Metro-North spokesperson Dan Brucker says the MTA will distribute its take on swine flu today, and whether or not you should be riding the train these days. The info should be posted on the MTA.info website, and emailed to subscribers to its advisory service.

Of course, riders got a bit of a scare yesterday when Blabbin’ Joe Biden, he of the daily Amtrak commute to the capital, told Matt Lauer on Today that riding the subway might not be a good idea these days.

No-Train-Ridin’ Biden said:

“I would tell members of my family, and I have, I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now. It’s not that it’s going to Mexico, it’s you’re in a confined aircraft when one person sneezes it goes all the way through the aircraft. That’s me. I would not be, at this point, if they had another way of transportation suggesting they ride the subway. “

Biden’s camp later clarified his statement and told America to use common sense.

It’s worth noting that the 6:59 train last night was not full, and it usually is. Maybe it was a random thing, but it seems as though at least a few took Biden’s message to heart and either called in sick or drove.

Metro-North’s Brucker says the railroad has not seen a drop in ridership this week, only that ridership “has softened because of the economy” over the last few months.  

While VP-elect Joe Biden famously schleps into the Beltway via Amtrak each day, his boss Barack will get a taste for the train to Washington next month. Continuing a long tradition of new presidents, the New York Times reports that President-Elect Obama will hope a special charter train in Philly, pick up Biden in Wilmington, make their way to Baltimore, and finally pull into DC in time for the historic inauguration.

The procession tradition, notes the Times, is as old as the country itself. George Washington traveled by horse from his home in Virginia to his inauguration in New York City, then the capital (no word on whether he took the George Washington Bridge, but that would’ve been pretty cool).

More recently, President Clinton took a bus from Monticello (T-Jeff’s old crib) to Washington.

Obama is following the (rail) trail of his political idol, Abraham Lincoln, though the last leg of Honest Abe’s trip, from Philly to Washington, was done on the sly to foil “the so-called Baltimore plot to assassinate him.”

While much is known about Joe Biden’s knack for a deliciously inappropriate malapropism (Lesson of the day: Calling a presidential candidate an “articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking” African-American will not necessarily preclude you from being said African American’s V.P.), less is known about his tricky commute.

But not for long.

Often called the stingiest man in the Senate, Biden is known to commute via Amtrak from Capitol Hill to his home in Wilmington most every day.

Biden even thinks of the Amtrak workers he sees each day as “family.”

The A.P. reports:

Sen. Joe Biden, the vice presidential half of the soon-to-be-official Democratic ticket, made a surprise appearance Monday at the Amtrak station he has used for years to commute to his day job in the U.S. Senate.

“These guys have been my family,” said Biden, who has taken Amtrak during his 35 years in the Senate. After Senate sessions, Biden travels home almost every day to Wilmington on a train.

Expect the Biden-Amtrak story to get lots and lots of play in media outlets considerably larger than Trainjotting. As the pundits either try to paint Biden as a DC insider, or distance him from that sketch, the fact that he schleps home to his family–well outside the Beltway–for dinner each night will be referred to frequently.

In fact, no less a figure than Biden’s favorite well-scrubbed minority mentioned it in a speech this past weekend.

The Washington Post says:

“He never moved to Washington,” Obama told a crowd of several thousand here, in one of several references to the train. “Instead, night after night, week after week, year after year, he returned home to Wilmington on a lonely Amtrak train.” 

A round-trip on the Acela from Wilmington to Washington costs between $83 and $97, and the pokey ol’ Northeast Regional runs one about $60-$75. The trip takes around 80 minutes.

We’re curious to see if Amtrak seeks to capitalize on its highly visible customer with some sort of marketing campaign.

[image: phl-caw.org]