HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) — Steven Gailey is a clown.

That’s not a slur, the way people use the term to describe unserious people. Gailey, who lives in Pittsburgh, spent about half his life performing as a literal circus clown and now trains volunteer clown troupes, who cheer up children in hospitals.

Harrisburg has a hospital but a shortage of clowns, so every Tuesday, Gailey — who has epilepsy and doesn’t drive a car — takes Amtrak from Pittsburgh to Harrisburg to train volunteer clowns. And every Tuesday night, when the class ends — which is after the daily train departs — he takes a Greyhound bus home. Or at least, did — until the trip home became problematic.

Gailey travels with his service dog, Neal, who is trained to sense a seizure developing in Gailey before Gailey even knows it. “Which is helpful if you’re on stairs or somewhere that you might crack your head open,” Gailey said, laughing a little, the way he almost always seems to laugh a little when he talks about even serious things. (After all, who better than a clown to know: What good would crying do?)

Gailey said when he calls to make his train reservations, Amtrak agents ask him — before he even mentions the matter — whether Neal will be traveling with him. Yes, Gailey said, they know Neal’s name, which is in Gailey’s passenger profile. The morning we met him arriving in Harrisburg from Pittsburgh, a conductor had affixed a “junior conductor” pin to Neal’s service dog vest.

Gailey said the experience on Greyhound was — in the years he had been making the trip with Neal and a predecessor service dog — less magical but perfectly acceptable, until suddenly it wasn’t. One night recently, Gailey said, a Greyhound agent questioned his disability (which — unlike that of someone in a wheelchair or walking with a white cane — isn’t obvious) and ultimately didn’t allow Neal to travel.

The day last week when we met him, he had tried and failed to get Greyhound phone agents to assure him he could travel with Neal — who is, to be clear, a trained service animal with official U.S. DOT paperwork, not a more questionable emotional-support animal — and planned to stay the night again in a downtown hotel.

To also be clear about this, he likes Harrisburg’s downtown. “So it’s not that bad,” Gailey said.

“But it costs money, and I’d rather go home and see my wife. I mean, the guy at the Original Hot Dog shop downtown knows me and Neal by name now. This is not a relationship that should be this chummy at this point,” Gailey said, laughing.

abc27 News contacted Greyhound and also Deb Tack, executive director of Susquehanna Service Dogs.

“Greyhound is working with this passenger,” the company said in a statement, “and we remain committed to ensuring accessibility for every single passenger, including those with disabilities and those who require the use of service animals.”

Sure enough, this most recent Tuesday, better news: Gailey and Neal boarded the 8:50 p.m. bus to Pittsburgh.

Not — Gailey said — without some confusion and doubt when Neal, Gailey said, growled at rats near the outdoor bays where the buses park, and Greyhound personnel seemed to consider once again not allowing him to ride. In an earlier phone call, he said a phone agent told him allowing Neal to travel would be at the driver’s discretion.

Tack, of Susquehanna Service Dogs, said under the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, no one can (as Gailey said happen) ask the nature of someone’s disability.

“There are two questions that someone is allowed to ask of someone who has a service dog,” Tack said. “They can ask, ‘Is that a service dog that is trained to assist with a disability?’ And then, ‘What task or tasks has the dog been trained in order to help mitigate your disability?”

A service animal can always travel on plane, train or bus, she said, unless the animal becomes unruly.

And as for the decision to allow being Neal to travel being up to the driver, as Gailey said a call center agent told him?

“It is not the driver’s choice,” Gailey said.