Last Saturday I had the pleasure of meeting Lou Grogan, who is the author of the definitive guide to the Harlem Line and all its predecessors: The Coming of the New York and Harlem Railroad. Over the years he has acquired quite the collection of just about everything railroad related – from books, photos, timetables and newspaper clippings, to the train-shaped weather vane atop his house. Wooden trains, plastic trains, metal trains all adorn the inside of the house on shelves and tables and desks, along with many rocks, which he also collects. His wife told me he didn’t really start collecting all of the stuff until he decided he wanted to write the book (which took about ten years to complete), but once it was written he never stopped. All he’s collected fills rooms, and would probably take weeks, if not months to go through.

We did happen to find a binder of photos though, full of photos of the trains around Pawling, Brewster and Towners from the early 80′s, which he graciously allowed me to borrow. The majority of photos were not labeled, except for an occasional date mark from when the photo was developed and printed. At the end of the binder were two photos though, one of the only ones that happened to have labels. The first was a picture of a blue sleeper car in Canada, with the name Elizabeth stenciled on the outside, with a handwritten caption – “My favorite sleeping car.” Alongside that photo was a photo of his wife, with the caption of “My favorite Elizabeth” (how cute!). The majority of the other photos though, do not have captions or dates, so I am not 100% sure of the location, but they all seem to be either on the Harlem Line or in the vicinity. I’ve scanned some of my favorites, and present them here. A few of them may have been in his book (which was black and white), but this is the first time they’ve been presented in color. So take a walk down memory lane and enjoy these photos (or in my case, a glimpse of Metro-North right before I was born).

Last Wednesday was an absolutely beautiful day, the sun was shining bright, and it was quite warm. Instead of taking my normal route home, I opted for the scenic route. I got a coworker to give me a ride to Pleasantville station, not far from work and on his way home. From there I took a train to Chappaqua. And then after that I took a train to Mount Kisco. I photographed each of the three stations, enjoyed my time, and explored. If you happen to be like me, a person that doesn’t drive, Mount Kisco might be your cup of tea. And even if you do drive, you might still enjoy the area around the station. The old station building still stands, though there no longer is a staffed ticket window. Instead, an Italian restaurant, Via Vanti, occupies the space. There are quite a few restaurants close-by, however, and I opted for the less expensive dinner at Cosi. Hopefully I didn’t smell too bad. By the time I got there after wandering and taking photos at the three stations I was just a tad sweaty. But all in all it was a great photographic adventure, and I discovered each of the stations had something intriguing about them. Mount Kisco may have been my favorite out of the bunch, which may be why I chose to post those photos first. Either way, chalk another station up as completed for the Panorama Project!

As an added bonus, I have photos from a former train station: Thornwood. As part of the Panorama Project my goal is to also photograph former stations, though I am undecided whether they are deserving of their own posts as part of the “tour”. Instead I think the few former stations will be featured as “bonuses”.

Thornwood is located in between the current stations of Hawthorne and Pleasantville. The station was closed in the early 80′s when the Harlem Line was electrified past North White Plains. It was not an incredible loss, as anyone who used the station had the option to use Hawthorne, approximately one mile south, or Pleasantville, approximately one mile north. The sign on the front of the old station building says it is now occupied by the Thornwood-Hawthorne Chamber of Commerce. I didn’t see anyone inside the building, though it is possible they were hiding behind the windows and laughing at me as a took pictures.

I just happened to be looking through my photos on my cell phone, and I came across one that I had forgotten about. It is above. There had been a storm raging that day, but on the ride home it had begun to clear up. I snapped that photo when we were at Mount Kisco station. I was sitting near the door, and the train conductor, Guy, said to me, “come out and look here,” as he was standing on the platform. I ducked out of the train for about two seconds to gaze at it. Then engineer was wondering if he could go, and the conductor in the back, Dave, was like, “Wait, I think they’re looking at the rainbow. Isn’t that nice?” The whole thing took a matter of seconds, and my recollection of the dialogue is probably pretty off, but I smile when I remember that time. And really, I wish it was a nice day with a rainbow outside, instead of the cold and the snow.

I know a lot of people would agree with me. And a few of my avian friends. That would be the pigeons in White Plains. They of course are sick of the cold, and have begun hiding inside the station again. Apparently a recent addition in the past few weeks to the station were spikes added to the inside windows, a former popular spot for the pigeons. Now the pigeons have taken to some other spots, one being the ticket kiosks. I bet the machinery keeps those nice and toasty for the birds. I work for FUJIFILM, and we have photo printing kiosks in places like Walmart and RiteAid. And I’ve heard horror stories from techs that have to go out to service those machines, and have found animals that have made homes inside the machines because of the warmth. I can only imagine, and feel sorry for the poor chap that is going to have to service or clean those ticket machines at some point in the future.

I even have video, hooray!

I was amused though, on the MTA’s new site, they have a list of Frequently Asked Questions. One of which is how they are working to deter pigeons from roosting inside trains and stations. Their answer?

To address the problem of pigeons in our stations, we are testing a new system that drives away pigeons by sending a harmless, low-voltage electric shock through wires installed in areas where they perch.

Yeah, I wonder how that is working out for them… zap.

