The road leading from the site of the wreck was lined with fire trucks, ambulances, police cars and other emergency vehicles for more than a mile. Traffic was tied up throughout the area. All I could see were flashing lights.

SURVIVORS WERE TOLD they would receive free transit to their final destination and had the option of leaving that night if they were bound for New York City. Other passengers were put up at the Sheraton Hotel in Baltimore's Inner Harbor. Most of the passengers were travelling by themselves and were given single rooms.

As the passengers sat and waited in a large auditorium for their room assignments, the officials asked if couples would like to share a double room. Several "yes" answers were greeted with a few snickers. When a group of middle-aged nuns asked if they could remain together, the passengers in the back of the auditorium laughed, and one made a rude comment.

I arrived at the Sheraton at about 12:15 a.m. I spent the rest of the night watching T.V. and listening to the radio, trying to find out exactly what had happened to Train 94. There was no briefing for the passengers. I didn't know for sure that the train I was riding in had hit three Conrail locomotives until I talked with my parents on the telephone later that night.

An Amtrak official was supposed to contact passengers during the night to discuss individual problems. But no one called me. I only found out from the local news that passengers would be transported by bus from the front of the hotel the following morning. Twenty-eight hours after I was to have arrived, I walked into my Quincy House dorm room.

I've taken the train between my home in D.C. and Boston close to a dozen times during the past two years, and I'll probably take it again. I really don't know.

Vernon A. Holmes '88 is a Biochemistry concentrator residing in Quincy House.