Here is the final part of our top posts of 2011. Thank you to all of you for your continued support and visits. These are the posts that you all voted for, with your eyes and your clicks.

No tour of any of Metro-North’s lines could be complete without a visit to the most wonderful station of all – Grand Central. Our Harlem Line Tuesday Tour finished with photos of GCT, and was extremely well-liked, coming in at number seven in the countdown. I think I was rather proud of the photo set, as it covered quite a few locations that were not part of the main concourse. Although the concourse is the highlight, it is by all means not the only thing interesting found in the Terminal.

These are the reasons why there are probably people that work for the MTA that dislike me… although I love the history of the rails, as well as photography, there are some times that I just can’t help joking around. In this spoof, The MTA wants to make sure you are prepared, I poked a little bit of fun at the brochure that they released regarding hurricanes. My intent wasn’t to knock their preparations (as that hurricane brochure came in handy later on during the year!!), it was more to make an amusing statement about the snowstorms slamming us that just wouldn’t stop. We were somewhat prepared – but absolutely fed up with the snow that kept piling up. But being able to add in some zombies and Norse mythology just made it all the more fun.

Many times I’ve passed through the streets in Danbury and sighted a particular wall covered with some absolutely gorgeous graffiti. Every time I did, I always thought that I should go and take a photo of it… but I never got a chance to do it until March. In the post Gorgeous rail-side graffiti in Danbury I posted photos of the mural (which was a lot larger than I had originally suspected). The painted wall is located just off of Main Street in Danbury, not far from the Metro-North station, and located along some railroad tracks.

Just about any day this year was a good time to be anyone other than Hermon Kaur Raju. Raju is the commuter we love to hate, yapping on her cell phone the whole ride and using a whole slew of four letter words. When a train conductor told her to shut her trap, Raju went on the offensive – demanding that everyone acknowledge how educated she was. Most unfortunately for her, someone had been recording the entire exchange, and posted it to YouTube. Despite being removed a short time later by the original poster, the damage had been done. The clip made it to the Huffington Post, Gawker, and Raju was even one of Keith Olbermann’s “Worst Persons In The World.”

Although I did not post her name at the time, resisting the urge to poke fun at Raju was impossible. The post Be nice to your conductor, or you’ll wind up on the internet was one of our top posts for the year. Metro-North never really made a public response regarding the incident, however Raju would likely be pleased to know that the conductor involved was reprimanded for the incident – for not wearing her hat.

Discovering the old stations of the Harlem Division has been an interest of mine ever since I first read about them. Many no longer exist, but a few have been converted to businesses and are still around. Only one (to my knowledge) has been converted into use as a home, and the thought of living in an old train station is probably pretty awesome to anyone that calls themself a railfan. In an Adventure to Sharon Station, I got a great chance to tour the house, which is currently for sale. Even though the the outside looks much as it did way back when, the inside contains all the modern comforts one would expect in a home. I’m very appreciative to Elyse Harney Real Estate for allowing me to see the house, even though they knew I didn’t have the means to purchase it – though if I ever win big in the lottery, they may be one of the first people I call.

Although often forgotten by commuters, Metro-North does have tracks on the west side of the Hudson. I suppose they lines over there are easily overlooked, as they don’t go into Grand Central, and are operated by New Jersey Transit. However, one of the most beautiful locations along Metro-North’s tracks is found on the west side. The Picturesque Moodna Viaduct, located in the rural countryside of Orange County. The viaduct is the longest and tallest trestle east of the Mississippi River, and I was very happy to note that the Hurricane Irene damage on the Port Jervis line did not greatly harm this wonderful gem. It seems that many others also find the viaduct a lovely place, as it was our second most popular post on the blog in 2011.

