Oh dear, this doesn't sound good at all:

Mystery illness leaves one dead, 290 quarantined on train. Reuters reports: One person died and several others were taken to hospital after a mystery illness hit passengers on a Canadian long-distance train, local media said on Friday.

* * *

The train was in quarantine in the small northern Ontario community of Foleyet, and nobody except emergency personnel were being allowed aboard.

A repeat of SARS? Canada did have a problem with SARS a while back. I assume it's not the first North American case of humans coming down with the avian virus, since Europe hasn't had a case so far despite having to cull poultry in response to the virus attacking turkey farms. In any event, I guess I'll have to book plane tickets and skip the train when I got to the midwest to visit my sisters. I thought an opportunity to watch the country pass by my window would be nice, but, um, well, a plane will be faster.

Comments

[Spartacus]

gmb - this is scary. I ride the LIRR every day and sometimes aboard very crowded trains. But I think the bigger risk is in the subways. Could you imagine this on a Brooklyn-bound 4 train? Yeah. It's scary.

[gmb]

Spartacus: I read another story about this and it seems that people had been on the train for three days. Also, they aren't ruling out food poisoning, so it may be something bad but not awful. Still, I hear ya. I'm heading out to Penn Station in a half hour to board an Amtrak train filled with vectors of infection. Sigh. Avoid strangers who are coughing. That's my plan. GMB

[Mr DeBakey]

I can't see how a plane is better

And remember,
At least you can get off a train

[Beauzeaux]

>>I thought an opportunity to watch the country pass by my window would be nice, but, um, well, a plane will be faster.
<<

Oh, please. How would this be a train problem. (Man Has Heart Attack In Car...so driving causes heart attacks?)

The woman who died was sick when she got on the train three days earlier. The "flu-like" symptoms [headache, nausea, miscellaneous aches and pains] attributed to other passengers have all the earmarks of an hysterical illness.

It *might* be food poisoning but I'd be glad to bet that it turns out to be nothing tangible. (Though even with hysterical illness people DO actually feel sick.)

[gmb]

Mr. DeBakey: Not the people on that train. They were quarantined. Hope they found out what happened.
Beauzeaux: It isn't a train problem, except that everyone was around each other for three days so transmitting something is a bit easier than, say, a short subway ride. That said, I hope it is nothing bad either. GMB