There’s No Way This Train Station Isn’t the Worst in New England

Thankfully, it was one of those situations that was annoying at the time, but that we can look back on and laugh about now and actually added to the experience.

But that definitely doesn't take away from the fact that this could very well be the worst train station in all of New England.

Which is interesting since I routinely make it a point to say that Connecticut isn't part of New England but instead is part of the Tri-State area (but, I also say that when it benefits me, I'll include it in New England -- and this is one of those times.)

New England Amtrak

The great thing about Amtrak running through every New England state is that no matter where in New England you live, you have access to either another part of the region, or somewhere completely outside of it, which was the case with my college roommate and I during a recent weekend trip.

Where I live in Maine, he lives in Massachusetts, and we were headed to Philly for the weekend, we decided to meet up, spend the night in Connecticut, and take the Amtrak from Connecticut down to Philadelphia.

And while the trip back couldn't have been more smooth, getting down to Philly couldn't have been more of an absolute mess, all because of the absolute mess at the Connecticut station.

Stamford Train Station

Look, I mean no disrespect to the Stamford Train Station in Connecticut. Every employee that we talked to there was super friendly and super helpful, or at least tried to be. So maybe calling it the worst train station in New England is unfair.

Maybe it's more that it's the most disorganized, mess of a station in New England, both in appearance (due to a stupid amount of construction) and operationally -- especially operationally.

We ran into a situation where our train was delayed by about 20-30 minutes. No big deal, that type of thing happens no matter what train station you're at. And updates were given about the delay, but that the train was going to remain on the same track. Also not a big deal.

But it was the announcement that the track had changed about a minute before the train was pulling into the station that started the confusion. Because while a live voice came on announcing the track change, the electronic sign at our track still read that the train we wanted was going to arrive at our current track.

Then, as we prepared to ask an employee for clarification, an automated message began playing that was giving update -- which was then cut off by the live voice once again repeating their confusing messaging, just as trains were pulling into both the track we were standing on and the track we were being told to move to.

Due to the absolute disorganized mess, we rolled the dice and boarded a train, which ended up being the wrong one, and were faced with the decision to either upgrade our tickets to remain on the train, or take the risk that the train we were on would beat our scheduled train to New York and we could hop on there.

$350 in upgrades each, we made it to Philly for a fantastic weekend. And while the whole experience added to the adventure of the weekend, the whole mess cost us a bit of a peace of mind as well as a chunk out of each of our bank accounts.