In an absolutely unprecedented move, the entirety of MTA buses and trains shut down ahead of the oncoming storm, Hurricane Irene. Although some people criticized the decision as a bit over the top, it turned out to be the right one. Of all the agencies, Metro-North likely suffered the worst damages, from both high winds and rain-induced floods. In an absolutely brilliant move, the MTA kept customers apprised of the ongoing situation through their Flickr account, visually documenting the storm on their infrastructure. Some of the photos even wound up in the trending topics of twitter – a monumental achievement for the MTA’s social media endeavors.

I reposted many of the MTA’s photos under the title of Metro-North and the Aftermath of Irene, Damage Photos, and it was the number one post of the year on I Ride the Harlem Line.

2011 was certainly a whirlwind of a year. The site found itself featured in the New York Times, and I even had a radio interview. There were visits to lots of interesting places: train stations in Quebec, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, and non train related spots like an ice hotel, and the final space shuttle launch. In February we finished up our tour of the Harlem Line, and by May began our tour of the New Haven Line. As we head boldly into the new year, hoping for many new and wonderful adventures, I thought I’d take the time to check out the top 12 things you loved about 2011.

Although not eligible for a spot in our 2011 countdown, as it was posted in 2010, the Panorama Project page was hands-down the most popular page on the site this year. Likely the New York Times article had a lot to do with that. Although we post a new station every Tuesday, the Panorama Project page is still the best way to check out all the stations and lines that have been featured thus far.

Number 12 on our list is The Rebirth of a Train Station: Canaan. While so many towns are content to ignore their railroading history, Canaan is the complete opposite. They are fiercely proud of that history, and when their gorgeous station was the victim of arson several years ago, they vowed to rebuild. In the ensuing years, the old depot has made a huge transformation – no longer is it a fire-ravaged hulk – it is slowly returning to its former grandeur.

Later in the year, we revisited Canaan during their annual Railway Days.

Old postcards have always been a popular subject matter on the site, and over the years there have been six parts (and more to come!) in our Sending Postcards from the Harlem Line series. Part two was the eleventh most popular post on the blog in 2011. You can check out all the other postcard posts with the following links: Part 1, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6.

Tenth most popular in 2011 was one of our Tuesday Tour stops on the New Haven Line, Pelham. Pelham is one of the old and attractive New Haven Line stations on the opposite side of the border, in New York. I found myself here on the very day that the article featuring the site was published in the New York Times. And the fact that this post was linked to by a few other railroad websites certainly helped with its popularity.

A bit more popular than the postcards are our collections of old photos from the Harlem Line. Like the postcards, there have been many different old photo posts, and for a brief stint I posted many of these photos on Mondays. Part 3 of Even More Monday Morning Old Photos was the ninth most popular post on the blog in 2011. It contained several photos of the line that used to be, when it passed by Millerton and extended all the way up to Chatham.

Everyone must admit that the concept of quiet cars is a great one – however, in practice, it may be a little bit more difficult. You know that although you may encounter some really nice people on the trains, there are also a whole bunch of assholes. They yap on their phones, take up rows of seats with their bags (one morning I saw a woman holding hostage several seats with her large carton of juice). There are many times that I am skeptical that good ideas can work with stupid people.

Before the quiet car program started, Metro North said that conductors would have “Shh Cards” to pass out to loud people to tell them to shut their traps in a nice, passive way. I thought the idea was amusing, and managed to get my hands on some of the cards before the program debuted. And they were a little bit too nice – I was unable to resist making modifications to them… and even printing out a few. The fake shh cards posted under the title of Quiet cars and Shh cards was the eighth most popular on the site in 2011, and the cliffhanger I’ll leave you with until later on this week.

Want to see the remainder of the top 12? Check back later this week to see them, and to find out which post will be crowned number one most popular of 2011.

