There are quite a few things that Metro-North could be doing right now to make our train rides better. Attempting to rid the internet of profanity probably isn’t one of those things. Every time I see one of the many tweets like this, it cracks me up:

Metro-North’s twitter is apparently being run by someone who does not understand how twitter even functions (more about that here). Messages sent to the Metro-North twitter account aren’t really “public.” Unless I am following the person, I’d have to dig around to actually find the tweets. Hilariously, by posting these things, Metro-North is actually calling attention to them. In fact, I would never have seen this gem of a conversation, if they didn’t call attention to it.

Maybe we ought to focus our energies in helping people? Instead of telling them to call 511? (oops, sorry folks in Connecticut. You need to dial 877-690-5114 to call “511″) Better yet, you totally should have called out that guy for improper use of “you’re” – clearly that was the biggest offense in that tweet!

But really, @MetroNorthTweet, thanks. Every time I need a little chuckle, I’ll turn to you. Good luck getting rid of profanity on the internet, the moon from the night sky, or the drunks from your late night trains.

In other news, today’s Tuesday Tour is coming, but will be slightly late – likely be posted sometime this afternoon.

One of the things I hate more than being dull and serious is a late train. To amuse myself while waiting for late trains, I began using twitter to invent odd reasons for the lateness. Derailed circus trains, planking customers, and rabid pigeons have all been presented as reasons for lateness, despite their relative insanity. Although it started as a joke, I now feel the obligation to come up with something crazy every time I hear there is a late train.

Below you will find some of my favorite nonsensical tweets about late trains, several of which have been designed to annoy @MetroNorthTweet. Over the years, Metro North’s twitter account has been operated by several individuals – the most recent of which has decided twitter is absolutely pointless and is not a platform in which customers can be helped. Their current modus operandi is to copy and paste to everyone “call 511, idiots, twitter sucks.” The new tweeter also made it a point to unfollow me, though to my immense amusement they are still best pals with @fuckedcommuter. A fine endorsement for the railroad, I see. If you want to read more about my thoughts on Metro-North’s attempts at social media, you can find it here. But now, onto the insanity:

Note: Gregory, occasional blog reader, railfan, and photographer was that week arrested for train photography at the Virginia Road crossing in North White Plains. He claimed that while this was all ensuing, police asked him if he knew “the cat girl.”

Based upon a factual incident, where 3 young females attempted to fit into an M3 bathroom. Clearly they should have waited for a train using M7 equipment.

By all means, if you have a suggestion for a future reason for a “train delay” – please comment. And if you’re not following me on twitter, you totally should.

Over the years, Metro North’s twitter account (@MetroNorthTweet) has been operated by several individuals (two of which are most wonderful folks) – the most recent of which has decided twitter is absolutely pointless and is not a platform in which customers can be helped. Their current modus operandi is to copy and paste to everyone “call 511, idiots, twitter sucks.” The new tweeter also made it a point to unfollow me, though to my immense amusement they are still best pals with @fuckedcommuter. A fine endorsement for the railroad, I see.

Unfortunately, I thought the railroad was actually doing pretty well in terms of social media. In fact, I thought the way they handled Irene was commendable. There were frequent photographic updates on flickr, many of which were picked up by various arrays of media outlets. In fact, a photograph taken by Metro-North spokeswoman Marjorie Anders pretty much went viral, was talked about by thousands, and was even a trending topic on twitter. Companies pay to get their topics trending on twitter. Metro-North did this organically. And you know what? I bet all of nobody at the company even knew it. So although there is a lot to learn, they were on the right track.

Well, that is, until they dropped the ball on twitter. Twitter is now merely a platform to refer people to 511. End of story. How unfortunate. You can see my conversation to the right with the new @MetroNorthTweet – and the other people who just happened to chime in, which was never my intention, but thus the spirit of twitter. Since they don’t believe that people can actually be helped on twitter, I decided to come up with a list of times that I was helped by twitter… and for the record, I am sure there are many more that I do not remember.

• Goldens Bridge station was graffitied. Reported via blog and twitter. Was cleaned up within two weeks.

• Glass panels in the doors at Goldens Bridge were kicked in. Was repaired within a week.

