Riding the rails in the heat? Not so fast
Although the recent heat wave appears to be broken, it still managed to throw a little cold water on my sister-in-law's travel plans to Greensboro yesterday.
Julianna took the Amtrak Carolinian #79 from Philadelphia on Wednesday and was supposed to arrive at the Greensboro depot at 6:30 p.m. But it didn't show up until 8:15 p.m.
Why? Amtrak told her it lowered the top speed of the train to be safe because of the heat. You see, really hot days can cause rails to expand, making trains bounce and derail in rare cases.
So sometimes when it's hot, railroads issue "heat orders" that lower the top speeds for trains.
Amtrak might want to change the name of the link on its Web site proclaiming "hot deals." Poor choice of words.
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