Shortly after the article in the New York Times featuring this site and my panorama project, I was offered a spot on the Metro-North Railroad Commuter Council. Due to time issues, and the fact that me making it to any of their meetings would be extremely difficult, I never took the position. Somehow I think that is a good idea. I have a feeling the Commuter Council wouldn’t like me all that much. Most likely my thoughts regarding the current dilemma of winter service, and the idea of a commuter “Bill of Rights” are a bit different than theirs. The Commuter Councils (New York and Connecticut), and even Senator Schumer are pushing the railroad for a Bill of Rights. The two main incidents cited were the train that got stuck near Green’s Farms on one of the hottest days of the summer, and a train that was “stuck” at Southeast during the October snowstorm. There are a couple of places where my opinion differs from the things that have already been put on the table, thus I feel the need to present them here. If you’d rather not hear a little rant, skip this and come back later in the day – I’ll be posting something pretty for you to look at.

When it comes to these rails I think I have somewhat of a unique perspective: I’m familiar with the history of our rail system and the crap that used to go on. I am close to several people that work for the railroad, and I understand their thoughts on various issues. But most importantly, I am a commuter, and thus am familiar with the daily plight of many transit riders.

History

If you’re a reader of my site, most likely you are familiar with the stories of the Upper Harlem Line. Remember this date: March 20th, 1972. It was the last day that there was passenger service from Dover Plains to Chatham. The Penn Central didn’t really care much about their passengers. Take a guess when they shut down the line? In the middle of the day. So that means if you commuted from Chatham you managed to get to the city in the morning. But there was no way for you to get home. They’d take you up to Dover Plains that evening, but it was on you to figure out how to travel the last 50 miles to your home. How’s that for service?

As a historical aside, after World War Two the railroads weren’t doing so hot. Even the president of the New York Central committed suicide. In order to stay afloat, the New York Central (of which the Hudson and Harlem lines belonged) and the Pennsylvania Railroad merged to become the Penn Central. Not long after, the government forced the bankrupt New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad (our New Haven Line) into the merger. After only a few years the Penn Central itself went bankrupt – at that time it was the largest corporate bankruptcy in American history. This is the crumbling foundation on which Metro-North was eventually built. Clearly, not a simple task. If you find any of this interesting, I do suggest you read a book titled “The Wreck of the Penn Central.”

Working on the railroad

If Metro-North pulled the stunt I mentioned above, imagine how irate we commuters would be! The railroad is hardly a perfect entity, however, it is a whole lot better than it was. We now live in an era where technology is developing rapidly, and the railroad has finally begun to embrace it along with other current trends (twitter, facebook). Only two years ago the MTA would send their lawyers after you for using the round subway bullets online. The MTA’s lawyers also deemed Metro-North’s train schedules as their own intellectual property – which meant cease and desist orders were sent to anybody that made a useful transit app. Now Metro-North gladly offers this information to developers, and they even feature third-party transit apps on their site.

In the grand scheme of things, Metro-North has come a long way. They’ve even beaten out the Long Island Rail Road as the busiest commuter system in the country. Sure, there are a lot of things they could do to improve service, but it is getting better. For one thing, communication is improving. We get text alerts for train issues now. And when I say we, I mean commuters. If you’re a conductor, not so much. Here’s a game to play – the next time you’re on the train and you get a text alert saying there are delays, ask your conductor about it. There is a high likelihood that you know more than they do. And people complain that conductors don’t make announcements. Communication is certainly better, but it has a long way it needs to go. If you get anything out of this long rant it is that the railroad needs to work a whole lot on improving communication. Not only with commuters, but with their own staff!

A Commuter’s Life

On the hottest day of the summer, a train got stuck not far from Green’s Farms. I’m not going to go into much detail, as it has been explained by various news media, but the important part is that people were stuck for a while. Supposedly the railroad told the Westport fire department that the train was empty. It was not. And suffice it to say, people were not thrilled to be boiling on a hot day in a tin can. Was Metro-North at fault in this instance? Hell yes. The highlight of the story is poor communication. The infrastructure on the New Haven Line is not spectacular – the train cars are old, and so are the catenaries. The incident would have happened either way, but with better communication it would have been handled far better, and passengers wouldn’t be nearly as bitter.

