Of course. Just making sure evreyone is awake!

Oh, yeah, it happened to me too! On Chicago-Emeryville Zephyr train, we were somewhere in the mountains, and the loudspeaker announced: we're waiting for the replacement crue.

Why couldn't they switch the teams at some train stop? This is such a silly rule!

Faina - the rule, of course, is to avoid fatigue. You probably had an unexpected delay (even more than Amtrak is used to) and the Zephyr wasn't near its usual stop for crew change so you got to sit and enjoy the mountains longer than you thought you were going to.

With the airlines, they try to avoid the problem occuring in mid-flight (makes for a rather messy situation, right AA???) so the airlines either cancel the flight or wait at the gate for a new crew.