Kansas City to San Bernardino (Jul 2020)

It all started…

…after boarding in Kansas City (conductor scanned ticket train side). I sit down in my assigned seat. Social distancing in place. Most everyone is asleep - its 1005 pm. Passenger across from me is the only one awake at this time. I get settled in, pull out and inflate my travel pillow and settle in

A couple of minutes later, woman in the set of seats behind me wakes up. “What the, where the hell are we?”

Passenger across aisle answers, “Kansas City.”

Woman begins mumbling and starts going through her luggage. A few minutes later, she goes downstairs. She returns, spouts a couple of curse words in relation to waking up. Later, we depart on time crawling over to refuel pad. Silence returns.

Woman rummaging loudly through her luggage can be heard.  She begins spouting off multiple expletives in between saying, “why can’t anything stay where it should when I pack it. Always moving around trying to hide from me.”

Passenger across from woman asks, “Excuse but what was your name? It’s after ten and we’re trying to rest.”

Woman returns angry stare. “You know my name, I tolds you before.”

Passenger across from aisle says, “She said her name was Melanie.”

Godd@mn it, my name ain’t Melanie. Why in the hell do you think my name is Melanie? She continues cursing using anatomical expletives and complaining for a couple of minutes. At one point she says “can you believe they called me by my name Melanie.

Woman gets up, walks to the back of the coach car cursing and comes back, sits down and goes through her luggage again, mumbling and cursing. Conductor passes by and politely reminds the woman its quiet hours and asks her to move to the lounge if she wants to continue talking. She remains silent for a while.

Loud tirade of expletives jolts me from my sleep. Other passengers wake up as well. I check the time – 1230 a.m. I raise up and peek over the seat and say, “Excuse me, but it is after midnight and we’re trying to get some rest.”

The woman returns a glassy eyed cold stare followed by her calling me several expletives, one dealing with engaging in oral activities with a certain piece of male anatomy, intermingled with “What are you going do?” I head to the lounge car to notify a conductor. He returns and notes to the woman, “Ma’am, you’ve been warned before, you need to remain quiet and leave the passengers alone.” The woman seems to settle down

Conductor asks if I would like to move to the rear of the coach. I gathered my bag, pillow, and blanket taking him up on the offer. I’m able to fall asleep. Loud yelling again cursing sounds like it’s getting closer. I’m up again. I check the map and GPS on my phone to see we had just departed Hutchinson. The woman had begun walking back and forth down the aisle indiscriminately talking and cursing at several passengers. Video is taken of the walk-about. I go and find a conductor; he’s shown the video. He says thank you and get on radio, I return to my seat.

The duration of the trip to Dodge City, the woman is strolling back and forth down the aisle and will mumble and blurt out expletives, then sit for a couple minutes – wash, rinse, repeat. We arrive at the station. Two policemen board accompanied by the conductor. They have the woman gather her belongings and escort her off the train.

The passenger across the aisle from me says, “I’m glad you talked to the conductor, she was scaring me.”

“Same here,” I replied.

I return to my seat and check the time. 3:21 am. I managed to fall asleep a few minutes later.