Train Derailment Leaves 220 People Stranded In El Paso

About 220 people were stranded in El Paso after a train derailment on Saturday. The train that went off the tracks blocked the path of an Amtrak passenger train originally headed to San Antonio.

The passengers described the experience as frustrating. Some people had children with them. Some were traveling as far as Louisiana, but many were stuck at the Amtrak station still sitting on the train.

“We’ve been here three and a half, four hours now, so I don’t know how long it’s going to be. I don’t know if I’m going to be sleeping on the bench here in a little while or not,” Taffee Bennett, a passenger headed to San Antonio, told ABC-7.

Passengers said they were given three options: go back to Los Angeles where they came from, take a bus to San Antonio, or wait on the train until the tracks are cleared.

“I was like, ‘What? Seriously?’ That’s not even an option,” one passenger said about being told to go back to Los Angeles.

Passengers said the wait on the train could be as long as 24 hours. Many of them were already waiting at the station for hours since about 4 pm.

“I planned my vacation. I planned my train ticket the way I wanted it, and it’s kind of disrupting all of that sort of thing,” Bennett said.

“If we’re lucky we can get to the bus for 10 hours today to San Antonio and then I have family in Houston. I’d have to find another means of transportation from San Antonio to Houston,” another passenger headed to Houston, Maya Papandrea, said.

Officials are still trying to determine what caused the other train to derail about 3 miles from Ft. Hancock. No injuries were reported.

In the meantime, passengers said they just want to get to their destinations as soon as possible.