If you’re looking to go to the victory parade for the Yankees tomorrow, Friday November 6th, Metro North will be running a few extra trains on both the Harlem and Hudson Lines. Extra cars will be added to trains on the New Haven Line.

The ticker-tape parade will begin on Broadway at Battery Place at 11 AM and continue uptown along the “Canyon” to Chambers Street, ending at 12:30 PM. At 1PM a ceremony will be held at City Hall Plaza, where Mayor Michael Bloomberg will present the Bronx Bombers with the Keys to the City. The ceremony will end at 2:30 PM.

The extra train on the Harlem Line will make the following stops:
Southeast: 8:30 AM
Brewster: 8:33 AM
Goldens Bridge: 8:43 AM
Katonah: 8:47 AM
Mount Kisco: 8:53 AM
Chappaqua: 8:59 AM
North White Plains: 9:10 AM
White Plains: 9:14 AM
Harlem-125th St: 9:37 AM
Grand Central: 9:48 AM

From Grand Central, you can take the subway, 4 or 5 train downtown to any of the following stations:
Fulton Street, Wall Street, Bowling Green or Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall. Additional subway and bus information can be found here.

Also, for anyone who rides the train in the Wassaic area, trains will not be running this weekend due to bridge work, November 7th and 8th. Instead, buses will ferry riders down to Southeast. These buses will follow the normal train schedule.

Ah, White Plains train station, you have the most interesting of people. I think all the rain we’ve been having lately has been stressing people out. The other day the taxis couldn’t seem to do anything other than honk their horns loudly at each other, prompting a rather unkempt looking man sitting on the benches to scream out, “SHUT THE HELL UP!”

Do you know what calmed that man down? Another strange man wanders over, singing “I’m here to save the day!” He sat next to the other man, and they began a conversation. The two of them, certainly a match made in heaven.

Another guy I tend to see at the train station is a man that despite the warm temperature, is always wearing a winter coat. He also gets into very animated conversations with himself. He does keep to himself, and doesn’t bother anyone, so that is always a good thing. While sitting around waiting for my bus the other day I watched him play a game with himself. I’m not quite sure what the rules of this game were, if there were any at all. But he had a handfull of coins that he would shake in his hand, as if he were about to roll some dice. Then he would throw the coins to the ground, count them, and then start the process again.

For all the crazies I see at White Plains, I’ve been told that the real crazies hang out on the trains to Wassaic. Apparently a man felt it necessary to use the train to take a patio bar set somewhere. And not in a box or anything like that. In pieces. When the train doors opened he brought one piece in, then went back out to pick up another piece, and then another. And during the winter, another passenger on the Wassaic train decided to to transport a snowblower. A gas reeking snowblower. Oh the intriguing people you see on trains…

Just as a last note, I know I mentioned once before seeing a lady that carried a clipboard, and I speculated as to what the clipboard was for, and what she was making notes of. Now I am not sure if this particular woman was in fact making notes for Metro North, but I noticed a young man on my train, every single day, carrying a clipboard and walking through the train cars making notes. After watching this for quite a while, I asked… apparently there are people with clipboards that make notes about train car temperatures or things like that. I figured I’d write that since I actually saw that some people found the blog by typing into a search engine mta what do clipboards people do. Apparently other people have typed in why do pigeons scream in the morning and ride the train sex, but I have nothing to say about that.

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…

If you buy a monthly ticket to ride Metro North then I am certain you noticed the increase in fare on your July monthly. We all knew it was coming, and I guess I am happy that the increase was not nearly as bad as it was supposed to be. Anyways, I always wonder about people who take the train down from Wassaic to Grand Central. I personally don’t know anyone who does… but there must be at least a few of them. But it is a long and expensive ride…

Before the fare increase:

After the fare increase:

$372 to $412… an increase of $40. Wow…

[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