FrontRunner South (plus some north additions):

• Farmington–(75 Photos added)
  
• North Temple–(44 Photos)–The new transfer infill station
  
• Salt Lake Central Station–(33 Photos)–Trains run south and both platforms are tracks are regularly used.
  
• Murray–(34 Photos)
  
• South Jordan–(51 Photos)
  
• Draper–(64 Photos)
  
• Lehi–(57 Photos)-A FrontRunner Station with an underpass
  
• American Fork–(60 Photos)
  44
• Orem–(54 Photos)-including the “Safety Buffalo”
  
• Provo–(47 Photos)
  

Amtrak and Historic Stations:

• Provo, UT–(26 Photos)
   
• Salt Lake City Amtrak Station–(16 Photos)
  
• Salt Lake City Union Pacific Station–(14 Photos)
  

Finally, a fewSalt Lake City TRAX Photo Additions:

• Sandy Civic Center-(5 Photos)
• Murray Central-(5 Photos)
  
• Arena-(6 Photos)–with the Green Line terminating in a median, now no longer done since the Airport Extension has opened
  
• Planetarium–(5 Photos)
• Salt Lake Central–(4 Photos)

Enjoy!

• Frank R. Lautenberg Secaucus Junction Rail Station (at Allied Junction)–(Rebuilt with 138 new photos) and a very long summery
  

I also got a couple more of the northern stations on the North Jersey Coast Line up, one including both its historic and modern station:

• Aberdeen-Matawan–(63 Photos)
  
  • Historic 1875 Matawan Station-(46 Photos)
    
• Hazlet–(96 Photos, including artwork)
  

Also the fist diesel only stop on the Montclair-Boonton Line and a bonus station closed in 2010 because of low ridership:

• Little Falls–(18 Photos)
  
• Great Noch (closed 2010)–(14 Photos)
  

Enjoy!

The details of my trip:

This was a very spur of the moment trip, I was at home, writing yesterday’s blog post about my bike ride, planning to take another just recreational bike ride today, when I noticed this post on Amtrak Unlimited, the only message board I normally follow about Senator Frank R. Lautenberg’s Amtrak Funeral train from Secaucus Junction down to Washington. It is about 12:25, I do a quick glance at the Pascack Valley Line and Route 171 Bus Schedule, eat some lunch and walk down the hill to the bus station.
At the bus station I stop at the TVM to buy my overpriced $4.25 bus ticket to Hackensack. If I had time to walk over the bridge the fare would have been only $2.35.
A bus for route Route 171 has pulled up early although it doesn’t leave until 10 minutes after us. At 1:08 the 175 pulls up to stop. There is a problem with a passenger who lacks change and the driver doesn’t have any dollar bills. NJT is the last public bus company that use transit buses I know of that still has drivers make change on many routes. Another passenger gives him change. We go over the bridge passing a large traffic jam going the other direction.
This time I don’t panic and get off early but ride the bus on its long ridiculous loop via Route 4 to serve no passengers instead of going directly over the Hackensack before I get to Anderson Street -(23 Photos added) at 1:39, their building something, signs on the platform announce a new shelter is under construction effective March 18th. I guess New Jersey Transit for once is improving on just having bus shelters.

At 2:07 the train comes in I get on and the conductor, seeing my SLR that’s out (I didn’t bother to photograph the cab car entering) says “Please don’t take pictures sir”. I board the first Comet V (all NJT) and head to the front. He comes back to collect my ticket and I ask him if no photos a new policy. The response is its post 9/11 and that he’s seen the cops yell at people at Hoboken but there is nothing the crew can do from a moving train.
We make the quick stops at Essex Street and Teterboro where the fence is still intact.
South of Teterboro we meet a northbound train on the siding while we’re still rolling but still come to a stop briefly for the switch to reset itself.
2:18 – Woodbridge, I notice the station house I’ve never been inside closes at 1:00pm. I’ll need to get back there.
2:20 – Plank interlocking and then the wye formed by the Meadowlands spur I need to ride. Fittingly it’s south interlocking is named Sport. The agent comes back again and is super friedly telling me to have a good day as he collects my seat check.
We go through the Meadowlands and join the Bergen County line before making my second crossing of the Passaic in as many days. We arrive in Secaucus Junction at 2:27. I don’t get any photos of the lower-level getting off and walk into the station. I walk up to the lower overpass and find tons of mainly New Jersey police officers in what are dress uniforms standing guard in the station, not their usual all in one place location. I head up to the central rotunda and find a bunch of chairs set up in one corner and a simple microphone (no lectern). There also a bunch of regular NJ Transit employees waring customer assistance vests.