• Was extremely irate due to being detained by a track worker who eventually called the cops on me for photography. After blogging and being angry on twitter about it, @MetroNorthTweet talked to me, and turned me into a friend. That on its own should be a fairly powerful statement, because I was seeing stars angry.

• As a personal favor to me, I requested that @MetroNorthTweet investigate a situation where I was trapped in an elevator at the White Plains train station. After being stuck for a half hour, by the time I was rescued by the fire department, my train had just arrived on the platform and I ran off to catch it. I felt bad that I did not appropriately thank them, and after Joe was able to figure out who it was that rescued me, I telephoned with my gratitude.

• Goldens Bridge station was again graffitied, reported on twitter and taken care of within a week.

• Reported via twitter that CooCoo was not appropriately serving schedules for Beacon – it only showed schedules for Beacon Falls. This bug has since been fixed.

• Me and countless others have reported things like air, heat, or announcements in train cars not working via twitter. @MetroNorthTweet always followed up on these for us. The real question is, if not on twitter, who would we even call about this, or even about vandalization in our stations? I’m not going to spend ten years talking to a robot and wishing and hoping for an operator that can speak English with 511.

Will someone please remind me, what month is this? Just a few days ago riders on the Harlem Line were suffering delays due to fallen leaves on the tracks. Now we have to worry about a massive snowstorm that has blanketed the area, knocking out power for many residents of both Connecticut and New York. The Harlem Line is notorious for its falling trees in heavy storms, and this snowstorm was no different. Service from North White Plains to Wassaic has been suspended for almost 24 hours now due to fallen trees. Grand Central was open throughout the night for stuck passengers – they were probably more lucky than the riders that found themselves stuck on a train yesterday evening. I did manage to dig up a photograph of yesterday’s storm damage, a photo from Hawthorne.

I am the Abominable Snowman, and I have shit snow on you, Harlem Line.

Hopefully service will be restored by tomorrow morning. In the interim, the now useless @MetroNorthTweet (who has given up on attempting to be useful on Twitter, such a shame) advises you to call 511 for absolutely everything – especially if you have any Abominable Snowman sightings to report.

Edit: Metro-North says normal Monday morning service is a go from Southeast on down the line. There will be bus service for stations north of Southeast.

In case you are unaware, I just wanted to let you all know that on Metro-North cows do not count as pets. People can, and do, take both dogs and cats on the train. That is a normal occurrence. However, one of my favorite questions to ask Metro-North employees is what is the craziest item you’ve ever seen a passenger attempt to bring on the train? I’ve heard quite the array of answers, from patio sets to snowblowers to sheetrock. Animals occasionally factor in – snakes, iguanas, (live) chickens… there are rumors of a goat on the Upper Harlem, but I’ve found no one to confirm this.

Anyone who is employed by Metro-North’s customer relations department is bound to have quite the experience in being asked some pretty crazy questions. I know that in my short stint as a phone tech in a computer service center I was asked (and told) some pretty crazy things. Thankfully, I’ve been on the opposite side of customer service questions for quite a few years. I am the stupid customer. Or perhaps more apt – the trickster.

Trouble always seems to be two steps behind me, and I can’t resist playing a little joke every now and again. In this case, I couldn’t resist messing around with @MetroNorthTweet – Metro-North’s presence on the social-media site Twitter. I will not lie – I was aware that Ted, the normal person behind @MetroNorthTweet, was not around and another person would be monitoring the account. Yeah, that probably played a little part…

First, I had to set the stage. I’m so proud of myself, I thought of this on the train platform.

Now, I assure you, I had no intentions of messing with @MetroNorthTweet solely to post it here. Just the fact that other people started chiming in made me decide later on that I should post this. In fact, it was probably the highlight of my day! Thanks Metro-North, and Chamelle for being such a good sport!

When I started this blog, the majority of it was observations about people I saw on the train, or while waiting for trains. I haven’t really done a post about my observations lately, but for the most part the majority of things I see are remembered as short tidbits, and nothing worth writing an entire post about. If I actually kept a diary, tidbits like these would likely be found inside… just quick thoughts about the things and people that surround me on a day-to-day basis. As I don’t really have anything to post today, I figured I’d leave you with a collection of some of my recent thoughts while riding the train. But rest assured, I am currently working on a pretty big project for the site, and when I (hopefully) debut it next week, I think you’ll all be pretty pleased.

