As he answered the phone and a woman began to speak, Eric Perdue, who runs a Kentucky Fried Chicken shop in Connellsville, Fayette County, figured it must be a prank.

This was no joke.

The woman was calling from Amtrak on behalf of 115 less-than-thrilled passengers aboard its Capitol Limited.

The train left Washington, D.C. en route to Chicago Friday but had to stop in Connellsville at 2:45 a.m. Saturday after power lines and trees battered by the storm fell onto 40 miles of track ahead.

After sitting there for nearly 15 frustrating hours, the passengers were getting hungry. So Amtrak was ordering out.

"Right now, I have 79 three-piece white [chicken meat] meals and 75 three-piece dark [chicken meat] meals getting ready to go out with mashed potatoes, gravy and cole slaw," said Mr. Perdue, explaining the commotion unfolding in the background as he spoke by phone Saturday night.

"And biscuits."

Scott Hay, 52, a truck driver and husband of a restaurant cashier, was preparing to haul the $1,400 order (catering discount included) in his pickup to the stranded train.

Earlier in the afternoon, he dropped off cases of soda and water and took the onboard chef to a local supermarket to shop for ingredients to make breakfast for passengers preparing to settle in for the night.

"He got the essentials -- orange juice, sausage, potatoes and eggs -- quite a few dozen eggs," Mr. Hay said.

Clifford Cole, an Amtrak spokesman in New York City, said it was not clear when the tracks would be cleared by their owner, CSX. He said passengers were being kept on the train, rather than being taken by bus to their destination, but that could change.

"Some of them are getting edgy because they want to move, and we want them to move," he said.

One passenger headed to Pittsburgh, Kelly Macko, 34, of Washington, D.C., was relatively lucky. Using a cell phone, she contacted her boyfriend, Jason Macko, an MBA student at the University of Pittsburgh, who drove there about 6 p.m. Saturday to bring her and two other passengers to Pittsburgh.

She said as the day wore on, and traffic began to move on cleared roads, some onboard wondered why Amtrak didn't arrange for alternative transportation.

"We were frustrated but we were also exhausted," Ms. Macko, 34, a native of Charleroi, said of the daylong wait.

"We were warm, and we understood that a lot of people around us had lost their power."

Mr. Hay said he didn't mind being pressed into delivery service for a trainload of strangers.

"I've been in jams before," he said. "And they needed help."

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