Just in case you aren’t paying attention to my posts over on Twitter, the Harlem Line has some big delays today. Around two hours ago, there were 15–20 minute delays between North White Plains and Wassaic due to trees fouling the tracks near Hawthorne. The issues with downed trees got bad enough that about an hour ago service was suspended in both directions from North White Plains to Brewster. The newest update from Metro North is that there will be continued delays in both directions, and passengers will be bused between Pleasantville and Mount Kisco. If you are going to be riding the trains this afternoon, Metro North’s Train Time may be helpful. If you aren’t already, signing up for MTA alerts is also a good idea. I of course will be reposting those alerts on twitter whenever they become available. (Even though Metro North has a twitter account now, they don’t seem to be posting that information there).

I believe this is the the third week I’ve been taking a new train to work in the morning. I sort of got tired taking the train that came down from Wassaic… Golden’s Bridge was the last stop before White Plains, so there were always few seats, and lots of pushing and shoving to be the first to get in the doors of the train. Ten minutes earlier there is another train that is much less busy, and I can always find a seat without any difficulties.

Of course, there are still odd folks, as there are on probably every train. I made a post a week or so back about people drinking beer on the train on their way home… clearly those people are not cool. You can only be cool if you drink beer in the morning on the way TO work! Shoppers at Target of Mount Kisco, if you smell alcohol on a sales associate at around 8am you probably aren’t imagining it!

Today there was an intriguing man making a complete mess all over the train. There was a puddle underneath him, flowing into the aisles. Up against his crotch, he held a half-empty one gallon jug with water inside. It was a very odd way to be holding it. The lid was pointed down towards the floor, which I assume is where the puddle was coming from. If the jug was pointed the opposite way, I totally would have thought he’d be peeing in it. Thankfully I got off the train shortly after.

Yesterday my “lesbian lover” also made an appearance at the train station. She has an office down the hall from me at work, and the extent we speak is pretty much an occasional “good morning” or things of that nature. A few months back the woman turned up at the train station. She must have felt awkward being around hundreds of strangers, because she saw me and must have thought “That girl! I recognize her! Let’s have an awkward conversation, even though we’ve never talked and I really don’t know her… but hey, at least I know her more than all these other strangers!!” Another coworker that I wait with at the train station, didn’t realize she worked at our company as well, and was entirely convinced that she was a lesbian attempting to hit on me. Yesterday was the second time I’ve seen her at the train station. She didn’t see me, perhaps that is a good thing.

Lastly, I went looking for my chapstick in the bottom of my bag and instead of being able to find it, I found some delightful handouts I’ve received in the past few weeks. I recall seeing a bunch of people standing in the train station lobby looking all suspicious one day, and then they gave me this card:

(at least that is better than getting asked by an obnoxious man about fifty million times whether I was a registered member of the Democratic Party, like I did this morning) Oh, and my personal favorite, the “Jesus literature”. Those people are always passing shit out at the train station. Hey, at least I got one in ENGLISH this time!

In other news, Jesus literature does not burn very well. In case you like, wanted to make a fire with it or something. Just putting that out there…

I think it is an unwritten rule of public transportation etiquette that when there are a lot of empty seats on the train/bus/whatever, you don’t sit right next to another passenger. Let me just say, a guy I saw on the train one evening was apparently unaware of this rule. By the time the train gets to Chappaqua, most of the passengers have already left, and the cars may have about two to three people in them, max.

In my train car, there was only one other guy. At Chappaqua, another man entered the train. From this point on I will refer to him as Bob. Bob decides to sit right next to the other man. After a few moments of awkward silence, Bob pipes up, “I repair radios. What do you do?” The other man appears to be rather dumbfounded, “Is he talking to me??” he thinks. So Bob repeats, “I repair radios. What do you do?”

If the silence was awkward, this was definitely even more so. The man began answering Bob’s questions, with what he told me later were completely fabricated answers. Then Bob wanted to know where the man lived, and where he grew up. Again, he was given fabricated answers.

As we approached Mount Kisco station, Bob asked the man if he knew anything about computers. The man said he did not. Bob abruptly rose from the seat and prepared to disembark, telling the man something along the lines of, “Oh, I don’t think we’ll talk again. If you knew about computers, I might have wanted to talk with you again. But you don’t.” And then, when the doors opened, Bob left.

I like to refer to this man as Bob, recalling a previous visit to Mount Kisco, though not by train. It had to have been at least five years ago, on the way home to Connecticut I stopped at the Burger King in Mount Kisco for a quick meal. In the parking lot there was a car completely filled in every place but the driver seat with fast food trash. Inside the Burger King we saw the man that owned the car: filling a two liter soda bottle in the self serve soda fountain, and then washing his hands in the soda. Needless to say, it was a memorable bit of amusement every time we were to pass through Mount Kisco.

Fast forward to about a year ago. My family again stopped at the Burger King in Mount Kisco, and my dad thought it would be amusing to ask if the man “who washes his hands in the soda” still comes around. Apparently he is well known at the establishment, and a worker told my father his name was Bob. I like to think that this man is the one I did in fact see on the train.

I may never know for sure.

[pdf-ppt-viewer href="http://www.iridetheharlemline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/1895_harlemdivision2.pdf" width="600" height="500"]

Excerpt from Health and pleasure on “America’s greatest railroad.”
By New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company
Found on Google Books