Was it the heat?

Last night, my train from NYC to Syracuse was three hours late due to a protracted delay in Albany. Normal, right? Right. Not normal? The speech the conductor gave over the loudspeaker somewhere between Schenectady and Utica. I was taking notes as he was talking, so consider this almost verbatim:

I'd like to take some time to explain to you what happened in Albany, and how you can potentially get some compensation. To put it bluntly, the second engine on the train was junk. Total junk. Those of you who travel with us regularly know that Amtrak has some major problems. I travel this route every day, and things like this happen all the time. We were sitting in Albany for two hours. They managed to get two other trains out of the station, but we just kept sitting there.

Look, there are three ways you can complain. First, call the 1-800 number on the back of your ticket stub. Second, write them a letter--they can't ignore a letter. Third, bring it up at the customer service desk of whatever station is your final destination. I just want to be straight with you all. I don't know how many of you are George Bush fans, but he's the reason for all this. He's kept cutting funding till our trains don't work and I don't get paid. I wanted to keep this short, so that's it. If any of you have questions about what happened, I'll be in the lounge car and I'll be happy to talk to you there. Thank you.

At this point, all the passengers burst into applause.