In the summer of 2010, Doug White and his wife, Therese, of Shoreview took an Amtrak train to Seattle and rode their tandem bicycle from the Pacific Ocean back to St. Paul. This summer, the couple completed their tandem-cycle crossing of the country, setting out from Minnesota and reaching the Atlantic Ocean at Portland, Maine.

They returned from their trip by train, but a big mistake on Amtrak's part meant they were forced to leave the tandem bike behind.

The couple had made arrangements to leave from Boston specifically so they could bring their oversized bike as checked baggage, which cost only an extra $5, plus a couple of $15 bike boxes.

"I called six days prior to departure and received confirmation that they took tandems and they had plenty of boxes, which is one of their requirements for shipping," Doug White told the Watchdog. "We arrived at the station on July 26 and wheeled our bike up to the baggage dock, where we were met by a rude worker who said, 'We don't take tandems, and besides, we don't have any boxes.' "

When White insisted a supervisor be called, he agreed with the Whites that Amtrak takes tandems as checked baggage. But no one could come up with the necessary boxes. White asked whether friends could later send it from Boston on Amtrak Express Shipping, but he was told tandems couldn't be shipped as cargo. The Whites were forced to leave their Raleigh road tandem bicycle with a friend who had driven two hours to get them to the

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station.

Customer service problems such as this are what have earned Amtrak headquarters an F rating from the Better Business Bureau, said Council of Better Business Bureaus spokeswoman Katherine Hutt.

"They have a number of outstanding complaints. The vast majority have to do with service," she said. "It looks like they have not taken the complaints very seriously."

In 21 cases, the train company's Washington, D.C., office didn't even bother to respond to the BBB's request seeking a resolution.

So why do the couple ride a bicycle built for two? White, a retired letter carrier, explained that he's the stronger pedaler, and on a long trip, it would be hard for him and his wife, a Roseville schools speech pathologist, to keep the same pace on separate bikes. This way, he said, "We get to stay together and talk all day."

After returning home, the couple tried for weeks to get someone from Amtrak customer service to pay attention to them. Their emails didn't get responses. They didn't hear back from a written letter. They spent hours on hold on the phone.

Finally, White was able to connect with a person from customer service who offered to pay for a single one-way ticket to Boston; White could travel out there free but would have to pay to accompany his bicycle back home.

In frustration, the Whites contacted the Watchdog.

The Watchdog started out with the assumption that Amtrak doesn't accept tandems for cargo shipping - until she read the Amtrak website, which said it does. But then an Amtrak shipping employee, "Harry," told her by phone that the website is wrong, because tandems can't fit into the maximum 69-by-41-by-8.5-inch shipping box.

But Mark Foslien, at Erik's Bike Shop in Roseville, said a tandem would fit, if you broke it down correctly. So the Watchdog dialed Amtrak shipping back and talked to "Linda," who, like Harry, said the website was wrong, but for a different reason: Tandems are too heavy, she said, surpassing a cargo weight limit of 50 pounds.

So the Watchdog again asked the bike shop, and Foslien said most tandems weigh 30 to 50 pounds, depending on the type of tandem (road, mountain) and the material it's made from (steel, aluminum).

The back-and-forth went on and on. Head reeling, the Watchdog explained the situation and suggested possible solutions to Marc Magliari, media relations manager of Amtrak's Chicago office.

Shortly thereafter, White got a call from Carolyn Gilmore, customer-relations specialist at Amtrak's Washington, D.C., headquarters. She offered the Whites free bike boxes and free cargo shipping, putting the tandem on the Lakeshore Limited from Boston to Chicago and then the Empire Builder from Chicago to St. Paul. She also offered the couple $200 toward another Amtrak trip.

Where will they go?

"Maybe another bicycle trip," White said. "We've talked about biking the coast, from Seattle to San Diego."