With 4 of us going from my neighborhood to Fordham at an extremely early hour, a car service (for $10) seemed in order to make sure we made our train. At 6:26 we are in a taxi going down Fordham Road and over the University Heights Bridge, a Spanish Language morning news program is playing and I can decipher (I don’t know Spanish) a news story on the Metro-North incident.

We get to Fordham at 6:36 I jump out of the taxi and dash into the station to buy all of our tickets. Inside the station is a reverse from normal, there is no line at the TVM but a long one for the ticket window (At Fordham this isn’t often the case and I have a habit there of usually visiting the ticket window). My friends pay the car service and meet me on the platform, we have arrived across the street (where there is a staircase down to each platform) after telling the driver not to bother pulling a U-turn to get us directly in front of the station (and waste valuable time).

• The Westport-bound train comes in late at 6:42, we manage to find 4 seats together, by 7:04 were in Greenwich our first stop on this early morning reverse peak express that stops luckily at Fordham. No sign of a conductor. 7:12–We come to a stop outside of Stamford as they announce their waiting for the station to clear.
• 7:16–finally stop at Stamford, they simply say train to Westport and don’t announce any busing, I hope the website is right and were not supposed to switch in Stamford where the buses are discharging their New York-bound passengers. We again stop in the yard at Stamford.
• 7:22–Noroton Heights, all the LED signs say Good Service, something I find a bit ironic. I think the conductor has decided not to bother punching tickets.
• 7:32–South Norwalk, 7 minutes late. I think I hear something bus service over the hard to hear PA and dash out of my seat noticing a metro-north employee on the platform, he confirms that we need to stay on the train until Westport.
• 7:34–East Norwalk, middle 4 cars only

At 7:38 we get to Westport, we all get off the train and there are quite a few employees directing us to the underpass we take this to the opposite platform where there is a Norwalk Transit District WHEELS bus waiting for us for the ride to Bridgeport.

We board the bus and there is some discussion between the bus driver and Metro-North Cops and employees whether the bus is running non-stop via I-95 to Bridgeport or going via Route 1 to stop at Fairfield and Fairfield Metro (Southport and Green’s Farms have already been told, I think partially because of issues driving buses on the community’s narrow roads that they won’t have any replacement bus service). There a few people trying to get to Fairfield and the agreement is to take the slower Post Road (Route 1). Just before we leave a Metro-North employee snaps a few photos of us with his camera. The bus driver is a bit confused about the routing up to the Post Road so a Metro-North cop will lead and escort us to Route 1 in his car.
We finally leave the Saugatuck Road station at 7:44. I notice a variable sign directing bus traffic One Way and passenger traffic the other. We head up to the Post Road.

• 7:50 – finally at the Post Road. A few Shuttle Buses (using a combination of Wheels Transit Buses and I see a minibus) pass the other way, none too crowded.
• 7:58 – pass the sign for the Greens Farms station
• 8:07 – pull in front of the Fairfield Station. Some people get on thinking were going to Westport, there more cops then people outside. I notice a GBTA minibus in use as a shuttle bus.
• The bus diver announces to the bus: is just Bridgeport okay? We’re going to skip the new Fairfield Metro. I’m perfectly happy with this decision.
• 8:15 – Cross the Bridgeport city line. According to the schedule there is a New Haven Shuttle at 8:29, I’m wondering if we will make it. We pass a very crowded Coastal Link bus, a daily operation from Norwalk to Bridgeport that I’ll end up on one of these days when I finish the New Haven Line.

At 8:27 we get to Bridgeport and to a parking lot with mess of MTA buses, a combination of Low-Floor Artics and Express Buses. I see others from DATCO. I think they got more buses then they needed! The driver is a bit confused on where to discharge us. A cop boards the bus and announces we will exit the bus into traffic and to go up to the front of the station for buses to go back to New York or up to the platform for trains to New Haven. I snap a few photos as we rush up to the platform to catch the 8:29 train.

The M8 waiting for us, leaves on time at 8:29.