People leave things on the train all the time. I was just thinking the other day, if someone was about to forget their phone, or bag, or wallet, I’d ask them if it were theirs, so they don’t get off the train without it. But then I realized what a terrible person I am – if you were about to forget a bag from Junior’s the only thing I’d say is, “that’s mine!” I don’t want your wallet, or your laptop. Just give me your cheesecake.

Sometimes the guy in the ticket booth at White Plains gets rather excited when he announces trains. Once I heard, “Now on trrrrack one is the train going to… nowhere. Never mind. This train only goes to North White Plains,” and, “Nooooooooowww on trrrrrack one is the 5:59 local trrrrrain to Southeast, making all local stops. Yes, this train will be making all the stops you know and love. Trrrrrrrack one.” I haven’t heard him lately, though. I wonder where he is.

When my train passes Mount Kisco in the evening, there is usually this dark-haired woman named Christine on the platform. I know nothing other than her name, and that she likes to laugh. Sometimes when the doors open I poke my head out and say, “Hello Christine.” I gave her my little card that has this website’s address on it once. Maybe she’s reading this right now. Hello, Christine!

Sometimes I see this girl on the platform when I wait for the train in the morning. She looks like she is in her early twenties, and has quite the assortment of Nike shoes and athletic attire. The only time we ever spoke was when she was drinking a bottle of soda and dropped the cap. We both watched, it was like slow motion, the cap hit the platform and rolled precariously close to the edge. I think I said to her, “Wow. I really thought that was going to fall!”

I have an overactive imagination. I also have a bad habit when I observe people, determining who they seem to resemble physically, and calling them that in my mind thence forward. Regular riders of my morning train are an older Sarah Palin, and an Amy Winehouse – minus the drugs.

I like to read books on the train, and I try to read a book per week. After calculating it out, I really only spend about six hours per week on the train – three of which are reading, and three of which are bullshitting with other people. It isn’t a lot of time when I compare it to hours using the computer. I probably am using the computer for ten hours, if not more, each week day. This is probably why I gained twenty pounds after graduating college.

Usually the train I take in the evening uses M3 equipment… though very rarely we have an M7 instead. The M7′s have that nice seat adjacent to the conductor’s cab, it is dark and quiet and away from all the other people. When I got on the train there was an old man sitting there. The next stop the train was going to be making was a short platform, so the conductor told people in the back of the train to move forward. A woman went to do just that, and the old man sitting by the door there just flipped out. “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK THAT SIGN IS THERE FOR?!?!” he shouted, while pointing at the sign to not cross through the cars while the train is in motion. The woman looked so afraid, like she was almost going to wet herself. The old man was relentless. Later on, after the old man had gotten off, I asked the conductor if he knew who he was. He told me the man worked for Metro North’s safety department. Too bad that detail was conveniently left out of his diatribe. I always wondered if she complained about the crazy man on her train…


In reality this cat’s name is Henry, and he is awesome

Walking to the train station the other day, this strange animal ran out in front of me. It took me a few moments to realize it was a cat, and not an ordinary cat, a three-legged cat. If I had a three-legged cat, I’d name him Tripod.

Sometimes the bus driver really freaks me out. One of these days he’s really going to flip the bus over. A few days ago he accidentally hit the curb so hard I was slammed into the window… and I have a several inch long bruise on my arm to prove it.

I follow @OWNEYtheDOG on twitter. For those who don’t know, Owney was a real dog that used to ride on mail trains back in the day. Owney was apparently murdered – shot dead, and was later brought to the taxidermist. He’s on display at the Post Office Museum in Washington DC. The thing that freaks me out is that whoever does the twitter posts as if they were that stuffed dog. This disturbs me. Even taxidermied dogs are on twitter! Next thing you know, my mother will be on there.

I’m used to people telling me that they like my hat. It does freak me out when they sneak up behind me and attempt to whisper it in my ear. Most especially if they reek of alcohol. However, the thing I really don’t get is why people during the summer ask me where my hat is. I may like hats, but I’m not an idiot.

