ABC News: Store Sales Hit Hard by Cold Weather

Foot traffic last weekend was down 17 percent from last year, according to ShopperTrak. In the last week alone, 784 inches of snow have fallen in 112 major cities, which is three times more than the average.

Amtrak Troubles: Passengers Stranded For 23 Hours At Union Station; Some Say With Little Food, Water - cbs2chicago.com

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Weather created an ordeal for hundreds, if not thousands of Amtrak passengers at Union Station. Some passengers got stuck waiting nearly a day for their train to leave.

CBS 2's Jim Williams reports that some passengers were fortunate. Their Amtrak train was able to leave union station for Milwaukee Tuesday afternoon.

Others were delayed for hours. The worst case – more than 600 passengers trying to get to the Pacific Northwest were stuck on the train and in cold waiting rooms for nearly a day. Some said they had little food and water.

"We kept getting updated notifications that the toilets were frozen, the switching lines were frozen," a passenger said. "No one really knew what was going on."
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Amtrak blamed weather – snow and bitter cold across the country – that froze equipment and created rail problems.