Here is where my thoughts differ from Schumer and his impetus for a bill of rights. In October we were hit with a freak snow storm, dumping huge amounts of snow on the area. A train to Grand Central (including passengers that had made a connection from Wassaic) got stuck at Southeast station and was there for eleven or more hours. While folks are citing this incident along with the aformentioned Green’s Farms incident, grouping them together is like apples and oranges. The train was stuck at the station. Meaning people could get off the train if they wanted to. And some did – they made snowmen on the platform, and the braver ones attempted to make the one mile uphill climb to the stores in Southeast. If they wanted to, they could have called their loved ones to come pick them up.

Oh wait, remember that part about the snow falling from the sky? Roads were impassable. Cars were stuck on the Taconic and 684 for twelve or more hours – longer than anybody “stuck” on that train. There is this little thing called personal accountability. Days before the storm hit, weather predictions said we could get nearly two feet of snow. The smart people stayed home. The slightly crazier ones stocked up on anything the grocery store had and turned their home into a miniature survival bunker. The even crazier ones disregarded the reports and went out – and got themselves stuck.

What do you want from Metro-North anyway?

Commuters, if you want something, you need to be realistic. What do you want Metro-North to do? I’ve heard utterly insane suggestions that ought to become part of this “Bill of Rights.” Trains should have blankets and water on board in case they get stuck. And while they’re at it, perhaps they should put refrigerators on all the trains to keep that water cold. Supposedly folks involved in the Green’s Farms incident complained that when they were finally given water, it was warm – though I do admit, the veracity of that ever occurring is suspect. Nonetheless, I don’t think any of those demands sound realistic.

Here is an exercise in thinking realistically: Say you are the president of Metro-North for the day. How would you have dealt with the situation in Southeast? Really. Think about it. When the rails no longer became safe to operate on, Metro-North pulled the plug. Nobody could be picked up because the roads were even worse. What is the answer to this problem? What could the railroad have possibly done in a situation like that? Should the MTA keep a secret phalanx of ATVs and snowmobiles? Maybe they should teach the MTAPD’s K-9′s to pull a dog sled? Or maybe Metro-North should have pulled the plug before, knowing that a storm was coming.

A fun idea. Though not realistic.

Oh wait, they said they were going to do that this upcoming winter. And the media complained and mocked them and said that you’d be better off riding in a sleigh (thankfully, I must say Jim Cameron of Connecticut’s commuter council is realistic and understands this point). Suspending service before any trains got stuck seems like the only logical way one could have dealt with the problem in Southeast.

No matter what the railroad decides to do, the fact of the matter is they will never be able to please everyone. And I’m not exactly saying that the Bill of Rights is a bad idea. But if we commuters wish to have a Bill of Rights that addresses some of these issues, our requests need to be well thought out and realistic – not the result of over emotion (though if you were involved in either of those incidents, I understand the reason why you would feel that way). The Commuter Councils’ requests more realistic than Schumer’s, but he’s a politician that probably doesn’t ride the train much, and is busy fighting the good fight against true menaces to our society, like Four Loko.

Hello, and welcome to planet Earth. The Earth is a planetary body that revolves around the sun… unless you are one of the many Metro-North riders that have the erroneous belief that the world actually revolves around them. Those special people are known to cause scenes on the morning train (like the woman I saw last week yelling, “for every minute we’re late I’m docked pay!”), and somehow have the strange belief that Metro-North has one train running on each line: their train. The remainder of us, however, are well aware that the busiest commuter railroad in the country certainly has more than 3 trains running at a time. But how many? And where are they?