• 8:36 – Stratford, there is no one waiting to go in either direction. The conductor comes through and we finally get our tickets punched on this train for the first time today. Had I been alone with a bit extra time in Bridgeport I would have bought a new Bridgeport to New Haven ticket and used my still unpunched ticket for the ride home. He hands our three year old the now punched tickets, he’s friendly.
• 8:42 – empty Milford.
• 8:47 – through West Haven under construction. The conductor walks by and I ask if the train is continuing to State Street, closer to our destination (Some of the Shuttle’s are, I can’t remember if this one is) I get the confirmation of no.
• 8:50 – entering New Haven we pass an Amtrak shuttle train set. There is an Acela in the station. They are using it for the few regional trains to Boston, I wonder how the station stops of Westerly and Mystic are being handled with it.

We walk out and I get a picture of the solari board that seems to show a normal train schedule and not the correct schedule with Bridgeport as the destinations. There is just a note beneath the board about the service change. I also realize its time to add this Solari Board to the endangered list. New LCD screens are popping up along the tracks and in the main station.

We go outside and the Yale Shuttle is right there. Again perfect timing. The Yale dispatcher is really amusing saying “Your doing a great job out there” as we take the short trip to our destination. Total travel time from Fordham to New Havenwith the bus shuttle just slightly over two hours, not bad at all, having perfect timing for the transfers has helped tremendously. We feel very luckily

Coming home is another adventure:

We get back to Union Station at 7:48, I had only bought one-way tickets. I hit Fordham because, according to the website were on anomaly of a train that whose bus connection will connect to a train from Westport only to Stamford where the next train out of Stamford is a local out that will stop at Frodham. If we end up on an Express I’ll just pay the $3.50 difference and go via 125th street. I need to just get home. We leave into the sunset. The conductor coming through for tickets. She announces were on buses to South Norwalk for the bus (I know that the peak buses are leaving from there, maybe we are going back that way too).

• 8:04 – stop at empty Milford empty
• 8:07 – They announce track 4 for Bridgeport and wrong-railingwe slowly switch over the 4 track mainline as we cross the Houssantonic River.
• 8:10 – Stratford to an empty platform. It starts raining. A man gets on and the conductor comes for his ticket. He says Nagatuck (on the Waterbury branch), lacking a ticket, she tells him just to buy one at the machine in Bridgeport. She keeps making announcements for the bus.
• 8:15 – arrive in Bridgeport.

We walk through the underpass and out to the street to a Peter Pan Coach for what will be a non-stop express ride to South Norwalk. An employee comes aboard and reminds us the bus is going to South Norwalk only, and to get off and wait for the local shuttle bus for Fairfield and Westport. We hit I-95 without any traffic and I realize if loading had been slightly faster we might have made the 8:39 express train (stopping at Fordham). We pass a MTA Express Bus on I-95 with a MNR railroad destination sign. Time for the first longer layover of the day and home an hour later, at least this didn’t happen on the way up. We’re off the highway at 8:38. Arrive at the South Norwalk Station at 8:44.

We all head into the underpass and find out the next train is at 9:17 (they don’t mention another transfer at Stamford with a ten minute layover). A Westport-bound train arrives it deposits one bus load of passengers onto an MTA bus. I hear “At 9:30 there out if here, maybe local buses” from the employees at the line of MTA buses across the tracks. 9:17 comes and goes, I wonder what happened to it, it’s disappeared from TrainTime on the MTA’s website too and the unique sponsored LCD screens (top 3/4 ads, bottom few lines for train departures) in the station. The next train is now at 10:03.

• 9:42 – no sign of the 9:17, there a couple of employees on the opposite platform who are wondering too.
• 9:49 – They announce the next train on track 3 is for Grand Central.
• 9:51 – A train comes in I hear an employee say “Why is this train going so slow,” its a Shoreliner with the lights off in most of the cars in Push Mode. It turns out to be our special train to Grand Central that has entered special service after the 9:17 failed to show-up (I wonder if its just the 9:17 running extremely late).

At 9:53 we walk to the back of the platform (only the last 3 cars are open for passengers) and get on, the crew announcing we will be stopping at Stamford and Grand Central only. They do announce were skipping Harlem.
We finally leave at 9:55 with the bells going off to close the doors of the Shoreliner cars.