Then I head outside (Secaucus only has one exit from the main station plus a second elevator bank) and do a quick loop of the station. I don’t end up taking any pictures. The huge police presence makes me a bit too nervous and my main goal is to photograph the train, not the security prescience outside the station  There quite a lot of cops waiting for the motorcade with the north driveway (used for taxis and passenger pick-up/drop off) completely closed off by cones. There are a couple of large RVs that are New Jersey Transit’s mobile units and also a Flexible bus that is their mobile command center. I also notice all the news trucks in the normally, small employee parking lot. I check my iPhone and find out the motorcade has left late, so I will be here longer than I think.

I head inside the station and stop at Ducken Donuts for a snack. I then find a spot on a bench near some other commuters between trains to eat my donut and watch as the concourse gets more and more crowded. Soon I notice a man with a distinctive mustach (and an Amtrak lanyard), I assume its Joesph Boardman, the President and CEO of Amtrak.

Eventually at about 3:25 I see people walking in with what look like service programs with Sen. Lautenberg’s photo on the front.

At 3:30 the bagpipes start and the casket (draped in the American flag) is escorted into the station by police officers (I was desecrate with my photos). The Honor Guard do the ceremonies (I don’t have a great view). There is one sound I will never forget from the ceremony; The silence when the bagpipes stopped playing interrupted by one noise, the flip-flip-flip of the Solari boards that line the concourse, changing track locations.

This is followed by the one speaker, Rabbi Daniel Cohen. I start listing to my remarks and realize its time to descretely go down to the middle platform at 3:46. I go up to the fare gates and try twice but get error messages. A friendly agent comes up to me to examine my ticket and says there’s a star on it. (It’s printed in the upper left corner). She tells me that means the ticket doesn’t work (the magnetic strip must be defective) she writes a small X in a ballpoint pen beneath the * and lets me through the fare gates

I go down to the island platform for tracks A and B. The special Amtrak funeral train is on track 1 with this consist:

• AEM7 #928
• Heritage Baggage Car #1762
• Amfleet Cafe/Club #48140
• Amfleet I Bussiness Class #81512
• Amfleet Office Car “Beach Groove” #10001

It’s parked deep within the building of the main concourse above so I don’t get too many decent photos of it:

At 3:54 I hear the bagpipes on the platform and see the casket getting rolled down it by the NJT honor guard soon it goes past the locomotive and out of view.

I head to the open air front of the platform where a MidTOWN Direct Montclair Train stops in the station and a bunch of transferring commuters get off. A couple express trains that skip the station roll through as well. A Southbound Keystone and Acela also pass. Much to my surprise there is no police presence on the island platform but a number on the side platform for track 1. The most noticeable is a police dog standing at the exposed front of the platform.

I notice the front lights go on on the AEM7 and at 4:14pm with barely a toot of the horn the casket of Senator Frank R. Lautenberg riding in a car that he never road in at any point during his life (I assume), a windowless Amtrak Heritage Baggage Car that is nearly 60 years old, originally built as a 44 seat coach for the Southern Pacific in 1954. The unusual train leaves and I notice the bright track inspection lights of Beach Grove bringing up the markers.

At 4:16 another Amtrak train comes to a stop on Track 1. It is a normal Northeast Regional Consist of 7 Amfleets with a Buissiness Class Car just behind the lcomotive. I wonder if its for the press. While its in the station a HHP-8 pulling another typical Regional consist zooms by on Track B. The Amtrak Train on 1 leaves as this train has finished passing it, giving me the photo of two Amfleet I rear red lights bringing up the rears of these trains.

