Who rides Tri-Rail? Given the gas situation, question is: Who doesn't?

"The American Airlines people. The Broward County school board people. The crazy people from the Acreage who decided it's possible to take a job in Miami while living in far-western Palm Beach County and still have time to sleep.

Which it is not. Not these days. Not if you are getting up at 3:15 a.m. to catch the P601, which leaves West Palm Beach at 4:06 and heads south, making 15 more predawn stops until it slides into the Miami station, where a bubbly agent named Edna Cooper directs passengers to the airport shuttle with a few frantic hand waves.

Assuming, of course, Miami International is where they actually want to go.

"Some people get all the way down here, check their tickets and discover they're supposed to fly out of Fort Lauderdale," Cooper says.

"At that point, they're not very happy."

But, overall, Tri-Rail is."