No way out.

• Author: Kinney, David
• Position: UP FRONT; travel and evacuation problems

Getting there, they say, is half the fun. Getting back can be no fun. Getting away, when you must but can't, is hell. The latter two are lessons I learned during three consecutive weeks in August.

My wife and I flew to Maine on vacation. Fog delayed our flight out of Charlotte an hour and half, so we missed our connection in Washington and got to Portland nearly five hours late. That wasn't so bad.

Coming back, the 5:07 p.m. flight was supposed to get us home before 9. We arrived in Charlotte at 3:55 a.m. Thunder-storms had bashed New York, forcing a long delay out of Portland. Then there was a 5 1/2-hour layover at Dulles while the airline flew in another plane and a new crew. FAA regulations, we were told. What they can't blame on God, folks want to lay on the government.

The following weekend I had to go to Richmond, so I took the train. It would be about as quick as driving and, with the price of gas, just as cheap. Roadbed repairs put us about an hour behind getting there. The trip back was something else. Boarding time was 1:10 p.m., with arrival scheduled for 8:10 p.m. It got there at 3 o'clock the next morning.

The train out of Washington had been nearly two hours late pulling into Richmond. Outside the Northeast, Amtrak doesn't own the tracks it uses, leasing them from freight lines, which have right of way. Once we finally boarded, we spent most of the delay sitting on a siding outside Weldon.

Write your congressman, an Amtrak spokeswoman told me when I called to complain: This is what happens when the government gives moving freight priority over moving people. I thought about all the pissed-off folks on that train. This is what happens, some had said, when the government tries to run a railroad. For most of them, taking the train hadn't been...