I had a kind of silly idea – I would create a map that showed the location of every Metro-North train at an arbitrary time during the morning rush. That way people would be able to really visualize how many trains there are, and to understand that they aren’t alone on the rails – not by a long shot. The map would provide a quick snapshot of what exactly is happening on every weekday morning. Somehow along the way the map turned into a little bit more interactive of a piece – using Google maps, one can zoom in and out, pan, and click on each train placemark for more information. Then I got a little bit more crazy – I added in the Shore Line East and Amtrak trains passing over Metro-North territory, as well as the deadheads I was aware of. If anything, there could be more trains than what are currently shown, but for the most part it is fairly exact.

If you click the above image, the interactive map should open in a new window. You can click any train placemark for more information. Any train deadheading (moving from one place to another, but not carrying passengers) will be labeled “not in revenue service.” You can also toggle on and off the various lines to, for example, show only Harlem Line trains. By default all trains are turned on – and there are quite a lot of them. Did you realize there were quite that many? Perhaps the subtitle of this map should be “RTC’s are awesome and I salute them.”

I must thank Eric (@kc2hmv) for doing quite a bit to help me get this map looking awesome, as my programming skills are nonexistent (the toggle feature was all him!). Secondary thanks goes to this site, as I based the design of my map off of the clean and nicely done commuter map found there.

A train crash postcard

Imagine that we are in the year 1920. A train has just had an accident. As people rush over to attempt to assist, so too does a photographer. Camera in hand, the photographer takes a couple snaps of the wreck. Not only for event detailing purposes, but for postcards too. I’ve become a crazy postcard-collecting nutjob, and every time I see a train crash postcard, it makes me chuckle a little. Postcards were printed with pretty much anything and everything on them… but I suppose it makes sense, they provided an easy way to share (back before we had this thing called internet, boggles the mind!) Of course, it is just human nature to want to see a train crash, or any crash, period. Any person that has ever been in a car moving past an accident knows exactly what I’m talking about.

And if I wanted to send you a LOLCat back in the day, I’d send you this.

Unfortunately, I’ve yet to discover a Harlem Division train crash postcard. I have found quite a few station images, many of which I’ve posted previously. Today I have a few more of those for you, as well as some more “everyday” scenes: track workers at Dover Plains, a locomotive crossing a road in the snow, and horse carts delivering milk to the train station to be transported to the city. Thrown in the mix is a card of the Harlem Valley State Hospital, with the location of the current Harlem Valley-Wingdale station visible.

Make sure you enjoy this somewhat chilly Friday (where’s my hat?!), and don’t get too frustrated if you see anybody rubbernecking on your way home this evening! Just think, hey, that could be on a postcard!

If you missed parts one through four, you can find them here:
Sending Postcards from the Harlem Line, Part 1
Sending Postcards from the Harlem Line, Part 2
Sending Postcards from the Harlem Line, Part 3
Sending Postcards from the Harlem Line, Part 4

It is that time again… time for some Monday morning old photos. Today’s set is back to the 1980′s, and early 1990′s. Though there are a few on the Harlem, several of them are from the New Haven Line. I figured it would be cool to check out some photos not just from the Harlem Line, but from Metro-North in general.

Dear readers, I am certain you are all acquainted with my terrible eBay habit. Lots of the old timetables, photos, and postcards find their way onto this site at some point in time. I must admit though, I love old things. Specifically, old paper things. Maybe it is because I am a graphic designer, and I love looking at old printed art, especially on pre-1900′s timetables and books. Though it is also possible that I’m just a nutjob destined to be one day featured on the show Hoarders. Either way, today I do want to share with you all my most recent acquisition, which is a little bit different than most things I come across on eBay.

If you’ve ever taken the Harlem Line north of White Plains, and past Valhalla, you are most likely familiar with the large cemetery that dominates the view in between stations. Kensico Cemetery shares a nearly mile-long border with the railroad, and astute observers can glimpse the main cemetery office, which once served as a railroad station, on the west side of the tracks. The choice of location of the cemetery isn’t hard to figure out – it offered both a beautifully rural final resting place, and was easily accessible from the city by the railroad. In fact, on the cemetery’s Board of Directors was Chauncey Mitchell Depew, whose name might be familiar, as I posted about him in April. He got his start as the legal counsel for the New York and Harlem Railroad under Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, and eventually worked his way up to the presidency of the New York Central – conveniently the railroad running right alongside the cemetery. Not only did the cemetery have its own private railroad station, it also had a private railcar named Kensico which could be rented for funerals. In 1910, the rental price for a locomotive with the railcar Kensico attached was $60.00, which today seems like a paltry sum.

