Lynn Oxenberg says she doesn't know if or when she'll be able to get on a plane again. So when she and husband Larry visited Tampa last month for a business conference, they took Amtrak's Silver Meteor.

''September 11 was our 30th wedding anniversary. It hit just too hard for me,'' said Oxenberg, who lives in Philadelphia but was at work in her Manhattan office when the twin towers came down a few miles away.

Instead of a planned night out on the town, she found herself standing in the middle of a deserted Times Square, where a gigantic video screen replayed the horror for hours on end, until the image finally, mercifully, went black.

Afterward, Oxenberg had difficulty stepping into an elevator without anxiety, and that small act still requires great deliberation.

''I'm just not ready to fly,'' she said.

She apparently is not alone.

Amtrak trains have been pretty much filled to capacity since Sept. 11, 2001, conductor Billy Weaver said.

``Some days we're overbooked, just like the airlines. And sometimes all these people actually show up.''

Whereas passengers once had plenty of empty seats to spread out pillows, blankets and bags of snacks, overflow coach-class passengers sometimes are diverted to the club car for the long, long ride.

On a good day -- a day when everything goes according to plan -- the Silver Meteor makes the trip between New York and Miami in about 24 hours.

However, as many first-time train riders are discovering, very little goes according to plan, and the trains are often two, four, six or more hours behind schedule.

Although Faith Rothenberg, a businesswoman from Pine Brook, N.J., was facing a 29-hour trip from Miami to the Newark station last week on the Silver Star -- another Miami/New York train -- the slower travel time was a fair trade-off for her.

''I was a nervous flyer before 9/11. After 9/11, it just put me over the edge,'' said Rothenberg, who is in the pharmaceutical advertising business. ``My taxi driver told me that now he's picking up at least a passenger a day who is taking the train because of their fears.''

Faced with the need to get to a convention in Miami, Rothenberg decided to depart a day earlier than her flying colleagues and take the train.

''The only downfall is the long hours,'' she said via cellphone as her train headed through North Florida en route back to New York last Thursday. ``There are some scenic views, but mostly it's just a long, tedious haul. Still, I prefer this to air travel.''

For passengers who spring for sleeper compartments and are not in any particular hurry, the delay simply means more time to read and relax.

But for those who travel coach, like the Oxenbergs, it can be a trying experience.

''I had this dream that everything would be perfect,'' Lynn Oxenberg said.

It wasn't. The scheduled 17-hour ride from Philadelphia to Orlando ended up being 20 hours, and the air conditioning in their rail car broke down for a time. Then there was the unaccustomed motion of the train swaying to and fro.

''I expected to take lots of naps,'' Larry Oxenberg said. ``I haven't had any naps.''

The Oxenbergs experienced delays both coming and going.

On their return trip, they showed up at Tampa's Union Station in time to catch a 9:40 a.m. Amtrak shuttle bus to Orlando, the Meteor's nearest stop.

Just outside of Lakeland, the driver announced the train already was running an hour late and would not reach Orlando until nearly 2 p.m. It would not arrive in New York until 2 p.m. the next day, more than four hours behind schedule.

The train had gotten a late start in Miami. And the Meteor's race across the state was further hindered by speed restrictions mandated by CSX, the company that owns and maintains the tracks.

The intense summer heat, which was blamed for the recent derailment of an Amtrak train in Maryland, can warp the tracks, creating a serious safety hazard. The precautionary speed cap, which slows the trains from a maximum 79 mph to 50 mph, is imposed when the mercury rises above 85 degrees Fahrenheit for two consecutive days between 1 p.m. and 9 p.m.

The unprecedented restriction has wrought havoc with train schedules this summer.

Still, train workers say that many new passengers express surprise and delight at the experience of riding the rails. And even seasoned riders seem to be more tolerant of inconveniences in the system since Sept. 11.

''This is like a cruise on wheels,'' said Jim Kenney, a medical claims processor from Brooklyn who took the train to visit an uncle in Pembroke Pines.

''I've always been intrigued by train travel,'' said Kenney, who enjoyed the luxury of a sleeper, ``the time by yourself to relax and see the scenery.''

Railroad ties were stacked like cordwood beside the tracks in one small, unidentifiable town, where the train unexpectedly stopped for a moment or two, then moved on.

The mysterious stops can be disconcerting to travelers accustomed to the chatter of airplane pilots who keep passengers apprised of every development along the way.

Larry Oxenberg understands what is happening when a plane idles for some time on the runway, waiting for clearance to take off. But he is unfamiliar with the maneuvering involved when one train needs to let another get by.

''Planes do not fly backwards,'' he said.

In America, freight trains take precedence over passenger trains -- one of the many reasons for delays.

In Europe, where trains are a primary source of transportation, passengers, not freight, are considered a priority -- as is efficiency.

''All European trains have an engine in the front and the back,'' said David James of Bristol, England.

James and his wife, Ann, boarded the Silver Meteor in Orlando on the last leg of a 30-day rail pass that took them on a tour of the Eastern Seaboard.

The couple said they have run into many American passengers who are riding the rails for the first time as a result of Sept. 11.

''Our impression is that Amtrak is sitting on a gold mine and doesn't know how to use it,'' David James said.

The European rail system takes its schedules very seriously, he said. In Great Britain, there are penalties if the trains don't run on time. But the European trains don't travel nearly as far as America's do, James added.

''Because of the vast distances, the delays just keep piling up,'' he said.

And then there are the weeds and graffiti, mostly in or near the bigger cities along the route, where the rail system seems an anachronism amid the sleek interstates and airports.

Unlike highways and air travel, trains receive minimal government subsidies, and therein lies the crux of improving service amid growing financial difficulties, say veterans of the rails.

Americans not only now want trains, they need them, said Paul Dobos, a sleeping-car attendant who was on the Silver Meteor, en route to New York, when the planes flew into the World Trade Center.

The train was stopped just north of Richmond, Va., and boarded by agents with bomb-sniffing dogs. The Meteor then went on to Penn Station, its chain of silver cars carrying its cargo of passengers into the city.

''When the airports shut down, only Amtrak was running,'' said Dobos. ``We need the rail system.''