• 10:02 – come to a stop somewhere, another announcement is made, we are now stopping at 125th Street. The conductor comes through as we go through the yards at Stamford. I have my ticket and $3.25 out I tell him I want to go to all the way to 125th, he gives me the don’t worry about it wave. I put my money away. With the long delay I feel like its a good courtesy and I’m not skiving off of conductors not feeling like issuing on board tickets.
• 10:10 – a quick stop at Stamford quite a lot of people get off, just a few on. I read my book listening to the Shoreliner noises in the night. I’ve never ridden a New Haven Express on one before and the diesel locomotive pushing us makes everything sound so different. Following I-95 there isn’t too much traffic.
• 10:35 – look up from my book and realize were bypassing Botanical Garden on the espress track
• 10:42 – over the Harlem River Bridge and above Park Avenue
• 10:43 – arrive at 125th street I decide to go down to Grand Central as out of the way that it is and not deal with getting crosstown on 125th street this late at night and for a rare ride of mine into the rail terminal who’s tracks I find fascinating.
• 10:46 – Hear the ventilation go on and off twice over park avenue. I assume we’re finally dropping our third rail shoe into electric mode
• 10:47 – Enter the Park Avenue tunnel at 97 Street.
• 10:52 – Ventilation, but not lights go on and off as we come to a stop short of a platform. I guess our “extra” is waiting for a track assignment. I guess they have lighting taken care with third rail gaps on P32AC-DMs in electric mode. This is unlike Amtrak’s P32AC-DMs I’m used to riding into Penn Station with their lights frequently going on and off. I forgot how much I enjoy entering Grand Central.
• 10:55 – Finally on the move and arrive on track 36 at 10:57. A place I was a a week ago on the museum train! How unexciting.

I walk into the main concourse with a photo of the departure and arrival boards. I’m amazed Metro-North brought out an extra train for us, the next scheduled train from Westport is now arriving, less than ten minutes after us.

I head over to the 42 Street Shuttle that is running just one train this late at night (it fully shuts down at midnight making the 7 train the only crosstown option after that). The train is luckily leaving in 3 minutes sitting on Track 3 so I get on. At Times Square I walk down to the Uptown 1 train platforms, the next 1 train isn’t for 7 minutes (if a 1 train is in the station I’m planning to take it it to 59th Street to avoid the long walk through the 41 Street tunnel). I walk down the platform and head downstairs for the — mile walk underground all the way to the front of the A train platform beneath 44 Street and 8 Avenue. I have a routine now making the Shuttle to A train transfer if I have an Unlimited of just leaving the station and walking down 43 Street on the surface. An A Local (I local service is now starting earlier than before) soon comes into the station. I’m home before midnight.

All in all it was a very long day for a very special occasion I’m very happy I was able to attend. The MTA did the Bus Bridge the best they could considering the curcumstances. We just had bad luck coming home with the 9:17 train.

That firmed up my decision to get there early, sit on the floor and read my book. For once the A train arrived as I walked down the stairs to the platform. I got to 42 Street at 8:56 and I exit fare control (my routine for catching the Shuttle to Grand Central from the A train when I have an Unlimited MetroCard to not deal with the passageways and tunnel beneath 41 Street), walk down 43 Street and use the direct shuttle train entrance by track 4. The Museum train isn’t registering on the Countdown Clocks but the one regular Shuttle train in operation (on track 3) and the Museum Train arrive at the same time. I decide I might as well arrive to wait in line at Grand Central in style. I got in line at 9:12 in the 45th Street corridor after noticing another line looping through the Biltmore Room. Very soon the line starts moving. We slowly leave the 45th Street Passageway and start looping are way around the Biltmore Room, eventually we start going down the ramp to loop tracks 39 and 40 at the end of two M7s spending their weekends inside GCT.

We leisurely make our way down to the opposite end of the platform and the staircase down to the upper level of Grand Central North. Here they’ve but up a barricade to heard people around and provide more room for waiting, eventually were asked to form to lines and they have tables set up for a bag check. The MTA had posted before the event that backpacks wouldn’t be allowed and I decided to simply ware my camera and put my book in a plastic shopping bag.

