port jervis line

May 29, 2015

Dashing Diesels – The Workhorses of Metro-North

While the good majority of service on Metro-North is operated by Electric Multiple Unit cars, the railroad’s dashing diesels handle the rest of the load – largely in the unelectrified territories of the Upper Hudson Line, Upper Harlem Line, and the Danbury and Waterbury Branches. West of Hudson service, operated by New Jersey Transit, is also dieselized, carrying passengers through New Jersey and into New York’s Orange and Rockland counties. Arguably, it is this diesel territory that is likely considered Metro-North’s most beautiful. Spots like Port Jervis’s Moodna Viaduct, views of the Hudson Line from the Bear Mountain Bridge, and...

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June 10, 2013

Musings on Station Names

You would think that the naming of a train station would be a rather simple and straightforward process… alas this seems to be far from true. If history has shown us anything, station namings (and even renamings) can turn out to be a political or even touchy subject – just ask all the Connecticut commuters that voted for their new Metro-North station to be called Black Rock instead of Fairfield Metro, and were denied (and less than thrilled). But the more interesting thing, to me at least, is how history plays a significant part in many of these names –...

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January 1, 2013

Tuesday Tour of Metro-North: A new system map

By now you are probably aware that I finally finished my three-year-long project to photograph every Metro-North station – all one hundred and twenty three of them. For my “final” Tuesday Tour post, I thought it would be nice to post a map which links to the photographic tours of every station. Though I’ve tried my hand at doing some Harlem Line maps in the past (they were crappy) and made an acceptable stab at a map of the West of Hudson Lines, I never really attempted a system-wide map. I’m not the biggest fan of Metro-North’s maps, especially how...

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December 28, 2012

Best of 2012, a year-end review

2012 has been an interesting year here at I Ride the Harlem Line… we finished up touring the stations on the New Haven, Port Jervis, Pascack Valley, and Hudson lines, as well as visited some places far outside Metro-North’s territory. As if that wasn’t enough, we also began our Grand Central 100 for 100 Project, posting one image every day for 100 days, all to celebrate Grand Central Terminal’s centennial. As is customary around the end of the year, let’s take a look back at what was most popular on the site this year, based on the number of reads…...

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September 21, 2012

The Harlem Line, and the color blue

Just the other day I was chatting with a coworker about riding the train – she lives in Mount Vernon and mentioned occasionally riding the “red line” into the city. I had to chuckle a little bit – it is usually the uninitiated newbies that refer to the Metro-North lines by their colors. The color of each line, however, is deeply ingrained in all of us. From the signage on the platforms to the printed timetables, we all pretty much know that the Hudson Line is green, the Harlem blue, and the New Haven red. But where did these colors...

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September 13, 2012

Revisiting the Moodna Viaduct

Last Sunday was a pretty big milestone for I Ride The Harlem Line – I finally completed the Metro-North Panorama Project… or at least the photography portion of it. I’ve now officially been to every Metro-North station, though it will take several more weeks to share them all with you. Throughout all of my explorations of the Metro-North system, my mind keeps coming back to one place that I really think is my favorite – the Moodna Viaduct. Last year I posted about the viaduct, so I am not going to rehash its history in this post. But suffice it...