Biden no longer riding the rails solo

At 3:17 p.m., Joe Biden, the longtime U.S. senator from Delaware, steps off the Acela train at the Wilmington Amtrak station - and rushes back to say goodbye to the conductor.

Then, walking down the station steps, he catches sight of an Amtrak ticket agent he hasn't seen in four years.

"How have you been?" Biden enthusiastically asks Saketha Martin, 42, now based in New York.

Since Biden became a vice presidential candidate, Democrats have pointed to his commute as a metaphor for his accessibility and down-home style.

"He never moved to Washington," Barack Obama said in his speech at the Democratic National Convention, where he introduced Biden as his running mate.

"Instead, night after night, week after week, year after year, he returned home to Wilmington on a lonely Amtrak train."

He is alone no longer.

On Tuesday he was guarded by a phalanx of staff and Secret Service agents, and, after he disembarked, a motorcycle escort took him to a campaign stop in Media.

For more than three decades, beginning after his first wife and daughter died in a 1972 car crash, Biden traveled alone between Wilmington and Washington. He did it initially to be with his remaining two children at night. Over the years, he made lifelong friends of Amtrak personnel and fellow commuters.

So, before leaving the station, he made a point of ducking into Primo Cappuccino to shake hands with staff.

"Since the news on the vice-presidential choice, he's not alone any longer," said Rick Atnip, who works at Primo Cappuccino. He recalls how Biden, until late August, used to swing by in the mornings to chat over a cup of black coffee.

Ticket agent Felisa McGrew also remembers the more quiet times when Biden would arrive late, by himself. "He would usually come here by 8 or 9 o'clock and say good night to me," she said.

"I knew him before, when he was still a regular customer," said Joanne Johnson, a cashier at the newsstand. "You can't get close to him any more. There's no more interacting."

Until his nomination, Biden often walked to the newsstand and picked up the latest Southern Living magazine and flipped through the pages with stories such as "82 Great Tasting Recipes" and "Our Best-Ever Apple Pie."

He didn't like it when people gushed over him, but stayed friendly and smiled a lot, said Kaye Adkinson, the newsstand manager.

She said he once wrote a letter of recommendation for a former cashier to help her find a job. Another cashier's mother, she said, considers him family and has a photograph in her house of Biden and his grandchildren.

Cab drivers who work the Amtrak station remember how one of Biden's sons, arriving late in his white pick-up truck, would race past the taxi stand to find his father.

Some nights when Biden arrived at Wilmington, the cabbies would comment: "Joe, you're working late today."

And in the morning, if he was running late, they'd say, "If you miss the train, we'll take you!" - only half-joking.

Since some are from Africa, the senator might discuss what is going on in Zimbabwe, the cab drivers said. He would shake hands and ask them if work was hard and give advice.

"He's just a regular kind of guy," said taxi driver Buddy Grubb, 62, who witnessed Biden's entourage last week. "Today I thought it was maybe President Bush who was coming around."

That morning, Biden hadn't been on his usual train - No. 2103, departing Wilmington at 7:35 a.m. and costing $125 for a one-way ticket to D.C. It was nearly sold out, filled with men in pinstriped suits and women in quiet-colored pantsuits, some from New York City, typing on laptops or BlackBerries.

Many were riding the train for the first time, unaware of the Biden connection.

"I've never heard about it," said Lou Sorrentaro, a New York businessman and weekly Acela rider. "And I don't care, either."

But a New Jersey commuter, who declined to give her full name, recalled seeing Biden "maybe half a dozen times. He was very friendly and would say hello and wave to the people," she said.

Biden's 72-minute commute passes landscapes that are both rural and industrial, dotted with backsides of suburban houses, kennels, barbecue grills and wire fences overgrown with weeds.

Once the train pulls into Union Station, Biden has a seven-minute walk through the Lower Senate Park to his office on the second floor of the Russell Senate Office Building. In the yellow reception room is a prominent photograph of his family, including his two sons and a daughter with his second wife, Jill.

If, with Obama, he wins in November, Biden may have to leave his regular commute - and some of his biggest fans - behind.

"He's a great man. He doesn't have the attitudes of a senator," cab driver Charles Youayou said. "He's our Biden. We are going to miss him here."