Those without bags were allowed to cut ahead and at 9:35 (over 25 minutes early!) I was going back up the stairs to the platform for Tracks 37 and 36, They had sensibly decided to start early.

These two tracks were a bit of a disappointment. On Track 37, is 2008 BL-14 used by Metro-North for work and shunting service, a pair of M8s you could go into (I didn’t bother, I’ve been inside enough M8s), a 1952 Metro-North 605 Engine, an ACMU #1171, and a 1960 New York Central FL-9, the ACMU was closed for passengers, you could go in the M8s but I didn’t bother. One neat thing was the grills that surround the engines in the locomotives were open for the world to see. On the opposite track was Tonawanda Valley a still unrestored Pullman Observation/Sleeper Lounge Car (you couldn’t go inside), a 1910 US Railway Post Office Car from the Danbury Railroad Museum, and two cars of the 1949 Pheobe Snow Coach inspection train with a 1941 New York Central Coach in between them. The Phoebe snow cars weren’t open to the public and I was very disappointed not to set foot in Metro-North’s Business Train. Having a peak through the  windows I noticed quite a few 1980s armchairs facing inward and seats at the very ends of both cars where the windows wrap around. Last year, Beach Grove (the Amtrak’s President’s car was open for occupancy and I had a fun time exploring it). The middle car was open and is a strange car without any seats (I guess they were all put away if the layout is similar to the Phoebe Snow Cars) banners on the walls promoting Metro-North one day Getaways and a built in counter giving out brochures mainly about the getaways. It felt like a Metro-North advertisement.

I got to the end of this set of tracks and saw a long line in front of a sign for Hickery Creek. I realized this car I went into last year at the very same place (the end of track 35) and found no reason to wait in line. Letting passengers into this car is time consuming because of the bullet lounge it only has a door at its opposite end, requiring passengers to enter, loop around and come back they way they came instead of continuing through to the next car. There was a shorter line along the opposite wall and we were informed that the private cars hadn’t opened for tours yet. I jointed this line deciding I would skip Hickory Creek. The Hickory Creek Line hadn’t started moving before we were allowed to walk over to the entrance to the platform for Tracks 35 and 34 and down a long red, replica carpet that was rolled out to replicate the experience of boarding the 20th Century Limited. This platform (the train left from track 34) was the platform the last time the red carpet was rolled out for boarding when the 20th Century Limited made its last run in 1967. The carpet ended at a house plant.

Soon it was back into another short line to enter New York Central #43 and walk through the first set of private varnish cars, with 43 followed by the Wisconsin, New York Central #448, the Ohio River, Kitchi Gammi Club, and Birken. We reached a closed gate at the end of the Birkin car. Here are the interiors:

Next there was another very short line to visit another Budd Observation/Lounge Car, the Babbling Brook. I had had to wait for the last group to finish their 2 minute tour. This car had a drumhead logo for the New England States and some very comfy couches.

It was another, slightly longer line with barricades at the end of the platform to board the second set of Private Varnish to the other end of the platform. I got some platform photos.

I then walked through the other set of private cars Dover Harbor, Tioga Pass, Overland Trail, Pacific Sands, Salusbury Beach, these four cars had come out from Los Angeles and included a room that still has a barber chair with Jerry Gipple a retired barber living and sleeping in the room and offering haircuts to LARail.com guests, and the Berlin, Cimarron River and Montana. They even had with the prices for trips back to LA (their not sold out, leaving tomorrow):

Leaving the private cars I walked down the red carpet and got some exterior shots on the platform, it was quite a bit more crowded then earlier when I was one of the first to enter the tour.

I took my time and left the train platforms at 10:50, looked at my phone and realized I had perfect timing for the 11:00 Arts for Transit Tour. The destination signs at the track gates have historic replacements.

