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A Journey Underground – East Side Access Photos

Over the one hundred plus years of its existence, Grand Central Terminal has reinvented itself many times to keep pace with the needs of its customers. When long range passenger trains were the norm, passengers could sit and watch a movie at Grand Central’s theater while waiting for their train to depart, or sit in the Terminal’s grand waiting room in Vanderbilt Hall. Today, all of the long distance trains have disappeared, replaced with Metro-North’s commuter service where trains are frequent enough that one rarely has to wait long. While today’s dashing commuter would have little use for a theater,...

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Meet TIM – Metro-North’s new credit card enabled Ticket Issuing Machine Trains Photos

As most of you have likely heard by now, Metro-North has begun a pilot program testing new Ticket Issuing Machines (TIMs) on the Upper Harlem Line (or as Metro-North would call it, the Wassaic “Branch”) and the Danbury Branch. The big news about these machines is that they accept credit cards – something conductors selling tickets have long been unable to do. I got a chance to check out one of these new machines, and must admit they are quite cool. Slim and light compared to the previous TIMs, these new machines are essentially tricked-out iPhones running special software. Wrapped...

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Subway cat: Update Museums Photos

Despite all of the interesting places I’ve visited and featured on this site, by far one of the most popular subjects I’ve ever posted about is Sadie the Subway Cat. We first featured Sadie back in 2010, and had a nice photo feature on her earlier this year. Sadie is the resident cat at the New York Transit Museum, or rather, she was, up until recently. For all the Sadie fans out there, I figured I’d pass along the news that she has recently retired… and she seems to be enjoying her time as a retiree! Sadie worked at the...

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Have you checked out “The New York Commuter’s Glossary” yet? Trains Humor

Have you checked out “The New York Commuter’s Glossary” yet? If you haven’t yet heard of the book, it is a humorous little collection of words and illustrations related to the art of commuting. It was written by Mike Malone – who is the man behind Train Jotting, illustrated by the awesome Joe Walden, and of course, designed by me. You can buy copies online, or if you happen to be in the White Plains area, Gary Waxman is selling copies at his newsstand in the train station. You can also find it at the Village Bookstore in Pleasantville. Gary...

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Weekly News Roundup, 12/17 Trains

Here were some of the most interesting and relevant news stories to be talked about this week… Extra Holiday Trains Metro-North will of course be offering additional trains for the upcoming holiday, starting on Friday afternoon and continuing on Saturday and Sunday. Permut looks to expand the Port Jervis Line Metro-North President Howard Permut was the railroad’s Vice President of Planning before landing his current gig… so he’s got a pretty good sense of where and how things ought to be improved. Not only is he eyeing the New Haven Line for big improvements, but he’s also looking at service...

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Reasons why I’m crazy for CooCoo… Observations

I’ve mentioned it a few times on here, but I absolutely hate Metro-North’s phone information line. Back in the day you would call up and hit the first few letters of the station you were going to on your keypad. It was rather simple. Unfortunately, the system was “upgraded” to a voice recognition system that worked like crap. You would say your station name, and provided there was no background noise, only then would the system understand you. Anotherwords, if you were anywhere in the entire fricken city of New York, the schedule system didn’t work. But it would sure...

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