Wow, I am tired after a long day in the city… It will probably take me the next few days to go through all the photos and videos that I took, all of which will eventually get posted on here. I have a lot of pictures and video of the Holiday Train Show in Grand Central, photos and video from the Holiday Gift Fair, and a video of the Holiday Laser Light Show. For all these videos, I decided to make a YouTube account for this blog. There is nothing on there yet, but there will be shortly. If you are interested, you can subscribe to be notified when these videos are uploaded. But they will also be posted here.

But for now, enjoy the photos I took today at my tour with the New York Transit Museum of City Hall Station. Quite honestly, this tour was the reason why I became a member of the museum. And I had a great time. I took some video there as well, and I’ll post that at some point as well.

As an additional note, the Transit Museum will be running Holiday Nostalgia Trains every Sunday in December from 10am to 5pm. The trains will run in regular passenger service on the V line between
Queens Plaza & 2nd Avenue.

You’ve admired them sitting stationary at their home in the New York Transit Museum. Now Car No’s 100, 484 and 1575 are going for a spin! For the next four Sundays, these old friends from the 1930′s to 1970′s will be pulling in and out of V line stations. With luck and timing you can catch them!

Step in and enjoy the ceiling fans, padded seats and incandescent lights, all state-of-the-art back in the day. This Holiday Nostalgia Special will run on the V line, Sundays in December, between 10am and 5pm. For departure times and stations, please see below.

Happy Holidays from the New York Transit Museum!

For additional information about schedules, check out this information page.

Oh man, I’m sitting in the waiting room in White Plains laughing my ass off, because that sleeper kid that I posted pictures of once before is back. And he is worse then ever. Giant book in hand, he keeps falling asleep, and rocking back and forth as gravity attempts to pull him out of the chair and onto the floor. He dropped his book, and the clatter woke him up. Apparently he was also trying to eat, and with his wide open mouth, the food dribbled out and onto the floor. The rest of the food just rests underneath him discarded, he must have dropped it. Eating while falling asleep probably isn’t the best of ideas, though at least he has the sense not to eat the food that fell on the ground. Right now, though, he is just snoring quite loudly, as the people that walk back and forth through the waiting room chuckle and stare.

In other news, the guy who always hangs out at White Plains station begging for dollars has also returned. Before he even asked me for money, I just said to him “We don’t have any money for you.” He replied back, “no dollars?” and my friend said, “No. No dollars. You are always here begging for money!” And with that, he left. I happened to come up with a brilliant idea though, but a bit too late to use on him. The next time anyone begs for money, I will say that if they stand right where they are and do a little dance or sing a song, and allow me to record it, I will give them a dollar. That way they get their money, and we get something hilarious to look at on the blog. Spectacular!

Though this morning wasn’t completely bust… the delightful Salvation Army trombone player was also back. And he brought his friends! They certainly sounded good, as I said before, much better than ringing that bell. I ended up giving them the dollar that I didn’t give to the beggar, certainly a far better investment. I did ask him what other stations he plays at, and he said Hartsdale and Scarsdale, so you riders over in those stations look for him and his cheerful Christmas tunes.

So I’ve certainly mentioned the phone number belonging to Metro-North where you can get schedules several times before. First, when I dialed the number that I thought was the number, which wasn’t, it turned out to be a phone sex line. And then, I mentioned that the 800 number was going to be eliminated as part of a cost cutting measure. So now there is a regular number that you can call, which isn’t too bad in terms of cost, as opposed to the 800 number. Apparently at some point the system was changed from a press button system into a voice activated system. I’m not sure when this happened, perhaps when the 800 was eliminated. I honestly don’t call the phone scheduler all that often.

Oh, and I still wont call the scheduler all that often. Mostly because it is a pain in the damn ass. In the old system you would type on your phone’s number pad the first three letters of the train station you were leaving from. Now it asks you to say the name of the station out loud. This is when the problem starts – the system is absolutely terrible in recognizing your voice if there is any sort of background noise. I’m sure that is true in most systems of this nature.