I went to the Transit Museum Annex for this tour with the Director of MTA Arts for Transit Director Sandra Bloodworth and Deputy Director Amy Hausmann. It was excellent taking us to see the two modern permanent installations in the station and the Lightboxes in the dining concourse that frequently change. It finished with a tour of the current Transit Museum Annex exhibition on OnTime: Grand Central Terminal at 100. Arts for Transit commissioned a number of contemporary artists for new work on the current station and the point of the exhibition finally hit me, how much Grand Central is part of our culture and how artists have and can reflect on the space.

I then headed to Vanderbilt Hall and wondered through the model train show talking to a few of the exhibitors. The best part was meeting three original employees of the 20th Century Limited that were being honored and provided and excellent connection to the history, in recreated uniforms.

It was a good morning at Grand Central for the Parade of Trains but I couldn’t imagine waiting for over two hours as the sign said the wait was when I left at about 1:00pm, to continue my day.

I got off the bus at Grand Central about 2:35. The first departure to North White Plains had left at 2:25. I first noticed a sign on the door of the terminal entitled Hurricane Sandy: After the Storm. The first thing I noticed wandering in was the departure monitor all blue for the Harlem Line and all ending at North White Plains with just one platform opened, tracks 36 and 37. I wandered into the terminal which was already full of tourists taking their photographs and some people trying to get to Westchester full of Luggage. Portions of the terminal were quite empty with just a few of usual shops open. One ticket window was open I also got pictures of the blank departures board with only the Harlem Line board on. The new information kiosk did nothing other than display the wrong time and the pre hurricane service message. Most of the platform gates were fully closed but I got a few photos where they were open. I also got closed entrances inside the station. To the shuttle passage was just police tape beyond locked doors. The best photos were of the main escalators down to the subway station’s large mezzanine. This entrance has a service status screen above it so I also got photos of all suspended I eventually noticed the arrivals monitor and that the first arrival into New York City was due at 3:01, I wandered over to the one open platform (full of people getting on the train to North White Plains), and managed to get photos of the first train to arrive in Manhattan since Sunday Night!

Again a 65 photo gallery, I don’t really like this format but its the most efficient way to get photos up quickly:

Eventually I left when I noticed BusTime said a bus on the BxM1 was less than a stop away I dashed over to Third Avenue to catch it.

When we got there we saw the exhibit train on track 4 and wondered over to it. We ended up taking two trips through it (everyone enters at one end and exits through the gift shop). On the first one something with the HEP locomotive happened and the power went out (the converted baggage cars don’t even have emergency lights), so we left briefly taking some surrounding pictures before going back in for another tour. See my section on the train for all the information and my opinions with 26 exterior photos, and 60 of the interior. Yes there are mannequins waring Amtrak uniforms from different eras!

I then did an abbreviated photo essay of some of the New Haven Station (which I’m not in the position to make the pages for at the moment, I’ve got to finish Boston), and would have stayed for another hour but had dinner plans back in NYC so I boarded the 2:56 train and got off at Stamford to transfer to the local train to Fordham where there was a bit of confusion about where the train would depart from since it was leaving from the opposite platform but the trainset of a shuttle from New Canaan was across the platform from the express I walked across and it seemed to take a while for the local to enter and something about the lights of the train looked a we bit different. It was this:

A new M8 entered the station that was complete with a new train smell from the leather and by the time I got off at Fordham every seat was taken. For an easy Bx12SBS to 207 Street and the A train to 181 Street ride home. All I can say is there a nice improvement from the M7s, the seats feel (and are) a bit wider because the cars themselves are, built to not such narrow requirements like the M7s because of the LIRR. It was a nice way to end an interesting but bit long with 4 hours on a train to spend two hours somewhere trip.

Wednesday started with me having a nice 2 mile walk part way with my Brother to the Yankee-E 153 Street Metro-North Station, there I bought a ticket to Poughkeepsie, took a local to Terrytown and transferred to my diesel train to Poughkeepsie-(30 photos and a page summery added) where I had a tiny-bit over an hour layover (if I had taken the next train it would have been two minutes), and did a substantial photo essay of the historically restored with renovations just completed station.

