The holiday season is fast approaching, and many interesting holiday themed events will be happening along the Harlem Line. The Botanical Garden’s Holiday Train Show opens tomorrow, which is accessible via Metro-North’s Botanical Garden station. Grand Central’s Holiday Gift Fair, located in Vanderbilt hall, opens on Monday. Starting on Wednesday the Transit Museum’s Annex in Grand Central will host their Holiday Train Show (please note that this will be closed on Thanksgiving). And of course, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will be held on Thursday. Of course, Metro-North has come up with some new holiday schedules, including additional trains, to help you get to these events.

Thanksgiving Metro-North Schedules

Thanksgiving Eve 11/25 extra early getaway trains will be offered, beginning at 1 PM. Because of decreased ridership in the PM peak, some trains will be combined or eliminated.

Thanksgiving Day 11/26 Operating on a holiday schedule with extra AM inbound service for those of you going to the Macy’s Parade. There will also be lots of late morning/early afternoon outbound service, and plenty of inbound evening service to get you back home.

Day after Thanksgiving 11/27 operating on a “Saturday” schedule with extra service during the AM and PM peak time periods.

For the most up to date schedule information, consult the schedule search on Metro-North’s website. Information for the Harlem Line’s Wassaic branch can be found here.

Regarding events, I’m trying to come up with a nice schedule of all varieties of events accessible by the Harlem Line. These events will be listed on the right side of the site. If you know of an event that I should mention, please contact me!

So on Friday the New York Times posted an article (which I believe was in the print version Saturday) talking about how Metro North trains leave Grand Central one minute late. There is an extra minute built into the schedule, so if a train is supposed to leave Grand Central at 5:59 on the public schedule, the conductor schedule actually reads 6:00. It may have actually been a helpful thing, but now that everyone knows? Probably not so much.

The article is getting posted on various different websites, but in the process they’ve lost the picture that was posted with the original article. In fact I do believe this is my favorite part of the article, this little running man.

Run little man, run!

That, and some of the comments…

Basically, you are destroying a helpful deception in order to make points for yourself as a journalist. SHAME ON YOU!

Now that the word is out, my husband and countless others will be missing more trains. Thanks alot, you just ruined my family’s dinner!

Do you have any idea what you have done!!! Shame on you. Just to score a few “journalistic” points.

This is like those placebo buttons at pedestrian crosswalks and in elevators that give us the illusion of control. Fun to know.

And my personal favorite:

Woo Hoo. What a scoop!! The train people were trying to do their customers a favor and the Times decides to blow their cover.

Next you’ll announce to all six year olds that there’s no Santa Claus.

Why is this on the front page of the New YorkTimes? I thought it was “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” not “All the News That Fits We’ll Print.”

I guess now you can at least take your time walking to your train in Grand Central (note that this extra minute only applies to trains leaving Grand Central)… I mean the last place you want to trip and fall (and hit your head and die) is on a dirty train platform, running to catch your train that was going to be there an extra minute anyways.

When I started out this blog, it was sort of just a portion of my own personal website. It had the same layout as my site, and was fairly integrated. I have been thinking for quite a while now though, this blog has really taken off in another direction, and is pretty much standing well on it’s own. So I felt that in order to reflect that new identity, the site needed a little bit of change in the aesthetics department. Enjoy the new layout that I’ve made, which I’ll probably be tweaking for a little while now that it is up. I’m not much of an illustrator, but I did want to try doing a little sketch for the title, with the Sky Ceiling in Grand Central in the background.

So what else is changing? Next week brings new schedules to the MTA, and conductors will be changing around their jobs… so you may see some new faces on your trains. I’m quite bummed that all the conductors on my train all got bumped off and had to take jobs on other trains.

Conductor winter wear will also make it’s comeback… though my proposed new hat for MTA conductors was denied.

If you do like changes though, especially changes in the leaves, you must check out the Fall Foliage Rail Excursion, over on the Hudson Line, which will be happening on the 24th. You can find more information about that tour here.

