I Ride The Harlem Line

Tagged: historical timetables

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Metro North is 30 – A Collection of Tickets, Timetables & more History

With Grand Central Terminal celebrating its centennial this year, most people have been so utterly focused on that event that they’ve forgotten another birthday (myself included). Metro-North Railroad is now 30, and has come quite a long way since its inception in 1983. Grand Central was restored to greatness, as opposed to being a dirty homeless shelter. For the most part, especially with the new M8’s, the railroad operates with decent equipment – not whatever the desperate railroad could scrounge up to have enough cars to operate. Several other commuter rail services that were also run by ConRail in the...

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Daily Boredom: Old timetable art turned into posters History

There is nothing that I love more than the art on old timetables. And when I say old – I mean old – like 1800’s old. SmartCat has a few of these old timetables on display, including the oldest timetable I personally own – printed in 1865. There is just something beautiful about these bits of rail history, they are not just functional, but attractive – something timetables seem to have lost in the many years since. As a graphic designer, I love the unique typography, as well as the illustrations found within. When I got bored on the train...

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The rat that ate my timetable… Advertisements History

Kids that ride the subway to school, take notice: I have a new excuse for you. Forget the dogs, say the rats ate your homework! These loathed (and sometimes giant!) rodents can be found all around the subways (and you can rate them, too!). Most people want them out of sight, but me, I’m looking for a specific rat. He’s probably long dead, but in his stomach you will find a little bit of history – namely portions of one of my most recent acquisitions. Despite it being munched on, I could not resist the purchase of an 1884 Harlem...

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Timetable Art of the New York Central Observations History

I’ve certainly mentioned it on this blog before… I’m terrible at finishing things. Oh, I am so brilliant at starting them. I always have the most wonderful ideas for things, for projects. But the majority of the time, they never make it out of my head and into reality. And the few that I do happen to act upon, well, many of them are never completed. I am very bad like this. At least a year ago, maybe even longer, when I first became interested in railroad timetables, I made a little poster showing some of the New York Central’s...

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Holiday Trains & Old Holiday Timetables Trains

Looking to take the train for the holiday? Metro-North has you covered with pre-Christmas early getaway trains, Christmas eve, and Christmas day service, as well as New Years trains. Check out the Holiday Service page on the Metro-North website, or the Early Getaway Trains schedule on their Facebook page. And if you’re in a particularly holiday-cheerful mood, check out some railroad holiday/winter brochures and timetables from my collection…

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Early Harlem Line Timetables, and new timetable catalog Trains History

Quite a while ago I started up a minor project, what I called the Historical Archives. My goal was to collect as much old paper history of the Harlem Line and assemble a museum of sorts – timetables, maps, tickets, photos, and news articles – digitize it, and put it online for everyone to view, completely for free. (There are folks in the city that have better collections than I, such as the Transit Museum and the NYPL, but these are kept under lock and key, and you can’t have them unless you shell out the dollars.) Anyways, the more...

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