happened in an instant. what they want to try and figure out is was there anything that might have led up to this that they might be able to use as they try to piece together what happened here and also try to prevent this from happening again. we talked to people who were on this train, including one of our own nbc news producers, janelle richards who told me that it was a very normal train ride until suddenly it wasn t and she found herself being thrown out of her seat and trying to find a way out of that train. i talked to former congressman patrick murphy who said pretty much the same thing, he had taken that train because he wanted to get home to see his two young children so he could wish them a good night and luckily he was able to do that. he will join us a little bit later, as well as one of the images that he took from the cafe car, the area where many people stop to eat and kind of hang out on the train, his picture was on the front page of the new york times.
and watched the failures and excuses, do you really want that to be the source of your health care? all right. newt gingrich, thank you so much for being with us this morning. i think melody barnes will have a different view of it. she does. great to see you. so, melody, what are you looking for tonight as the polls start to close around 7:00? sure. sure. first of all, i agree with the former speaker on this. it is the american peopli peopl and people exercise their responsibility tonight and i actually spent about ten days in virginia. my mother has been recuperating and in my hometown of richmond, virginia, and talking to people and overhearing conversations there and people coming to me and saying here are the president s victories. this is why we re going to vote. i stood in the cold when i got back here to vote in district of columbia, you know, it s not quite a battleground state, but people standing in long lines. i was on the acela last night coming up here and the guy
a profit not the goal. because they re not doing so much of that these days. alisyn: yeah, the food that s offered on an amtrak train, if you ve ever ridden and certainly in the nor east corridor, they have a cafe car. that cafe car as i can attest, usually 12 people deep by the time i get there. five minutes into the trip. and several people for a dry turkey sandwich. clayton: or a burger in a bag. there s so much waste associated with this, they only have 10 items. a burger, diet coke and a beer. how difficult is it to turn a profit on this. they say that there s no oversite and end of the line when they get to the town or destination and someone is snot locking up the door and there s employee theft. people are hungry and thirsty on a train and you d
our flight. reporter: this is not a race, but a race in satisfaction. we are taking a trip today and the good thing about the northeast corridor, passengers can take the train or the plane to get there and on this leg, we are taking the amtrak. ladies and gentlemen, good morning. reporter: but the ticket to ride get on board and choose your seat. there s a cafe car if you are hungry, and free wi-fi if you need it and a quiet car for some peace. why do you choose the train rather than a plane? the first year i moved to d.c. from new york city, i did the plane and i ended up on the tarmac for hours on end. i like the fact that the trains aren t late. they are dependable. reporter: while traveling by train takes longer, passengers say they don t want to pay more taxes to create high speed rail. the passengers say that the benefits of riding versus flying are enough. it is cheaper, but a lot more convenient, because i can arrive at the station five minutes
given the option, i prefer the train to the car or the plane or the blimp or whatever else is available. i like the cafe car, for example. so i pay attention to amtrak news and amtrak has announced it wants to spend a quarter million dollars on an advertising campaign targeting a specific group of potential passengers. gay passengers. said an amtrak representative quote, we are always looking for new ways to reach potential passengers and this community travels a lot. i can t speak for this community s travel habits or anything else, but if there s research about the gay traveling a lot and amtrak s trying to get people to take its trains, then it does seem like a reasonable business strategy. nonetheless, there is one very vocal group that hates the idea of the government trying to encourage people who have the gay from riding amtrak. we asked kent jones, of course, to look into that. hi, kent. welcome back.