Can't say I've had any *really* bad train trips, but for some reason when I lived in Fresno if I took the train to Sac or the Bay Area something would always happen on the way home. Couple of times it was BNSF freight power on the point limiting speed to 60 or 70 so of course minor lateness ensued. No biggie.

More interesting were the times we died on the north side of Fresno (I could have walked home from where we stopped). Both times we stopped near Herndon Ave. then went down to the Bullard Ave. siding for more work. One was a hotbox on the diner (in the Superliner days) - had to let a few freights go by, then they cut off the lights (yes it got a bit warm - summer in Fresno is still around 100 deg at midnite) and switched it out (was on the back of the train) using the Amtrak power, leaving it in a setout spur barely long enough for the car (must have been real; it was there for over a week up on blocks). Second time was with Horizons; somebody apparently piled trash on the tracks under the Herndon Ave. grade sep which we hit at speed; some of it banged around under the cars and apparently damaged an air line because we stopped shortly afterward, sat for a while, crept to Bullard, then sat for about an hour until a couple of freights went by and it was patched up enough for us to go slowly the rest of the way downtown. Train was then annulled with anybody south of Fresno boarding buses. North Fresno was hard on Amtrak trains...