Run from the Rail Runner

Just came across this New Mexico Independent article about the Rail Runner and have to add my two cents. I'll let you read it first:

My one nitpick with the new train to Santa Fe

The author paints a rosy picture and has but one nitpick (hence the title) about more trains running later so people can attend evening events such as concerts, dinners, etc. Not a bad thought.

In the meantime though I have a bigger concern about public safety, one which the author might not have noticed since she rode the day before Christmas, in the middle of the week.

Catch the Rail Runner on the weekends and you'll have to fight a mob that rivals crowds at most European soccer games. They are desperate and rude and not afraid to do whatever they need to do to get that free ride.

My experience comes from catching the 11:32 a.m. train from Albuquerque to Santa Fe on December 27, 2008. The platform was packed with people and I believe KRQE reported some 8,000 people rode the train that day.

When the train arrived at the Albuquerque station there was no organization, no plan and no consideration. People pushed and shoved my three and eight year old sons and my mother while those deboarding the train pushed their way off from the other direction. One woman next to us in line said "I have to get inside, my baby is in there!" so we let her through. I happened to be standing next to the same woman once inside the train and there she was with her "baby", her fiance, a grown man who even admitted that the couple had no children.

Inside it was standing room only, which is fine but where are those bars and handles that you find overhead in most buses and subways? What the heck are we supposed to hang on to? My sister in law adopted a karate stance that she held all the way to Santa Fe. Other people sat on trash bins and on the stairs. Is that even legal? Isn't that against some federal transportation law? Going to have to check into that at some point.

And what's the ridership limit for a train that size anyway? It seems the Rail Runner workers weren't counting, just eyeballing the situation and closing the doors when it seemed the cars were going to overflow. Gimmie a break.

Look, kudos for the free rides. It's a wonderful thing and we all appreciate it. But that doesn't mean you throw rules and safety out the window. Someone is going to get hurt during one of these free-for-all weekends if something isn't done.