprisingly jovial, impressed by the small-town hospitality to which they awoke. Pam Zimmerman, director of Achievements Inc., which operates Park Side Thrift Store, noticed the train as she opened shop.
“It looked pretty darn inconvenient,” Zimmerman said. “We made coffee for them and got doughnuts and cookies from Rosauers. If my family was stranded, that’s how I would want them treated.”
Fishes & Loaves Café owner, Star Phillips, provided hot dogs, hamburgers and refreshments.
Amtrak conductor Jason Berg said Libby was the most helpful town of the 10 he has been stuck in during his five years on the job.
“The police and the Emergency Management Agency showed up and gave us a lift to get more ice and milk for the passengers,” Berg said. “Libby really has our back in this.”
With nowhere to go and no one else to talk to, passengers began forming bonds.
Whitefish native Micah Lundstrom, wearing a brown cowboy hat, stood around a makeshift coffee table in BNSF Park with new friend and Chicago native Terrance Phillips.
“This is the blackest guy I’ve seen in 10 years,” Lundstrom said as he handed Phillips a Marlboro Red cigarette and the pair shared a laugh. “He’s a great friend. And the woman who’s been be-bopping around with the coffee pot is a Godsend.”
Aileen Barnhart left Chicago on Tuesday to see her sister in Washington.
“You’d never see this kind of hospitality in Chicago,” Barnhart said.
Amtrak attendant Charles Pinner made the most of his unexpected downtime by thrift shopping.
“They got everything for 50 cents down there,” Pinner announced to the crowd. “Beautiful Libby, Montana. You’re gonna mark this down and tell the grandkids about being here.”
A 25-year veteran with Amtrak, Pinner knows many of his frequent riders by name. One of those passengers is Kathy Shantz, who Pinner joked was his new wife.
“We’re new-generation lovebugs,” Pinner said. “We’ve been married a few hours now.”
Shantz, who was returning from Springfield, Ill. to Oregon, was not stressed.
“This is a beautiful place to be stranded.”
Shortly after Shantz’s remark, Amtrak attendant Joann Latin announced that buses would be coming to take passengers to Sandpoint, Idaho, and Spokane, Wash.
James McCoy loaded onto the bus for Spokane around 10 a.m. The delay, which began at 5 a.m., was not McCoy’s greatest travel obstacle. Originally planning to visit his granddaughter, Pookie, in St. Louis, McCoy said he suffered a stroke on the way and never made it to St. Louis.
“I’m on my way to Seattle,” McCoy said. “Sometimes that’s how it goes.”
Harlow’s Bus Service provided five buses for travel, as well as a U-Haul to move extra luggage. Jerry Teneyck said he was drinking his morning coffee in Troy when he was asked if he could drive to Spokane.
“I was going to work around the house today,” Teneyck said. “I don’t mind — I like driving.”
While most passengers boarded buses to travel west, some were willing to wait out the 24-hour delay in Libby. Carol and Gary Martin of Orlando, Fla., went shopping in Park Side Thrift Store.
“We’ve been to Montana a few times, been to Glacier National Park,” Carol Martin said. “But we don’t have any plans. We will get to Seattle and then either go to Vancouver, Wash. or some parks. We always thought we’d like to buy property up here, so Gary is going to talk to a realtor today. Maybe this is a sign.”
Gary Martin saw the silver lining in the delay.
“We were going to pass through here at night,” Martin said. “If we had, we wouldn’t have seen any of these beautiful mountains.”
Sorting clothes behind the Martins was Dee Shea, who helped Zimmerman pass out coffee and doughnuts earlier in the morning.
“It’s sad for those people,” Shea said. “I just wanted to make everyone comfortable. That Charles came in and the clients enjoyed visiting with him. He’s funny.”
According to the Associated Press, Burlington Northern Santa Fe spokesman Gus Melonas said a train with three locomotives derailed at 1:55 a.m. Thursday. The train was headed to Pasco, Wash., from Great Falls, carrying 116 loads of merchandise, including beer, rocks and grain. As many as 19 cars derailed, but nothing spilled into the nearby Kootenai River. The cause of the derailment was unknown.