My grandmother is wonderful. I think it takes only a little sip of alcohol to make her tipsy. She tells lots of good stories then… stories about the original Penn Station, of taking the train all over the country in the ’40s, being afraid her train was going to fall off the Horseshoe Curve… How she’d take the kids on the train and buy the cheaper child ticket, even though some of the kids were too old. Of course my one uncle would admit such to the conductor… the other just had such a bad temper, my grandmother told me she’d buy him rubber dog toys to take for the ride, he’d break all the regular toys.

When I get a text message, my phone makes the sound the M7 trains make. It baffles people at work meetings. It really baffles them when I’m riding my usual train – an M3. But then someone decides they’ll text me five times in quick succession. Then I just look like an idiot.

Everyone always wants to blame Metro-North, but sometimes it is the passengers’ fault that the train is late… like the time there was a man standing in the doorway that refused to move. Despite the conductor yelling at him, he still stalled the train.

I heard some news about banning smoking on the platform. I like this idea. I’d rather not be subjected to your disgusting and headache-inducing habit. Inevitably someone complains about the thought and says, “Remember when they even had smoking cars?” You know what I remember? The tar-black ceiling of Grand Central when I was a kid… all from cigarette smoke. Ah, yes. Nostalgia.

If I had to pick the station with the most obnoxious people, I’d likely pick White Plains. They are like animals there. They’ll push anybody over to board that train, even a little old lady with a cane. Because it is such a populated station, there are always going to be people running for the train and not quite making it. If the conductor kept the doors open for all of them, the train would never leave. When this happens the person usually shouts profanities at the conductor, and probably writes an angry note to Metro-North (I don’t think I could be a conductor, I don’t have thick enough skin). The most amusing part is that White Plains has the most trains of any station on the Harlem Line. In rush hour, there is another train in just five minutes. Is it really worth all that anger?

It is amusing to me how many people still attempt the old trick of hiding in the bathroom to evade paying the fare. Conductors should have mops available on all trains to give to these people. If they aren’t going to pay, and they are going to be in the bathroom, they might as well clean the damn thing while they are there.

The twitterverse is abuzz with news and photos of the fire that has suspended all Metro-North trains into and out of Grand Central Terminal. The fire is a trending topic in the New York area, and folks in the city, including the NY Fire Department, are posting pictures.

Metro-North’s statement below was sent to everyone that is subscribed to their alerts service.

Service is temporarily suspended in and out of GCT due to a fire in the vicinity of 138th Street Bridge.

As of 1:20 PM Metro North has issued the following statement regarding alternate methods of transportation:

Service remains temporarily suspended into and out of Grand Central due to a fire in the vicinity of the E. 138th Street Bridge.

Outbound customers departing Grand Central are advised to take New York City Transit’s 4 or D train to E. 161 Street where they can transfer to a Harlem, Hudson or New Haven Line train at Yankees-E. 153rd Street Station.

Inbound customers traveling to Grand Central are advised to do the following:

Hudson Line–Take a Hudson Line train to Yankees-E. 153rd Street Station and transfer to the 4 or D subway line.

Harlem and New Haven Lines–Take a train to Woodlawn Station for the 2 or 5 subway line.

During this incident, New York City Transit is honoring cross fares.

Metro-North released some images of their new Operations Control Center… and looking at those big screens… well, I couldn’t resist. Here’s what goes on in the control center after hours:

In all seriousness, the new control center looks pretty awesome, and it helps get your train to where it has to go on time. Metro North’s facebook page has more info, with a non-photoshopped image.

Every time I look at stock photography, I think my IQ drops a few points. I have seen some of the most stupid things in my life on stock photo websites. I wonder why in the hell people would ever purchase these images.

Case in point:

And guess what, this is model and property released! It could be yours! This image is great for all big businesses and trendy organizations looking for the perfect picture!

Interested in buying this image? You can buy it at Thinkstock! We advertise all over the internet about how wonderful our images are, and this is exactly what we’re talking about. Superior quality stock! EDIT: After one year, Thinkstock has finally come to their senses and deleted this piece of shit.

In fact, I couldn’t help but take one of Thinkstock’s real banners (that I see everywhere) and help them out a bit – added their best stock image onto the banner!

@LIRRScoop just tweeted a new video posted on YouTube, called the Gap Rap. I LOL’ed and had to share.

I do think @MetroNorthTweet needs to teach @LIRRScoop to tweet, properly post links, and not type in all caps…