All of these things I’ve discovered about the Kensico Cemetery were gleaned from a little hand-bound booklet printed in 1910, titled “Views in the Kensico Cemetery.” I bought the thing just for the single photo of Kensico station, and after flipping through it, I’m glad I did. I love it for the silliest reason, too – at the time of printing, the United States used three-digit phone numbers. There are plenty of things that I don’t really think about, and anything but seven-digit phone numbers are one of them (despite the fact that I know Brazil uses eight digits for cellular numbers, and don’t even get me started about their downright bizarre method of placing long distance calls). The book is chock-full of photos of the cemetery with plenty of open land, a much different view than today’s cemetery with over 130,000 “residents.” Below you’ll find a few of my favorite parts of the booklet, including the photo of Kensico Station.

Edit: Metro-North has resumed most service. For the most current information, check the MTA website.

Mayor Bloomberg’s press conference addressing the damage after Irene has just completed. Of course, Chairman of the Metropolitan Transit Authority Jay Walder was present to address the state of New York City’s transit system. The unfortunate news for Metro-North riders is that it was our railroad that suffered the most damage out of all of the MTA. Walder said there was severe damage to all three lines, including significant flooding and track erosion. Damage assessments are still going on, and there will be no decision on when service will be restored until these assessments have been completed.

What I must say, however, is that MTA has been keeping us in the loop via their Flickr account, which is much appreciated. From the photos we can see that there is severe flooding at Tuckahoe and Valhalla, on the Harlem Line. Valhalla also has power lines down, in the vicinity of Kensico Cemetery. There was a mudslide at Spuyten Duyvil and Scarborough on the Hudson Line. Beacon, also on the Hudson line, has massive flooding and is probably the worst station I’ve seen so far, with the parking lot and pedestrian underpass completely filled with water. Harriman, on the Port Jervis Branch also has a flooded parking lot. Thus far there has been no photos posted of the New Haven Line, but Governor Dannel Malloy has said that there was extensive damage to the catenary system, and on the New Canaan branch. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves… (all photos credited to the MTA)

Also interesting are a few photos from yesterday in Grand Central. Seeing the station this empty is a bit creepy. Although people say that this happens quite frequently at night, it is obvious that it is not night in these photos. You can see Grand Central Terminal empty – with the sunlight still streaming through the windows. That light makes these images even more amazing to me. I’m a bit jealous I wasn’t there myself to take photos of the empty station!

Do you love old train photos as much as I do? It has been a while since I last posted some Monday Morning old photos… but I do plan on posting a few for the next couple of weeks. In my endless endeavor to acquire old photos of the Harlem Line, I’ve borrowed and digitized more old photos from Lou Grogan. These are slightly newer than previous photos I’ve posted: at least I was alive when they were captured, albeit a young child. But they are old enough to capture the old platform at Pawling, and construction at White Plains. Though the dates probably vary, my guess is that they are either very late 80′s, or early 90′s – a time when Metro-North Commuter Railroad was a fledgling organization.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I love this one: self portrait of the photographer, at White Plains.

If you missed any of our series of Monday Morning old photos, you can find them here:

Monday Morning Old photos, Part 2
Monday Morning Old photos, Part 2
Monday Morning Old photos, Part 3
More Monday Morning Harlem Division Photos
You can also find more of Lou Grogan’s gorgeous photography here: Trains & The Beautiful Harlem Valley – Never-before-seen Photos from the 80′s.