Next I took crowded Empire Service Train #281 which left at 11:46, 10 minutes late, a quick hop until 12:07 for a photo essay of Rhinecliff, NY-(60 photos!). This station is in the middle of a tiny hamlet, but has an excellently restored NY Central Station house and view of the Hudson. I was hungry and had planned to use by layovers for Lunch but the hotel and local closed Chinese restaurant nearby along the river looked far too elegant. I photographed a Southbound before my next train, #233 finally arrived 20 minutes late at 1:40.

It was another quick hop on a fairly empty foodless Empire Service train that was only going as far as Albany to Hudson, NY-(36 photos). Here I immediately started walking into the charming little town and stopped at the first restaurant I found called Mod, and had a nice time reading my book and eating an overpriced sandwich, before I knew it it was time to return to the station to finish my photo essay of New York State’s oldest continuously operating station house, so I could get on my next train #283, it came in 20 minutes late at 3:37PM.

It was than an uneventful ride to Syracuse where we arrived on time with by far the shortest layover I’ve had in Albany where I did not even bother to detrain as I typically do. Writing these webpages on the train, unable to upload them until now due to my Grandmothers lack of internet.

My Return on Saturday:
The trip to Syracuse was quite eventful in my website’s worldas me and my Grandmother finalized a trip to British Columbia to go on a Rocky Mountaineer Vacation for this October, which will then bring me to finishing the Pacific Northwest for this website and probably another cross-country trip on the Empire Builder (want to see if my more experienced non-16 year old self still finds it so amazing).
My return I thought would be a typical Syracuse-NYP ride until Friday when my Grandmother was talking about how she was going to drive to Rome to visit a client after she dropped me off at the station. I had luckily already picked-up my ticket (Rome is an unstaffed station) and decided to go with her to get another photo essay of an excellently restored NY Central Train station: Rome, NY-(40 photos). I’m now missing just four out of 16 Empire Service Stations!.

It was another uneventful ride back to New York, me working on the website on my laptop. I got off in Albany and had a conversation with our incoming conductor for New York who commented on my Expos cap. When I got to Penn Station about ten minutes late, I was planning to meet a friend coming down on Train #163 from Kingston, RI, he though was delayed because of bridge issues in Mystic (we discussed by cell phone) but when I got up to the central lobby the big board showed his train down to Washington as On Time so I was optimistic and then confused when the Arrival TV monitors said his train was 55 minutes late. Shortly Train #163 was announced as “The Make-Up Section of Train #163.” I asked one employee who made it sound like the train was there before asking the employee checking the tickets of departing passengers at the top of the escalator who told me the train would arrive in 45 minutes. Guess Amtrak originated the Trainset for the next hours Regional #159 (due to depart at 5:05) an hour early and had the rest of Train #163 coming down from Boston make-up that train’s stops.

The two of us then went to meet other friends to see the final installment of Harry Potter (via a crowded Q train to Brooklyn) and when I finally went home around midnight it was a bit of an eventful journey at Chambers Street where the uptown A trains were bypassing running via the F due to track work. It was late and I refilled my MetroCard with the agent who told me to take the E, as I noticed the note on the whiteboard. I said my goodbyes to my Brooklyn-bound friends on the mezzanine before walking down the E platform with a train stopped and having the doors close right before I could step-aboard, not wanting to wait the 20 minutes for the next one I decided to walk down to the 2 train (partially planning to check the countdown clock but Chambers doesn’t have them) but it arrived almost immediately and I took it to 59 Street (running local because it always does during late night hours, but a weekend G.O. was also closing South Ferry making the 1 terminate at 14th Street so it would have done this anyway), and my A local came almost immediately.

	Poughkeeps (10 photos)
	Harriman (32 photos)
	Newark International Airport (12 photos)

Actual photos of the AirTrain Newark Monorail, (and the second half of my trip-the trip back home to Colorado), should be coming next!

Hartsdale (16 photos of the station, and 11 of the artwork)

I’m getting quite close to being done with the rest of Toronto, so it should be coming soon.
Also, I’ve changed the .php for the photo tables so they will look a bit less ridiculous saying “Photo by Jeremiah Cox” beneath every photo, now just the date will be displayed, now in a smaller font too. Hope this change makes the photo descriptions a bit easier to read.