Amtrak Train Leaves Riders Behind in NYC

Passengers taking the fast train to Washington, DC, from New York City on Saturday were apparently guided to the wrong platform—and by the time they realized what had happened, their train was gone. In other words, Amtrak's Acela Express 2253 somehow managed to depart from Penn Station around 3pm without picking up anyone at all, the New York Daily News reports. "The right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing," says one would-have-been passenger. "It was just so bizarre."

According to an Amtrak manager, the conductor left the station without approval, the passenger says. The manager "said that in all the years he was working there, something like this has never happened before." Amtrak is investigating what a rep calls an "apparent miscommunication," Yahoo Travel reports. The 85 customers, most of whom ended up on the 5:15pm train, did get a booby prize, however: pizza and Doritos. (More Amtrak stories.)