I have been a longtime reader of this forum, however I have decided that the time is right for my first posting.
I first became acquainted with this site throgh an article written by Lou Dolinar in the Long Island daily "Newsday". Mr. Dolinar's described how he weathered the great Northeastern blackout of 2003 thanks in part to postings on the "Equipped to Survive" website relating to the topic of LED flashlights.
My story concerns a trip made via Amtrak over the holidays. I was taking my mother out-of-town to visit a destination not readily reachable by airplane, nor could we drive to my brother's home.
At Penn station, Amtrak personnel assigned us to our train car based upon our destination. After being seated, we noticed that the car lacked heat. This transpired on a day when the outside temperatures were in the single digits. The conductors tried flipping a few switches but to no avail -- as we left Penn Station, they promised that the heat would be fixed by the time we reach Philidelphia (a few hours away). The dining car was not scheduled to open until we reached Philidelphia and the crew would not permit us to relocate to another car.
Based upon the many helpful postings I read in the "survival forum", I had judiciously packed and was prepared for such a contingency. In my travel bag I had a supply of "Mycoal" hand, foot and body warming pads and a "mylar space blanket".
These items prevented my mother from becomming sick in the nearly freezing cold conditions in the train car.
To complete my story, the heat promised at Philidelphia was not delivered. Although they did open the Lounge car at Philidelphia, but the Lounge car could not hold that many people. They finally fixed the heat at Washington D.C. (nearly four hours after we boarded the train).
I would suggest that anyone planning to travel via Amtrak should treat their journey as a "survival situation". "Cold Cars" in the winter, "Hot cars" in the summer and unexpected delays which cause the "snack car" to run out of food can quickly turn a ride on Amtrak into a "survival situation".
Once again, thank you all for your collected wisdom.