A 30-hour journey home

Andrew Choi, Bethpage public schools’ technology director, was just finishing a nearly 30-hour journey Monday afternoon from Florida back to New York — involving a canceled flight, a bus that broke down and Amtrak — when he checked his phone to gameplan his final leg: the Long Island Rail Road ride home to Hicksville.

"Service Suspended," the MTA's TrainTime app said. It was another travel-related headache catalyzed by the snow for Choi, 41, who had gone down to see baseball spring training.
"I mean, it’s kind of like, when it rains, it pours, it seems, with trying to get back home," Choi said, looking with resignation at a screen at Penn Station listing suspensions on every branch, including his Huntington or Ronkonkoma. "It's frustrating, but at the very least, I'm here."

On Saturday, he was in Florida at a game, the same day he learned that JetBlue had canceled his scheduled return flight. Next available flight, Thursday. But he needed to return earlier than that, way earlier, so he planned an alternative route.

So on Sunday morning, he boarded a bus from Tampa to Orlando — which broke down and passengers had to switch buses; a two-hour ride took three hours. He got an Amtrak train Sunday afternoon; all the sleeper cars were sold out. The train was supposed to arrive at 10:30 a.m. but made unscheduled stops twice: in Philadelphia and Trenton. The train wound up arriving Monday afternoon.

Back at Penn Monday afternoon, he was planning to wait out the suspension at one of the open eateries. Hopefully, he said, it'll be just a few hours of waiting.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.