Currently sitting on train 195, NYP-WAS but stopped somewhere between Trenton and Philadelphia. Conductor announced that the train ahead of us has broken down and we will be doing a transfer of passengers. We've pulled up alongside them and they are transferring into our train via the cafe car.

In all my years riding Amtrak, I've never experienced this. I've been on plenty of trains that needed to be rescued via other engines and towed into stations, but never a direct train to train transfer.

As you could imagine, its pretty hectic and a little chaotic but the crew is clearly trying their best. Its also put our train significantly behind schedule, but I'm glad that the other passengers aren't going to be stuck for longer.

Is this type of transfer a rare occurence?

It's relatively frequent ~ atleast once every 2-3 months. I travel almost everyday on either 181 or 183 and I have seen it happen very often. The conductors do a great job although it wastes 1-2 hours and the delay is frustrating either with the disabled train or the rescue train.

Considering the state of Amtrak engines I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often!

This happened to me about six years ago. I was on a Metroliner during winter weather and I believe the engine crapped out. Another Metroliner pulled up next to us and we walked down the vestibule steps, across the ballast, and up onto the other train. I don't know if there were any disabled pax. But I did hear that Amtrak is buying new bridge plates that will allow train-train transfers with no steps required.

If I'm not mistaken the last time this happened they had used bridge plates for train transfers

I'd never experienced a "rescue" in 30+ years of riding Amtrak until last year. Immediately after the huge snowstorms that hit DC & Phila in February 2010 -- or rather, as soon as Amtrak resumed service northbound out of DC -- I took an Acela to Phila. Somewhere in Delaware we pulled alongside another train that had apparently hit a snowbank & suffered sufficient damage to put it out of commission. (I'm guessing an electrical box and/or cabling was damaged; the train did not derail.) We took on an extra 200+ pax, creating an intimate SRO situation.

This has happened to me as well; NJ Transit may have picked us up. I forget.

That'd definitely be a plus for me, as I am mobility-impaired. I'm not in a wheelchair, but anything bigger than a curb (or more than one step up or down) is a significant PITA for me.

Similar situation happened on my train this past July.

I boarded Train 174 in PHL heading for BOS, it was already running 20-30 minutes behind schedule. While waiting on the platform, there was an overnight train sitting on the other track. I was getting the vibe from snippets I was hearing that they'd been having some kind of power problems on the train. They pulled out just as we were boarding.

Sure enough, we weren't even clear of the rail yard outside the station when we came to a stop and were told that another train had broken down, and we'd be pulling up next to them and transferring the passengers over. Sure enough, it was the overnight train.

After sitting next to them for a while doing nothing, they then announced we'd be reversing back into the station and they'd transfer there. So back we (eventually) went.

Needless to say, it was a totally full train, but I didn't see that it was standing-room-only anywhere. And the process was slowed down by people from the disabled train complaing that there weren't seats together.

Lastly, for the "no good deed goes unpunished" file *our* train then started having engine problems at NHV, where we had to sit and wait for an engine replacement. It also didn't help the frustration-level when the NEC train that was scheduled for 90 minutes later than us passed us minutes after we arrived at NHV.
All-in-all we arrived in BOS over 2 hours late (because I missed both the 7:15 and 8:20 commuter trains home from there, had to wait for the 10:20).

-Rob