About a year ago, there was a perfect storm on the NEC of power outages, buckling track due to heat, and (I think) some sort of accident with a truck. I was trying to travel BWI-WAS late on a Friday night on a NER and was re-accommodated on a very delayed Acela at no charge. But it was very difficult to determine if it was OK to ride the train - no time to ask a conductor when the train arrives and the answers I got from staff inside Penn Station weren't much help.