"When is Cousin Bruce coming?" he asked for the umpteenth time.

"There he is," I stooped and pointed, and the 5-year-old pulled me toward him, calling, "Over here, Cousin Bruce."

Six or seven people got off behind him, some greeted by friends and relatives. It was dark, nearly 10 at night, and everyone was eager to leave. I grabbed one of Bruce’s bags, and we walked briskly back to the elevator.

"You haven’t been waiting since eight?" he asked.

"Yes we have," Uncle Chet said. "When we got here at 8, they said you’d be in at 9. So we went food shopping and came back at 9. Then they said 9:30, which turned into," he checked his watch, "10 of 10."

"You should have called the station before you left home," Bruce said.

"We did, but couldn’t get a real person on the line."

"Sorry," Bruce said. "But you know Amtrak."

"It’s not your fault," said Uncle Chet. "It’s just a shame the Bush administration and Congress can’t run the railroads on time, especially now when we need them most."

Someone in the knot of people muttered agreement.

"It was four hours late when I went to Chicago in April," I added as we boarded the wide-lift car and the door closed.

"There was trouble with Amtrak way before Bush," Bruce noted on the upward journey.

"But now it’s worse than ever, and it’s hard to believe it’s an accident," Uncle Chet said as we stepped off the elevator into an enclosed bridge that crossed the tracks. "If the trains were on time, they’d be full of passengers, and there’d be a lot fewer cars on the highway."

"Probably," Bruce said.

"And with fewer motorists filling up, what would happen to the price of oil?"

"It might fall," I said.

"And what would Big Oil think about that?" Uncle Chet asked. "They’d hate it. That’s why they make Amtrak wait for every freight train on the line: They don’t want a reliable competitor to the automobile."

"Well, I like the train, even if it’s late," Cousin Bruce said. "It’s much better than the bus. You can walk around, get a sandwich or a drink in the dining car. And I like the people I meet on the train. From Albany, I was riding with a nutritionist from Cornell," he glanced out a window at the idling train below, added in a lower voice, "and she was drop-dead gorgeous."

"So here we were, twiddling our thumbs, while you were in your glory," Uncle Chet said as we entered the Boehlert Center at Union Station in downtown Utica.

"This is one of the nicest train stations I’ve been in," Bruce said. "Look at those columns. They’re as big as redwoods."

"Buddy likes to come here." I glanced at the little sleepy-head, who was still operating under his own power. "It is beautiful, though I think they spent a fortune renovating it."

"It was a waste of money," Uncle Chet opined. "What do we have here in this marble palace? Two people waiting for a train?"

"Or maybe looking for a place for the night," Bruce said as we went through the front doors on our way to the car.

"The pitiful American mass-transit system," Uncle Chet said, "and no one can tell me it’s not by design."

"It probably does better in the day," Bruce said. "Most people are home at this hour, not traveling."

"True," I said.

"We’ll see how busy the roads are at this hour," Uncle Chet said.

"You’re coming to our house," Buddy told Bruce as we loaded his suitcases into the trunk.

"That’s right," he said. "I’m going to try out that new convertible couch I heard about."

"We got it on eBay," Buddy confided.

We got into the car and wound through quiet downtown streets, but as we neared state Route 8, the traffic picked up and we had to wait to get on the highway.

"Looks like people are still traveling at night," Uncle Chet said. "They’re just not on the train if they have to be anywhere on time."

———

Cooperstown News Bureau Reporter Tom Grace is traveling with his Uncle Chet, who he says is imaginary. Grace’s column appears twice monthly.