But think about it, really a company ought to think about where the system is going to be used. Microsoft employs a similar system where you can call in to activate your version of Windows. You need to read aloud your computer’s product key. If you’ve just purchased a computer, and are in the process of activating it, there is a high likelihood you are in some sort of office or home setting where it is quiet. Having a system like that makes sense. But if you are a scheduling line for a commuter railroad in one of the biggest cities in the world, there is a high likelihood that people calling in may be in a noisy area. If I am in the city and I want to know when I need to get to Grand Central to catch my train, calling that phone system means I am shit out of luck, because with all the background noise in the city, there is no way in hell that system is understanding a single thing I say. I seriously got sick of the computer voice telling me that it didn’t understand what I said. The city is so damn noisy, how could this thing possibly work? Even at stations that are far quieter, Valhalla for example, I couldn’t get the damn thing to work either. The older system was clunkier, and didn’t have as many options, but it was far easier to use, in any environment.

Anyone else use the phone information line and have difficulties? I imagine it can’t be that heavily used if the MTA decided to get rid of the 800 number, but hey, I could be wrong.

About two weeks ago there was an incident on a New Haven Line train where a train conductor was attacked. I had heard about it, but was surprised when I checked out Bobby’s blog, Derailed, where he discusses the incident. Bobby is a train conductor on the New Haven Line, and I’m a big fan of his stories. Apparently the incident actually happened on his train. Three young women attempted to ride with apparently faked tickets, and police were called. The police were to meet the train at a later stop, however, the women were preventing the train from leaving, by getting on and off, and stopping the doors from closing. When one of the female conductors approached the women, she was attacked, resulting in several broken fingers, in addition to bruises and scratches. Security camera images of the women leaving the train were released to the media, and apparently the three women were identified, and arrested last night.

Security camera images released by the MTA, the three suspects leave the train laughing after attacking a train conductor

Shaquana Minott, 18, of Bridgeport, and another girl, 17, of Stamford were charged with assault on a public transit worker, a class C felony. Jaria Hargrove, 18, of Stamford, was charged with forgery and larceny, in relation to the faked ticket. More information about their arrest can be found here.

I sincerely hope that these girls don’t merely get a slap on the wrist. All of the trains have those signs that say attacking a train conductor is a felony… and I would hope that those signs aren’t all “talk”.

So this is very cool… my very first post on here with my new netbook. I really adore my laptop – it is the best computer I’ve ever had, it has a tablet/touch screen so I can draw all I want so easily. The only thing bad about it is that it is heavy. And I hate having to carry heavy things on my walk to the train station, or on the train. So for portability sake, especially so I can take it with me on the train and on the trip I’ll be taking to Japan next year, I purchased a netbook. Makes it rather easy to be updating this blog on the road… or perhaps I should say, on the rails.

Only catch is this… I bet I look suspicious. Today we had quite a few police/homeland security folks at White Plains, passing out the train maps I posted about a while ago, along with some new cards detailing how to spot terrorists on public transit. Unfortunately one of the “Seven Signs of Terrorism” includes taking pictures and monitoring activities aboard trains. I am doing that all the time! Another includes acquiring uniforms… and I have that train conductor hat! In all seriousness, I’d probably make a shitty terrorist. With the crazy hats I wear, everyone and their mother could probably identify me.

Trainblogger… not terrorist

Hopefully getting police out there and teaching everyone the mantra of “If you see something, say something” actually works in protecting us. There certainly were a lot of police around handing out papers, down in the entrance part of the station, in the waiting rooms, even out on the platform. Obviously through my blog I see a lot of probably suspicious, likely crazy people, but I certainly wouldn’t label them a terrorist.

Suspicious photo taking behavior!

Handing out cards on the platform

I do think a few years ago I was on a train though where a “suspcious” bag was left and police came on board to confiscate it. It is doubtful that there was a bomb in the bag, but for every false alarm, if one of those calls actually prevents an attack from occuring, it is worth it, right?