Lastly, if you missed October’s Mileposts, you may have missed some nice deals. When buying tickets for Cirque Du Soleil’s Wintuk, and the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, you can save ten dollars, and get a free round trip train ticket. Just be sure to use the promo code METRO.

One of the most amusing things I can do as an owner of a website, is look at my web search statistics. Basically, it shows me what people type into google and other search engines to find my site. Quite often there are some crazy keywords, hence the amusement of looking through this list. So I figued it might be amusing to showcase some of the gold I’ve found, answer some questions, and help some people looking for information that you can’t find at my site. Remember that I am not making any of this up, these are all things that people have typed in.

[insert station name] train station parking / is there a ticket booth at [insert station name] / are there taxis at [insert station name] / directions to [insert station name]
Anything you could possibly want to know about any Metro North train station can be found here. Parking info, fares, ticket booth information, elevator status, taxi info, addresses, etc.

[insert station name] schedules / time tables / what time is the train?
MTA has a great schedule system here. You enter in your stations and the time you want to leave/arrive, and it will tell you what trains are available, how long they will be, and whether it is a peak hour train.

Brewster North train station
You’re looking for Southeast. Brewster North was renamed to Southeast several years ago.

Is the harlem line better then the new haven line?
I found it amusing that you had to ask! Of course the Harlem Line is better! Alright, alright, perhaps I am biased. The New Haven line does have barcars, and the blogging train conductor to the stars, Bobby, but we here on the Harlem Line have some pretty cool guys too.

I saw a bus run over a pigeon 2009 / I saw a pigeon run under a bus
Ah, good old pigeons. You must have found the site after I told the story of flattened pigeon. Alas, I didn’t see the actual event, only the aftermath, so I can provide you with no further information.

What is the font used on the grand central train schedules?
This one I know! The good majority of MTA signage and such is done in Helvetica. The station name signs, for example, are in Helvetica Bold Oblique… which is what I used for some very official looking cue cards…

The swine flu is it close to harlem?
Will you begin to panic if I say yes? One silly post about the swine flu, and it looks like everybody is in panic mode. But hey, at least my prediction didn’t come true after all!

Sexy guy with hat on
Hmm… I don’t know exactly what you are looking for, sorry. Do you think train conductor’s hats are sexy? I do have a few pictures of Guy wearing his conductor’s hat… I even have a picture of my dog wearing a conductor’s hat… if you’re into that kinda thing.

Man telling amusing train story with noises
What kinds of noises were these? If they were quacking noises, that might be Curley. Whom I prefer call “The Quack Quack Man.”

Weirdos in penn station
Don’t have any of those yet… I am more of a Grand Central kind of girl. But hey, if I ever see any weirdos the next time I do go over to Penn Station, I’ll certainly let you guys know.

Metro north conductor blog
The only one I am aware of is Derailed, run by the aforementioned New Haven Line conductor,  Bobby. It is a great read, I highly reccomend it.

Mta bee line buses / bee line bus phone number / harlembeelinebus
Check out the Bee Line Bus website here for anything you want to know about them. As far as I know, they are not part of MTA, although they will accept Metro Cards.

Anybody know what happened at the north entrance of grand central
Nope, what happened?

How do you deter pigeons from building nests?
Can’t help you there, sorry. I am always amused by failure in this department, hence the Pigeons: 1, Humans: 1, post. Putting spikes and such in areas pigeons like to nest never really seems to work all that well.

Metro north conductor photos
Why do you ask? Are you feeling a bit stalkerish? To my knowledge I only have a picture of one conductor, and he was aware that it was going to go on my blog. I don’t really want to put pictures of people up without their previous knowledge. So sorry, no “MTA train conductors hot or not” or “MTA Conductors gone wild” here on this blog.

Really though, it is bad enough that I attract creepy people on the train, apparently I do on the blog as well! Whoever typed in “[insert my full name] sex” in google, go fuck yourself, thanks.

Public transportation stories / Metro north railroad blog / Funny people on rides
Well, I am glad that you find this page actually looking for what I am trying to write. I hope you enjoyed some of the craziness here, and definitely come back.