Chicago Amtrak passengers who were forced to sleep on three trains that became stuck in the heavy snow of northern Illinois have slowly started trickling into their respective destinations.
The Southwest Chief from Los Angeles, the California Zephyr from the San Francisco Bay area and Quincy's Illinois Zephyr were locked in by piles of snow blowing onto the tracks, blocking trains from moving around 3 p.m. on Monday.
Rail officials told the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday that nearly 300 riders on two of the three trains were stranded in the city of Mendota, located about 80 miles west of Chicago, overnight. Groups of passengers boarded shuttle buses in Princeton and began pulling into the depot in downtown Chicago by 7 a.m.
Amtrak spokesperson Marc Magliari told the Journal that the third train, which carried 217 passengers, was parked for the evening at a Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. rail yard in the Knox County city of Galesburg. Magliari reported that the group was en route to the last leg of the trip - another 150 miles to Chicago.
Passengers were agitated, according to the Wall Street Journal - some said that they went without food, and couldn't use overcrowded facilities.
"The conditions are cold; we're wearing coats. And my husband is a diabetic. He hasn't had any food all day, " Laurette Mosley, who was headed to Chicago for her mother's funeral, reported to ABC News. "The bathrooms are flooded. The sinks are full with water and the toilets are flooded."
Magliari told the Journal that response teams were on-hand to administer assistance, and that rail officials traveled through the aisles handing out food, adding that no reports of the bathrooms not working had been specified.
Bryan Plummer, another passenger on board one of the trains that were stranded for more than 15 hours, told ABC News that very little food, save a meal at dinnertime, was given out.
Almost 24 trains scheduled to travel in or out of Illinois were canceled on Tuesday, due to icy conditions and reduced visibility. Magliari told the Journal that Amtrak was hoping to get the trains back in motion by Wednesday.
