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- Passengers said the train was stalled on the tracks for three hours or so Sunday and they got hungry
- The pizzeria owner says the driver had delivered pizza in 18 states, but "this was a first for him;" it was all caught on video
- Amtrak said a mechanical issue was to blame for the delay
A veteran pizza delivery man in Delaware got an order from an unusual address: an Amtrak train that got stalled on the tracks for hours on its way from New York to Washington, D.C.
Passenger Mitchell Katz posted a video of delivery man Jim Leary walking up to the train Sunday evening as it sat on the tracks. People on board were getting restless after being left without access to food or water during the long delay and eventually some passengers came up with the idea of ordering a pizza, Katz said.
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The delivery man, Jim Leary, is seen in Katz' video walking along the rocky trackbed, a narrow path between the train and a long, shallow creek. The video has been favorited more than 3,600 times and retweeted 1,400 times since it was posted around 6:30 p.m. Sunday.
Leary, a driver for Dom's Pizza in Newport, Delaware, tells The Associated Press he cut through a backyard, navigated a steep embankment and jumped over a water-filled ditch all while balancing the two pies in order to make the delivery.
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The 46-year-old Leary was rewarded with a cheering crowd of passengers and a total of $32 in tips for his effort. Leary's 17-year pizza delivery career has brought him to addresses in 32 counties across 18 states, but he said the broken down train is one of the strangest.
"I do whatever it takes," he said.
Amtrak said on Twitter that a mechanical issue was to blame for the delay. Eventually, another train was brought in to take the passengers to Washington, Katz said. Amtrak's website shows the passengers arrived more than three hours late.