I notice three Amtrak baggage handlers with a hand cart and hard hats waiting on my platform. They get on the 4:17 NJ transit train to Jersey Avenue (it skips Elizabeth). I assume they were the ones brought out from Newark Penn to load the coffin onto the baggage car after the Amtrak Honor Guard relieved the New Jersey Transit Honor Guard at the door to the baggage car. I see them standing in the vestible as the train departs (its mostly Comet II and IIIs, no middle doors).
I’m waiting on the next train to Elizabeth (the scheduled 4:26 heading to Aberdeen-Matawan) although I’ll be getting off in Newark. At 4:30 it arrives. They then announce the portal bridge is open and were waiting, We leave at 4:40. Going slowly with tons of train traffic piled up from the bridge opening. I think the Funeral Train got through before the opening but have no way of knowing. I’m sitting in an aisle seat so no sightseeing.
At 4:51 I finally get to Newark. I go down to the Amtrak ticket window to resolve a question I have about a complex reseravtion I’ve made (using AGR points) for my trip to California. Everything is exactly how I was told over the phone, the issue is Amtrak can’t send out to eTickets to the same reservation number and me and my friend that I’m traveling with are going different portions of the sleeper I’ve booked.

I then head up to PATH for an uneventful ride empty to World Trade Center. I’m in the front car and can barely get out the doors of the train and up the stairs to the mezzanine since their so jammed with commuters on their ways home, going the  opposite way.

I decide to walk over to Fulton Street and at 5:35 I get there. I hear the ominous “After an earlier incident Uptown trains are running with delays, the next uptown A train is at Hoyt-Schmerhorn street.”
5:45 – the platform keeps getting more crowded and I decide to do the High Street trick and take a C train out there to double-back. Get to High Street at 5:49 to an uptown A train arriving with plenty of seats Clearly the second to arrive. I get on and choose my preferred seat back at Fulton at 5:52. It’s a slow ride entering stations since we’re clearly trailing another train.
6:36 – I get to 181 street, to a huge crowd at the elevators (and only two working) I get on one as yet another train arrives since all the trains are backed up after whatever this ‘earlier incident was.’

Finally, may Senator Frank Lautenberg, a great statesman and supporter of public transportion Rest In Peace. I will never forget the flipping noise of the Solari boards between the bagpipers.

Without further ado here are the photo essays (so far) of the three subway platforms at 42 Street Grand Central:

• 42 Street Shuttle–(51 Photos, plus 20 of artwork)
  
• Lexington Avenue Line (4,5,6)–(67 Photos)
  
• Steinway Tunnels/Flushing Line (7)–(27 Photos plus 12 of the artwork)
  

Enjoy!

The R1-9s were supposed to provide this trip but the re-inoguration ceremony took longer. I am standing on the platform at  Rockaway Park-(53 Total Photos) and board the R1-9s shortly before noon. I then notice an S train across the platform with its doors open, an employee tells me it will leave first and that the R1-9s will make all regular express stops except run non-stop from Howard Beach to Euclid Avenue. I board the shuttle train, we leave at 12:01, I’m on the first revenue service Rockaway Park Shuttle Train to run in almost exactly seven months. I chat a bit with an MTA executive who tells me its totally fine that with my website and as a blogger I took the dignitaries train.

I get off at the next stop at Beach 105 Street-Seaside-(40 photos, plus 5 of the platform artwork) at 12:04. There is no one getting on at this stop, (it has the lowest ridership out of any on the New York City subway system, this is a common occurrence). I get the honors of being the first regular revenue passenger to step off a train and onto the platform. I head downstairs and find the token clerk not sitting in his booth but about to go back inside from the street. He asks me if the special train has passed. I say it is in Rockaway Park and was running a little late. He says “I wanted to see it.” I make a point of leaving fare control and getting another street photo (I stopped at this station still closed a few hours before) and get the non-acknoleged honors of being the first revenue passenger to swipe their MetroCard (mine is an Unlimited, I wouldn’t have wasted $2.25) at Beach 105 Street-Seaside. Towards the end of my visit the first Rockaway Park-bound Shuttle train with passengers stops, it then sits in the station waiting for a track to clear at Rockaway Park, one is occupied by the next Broad Channel-bound Shuttle train, the other by the R1-9s.

At 12:35 after the Shuttle left the station to make a long relay run in the middle tracks at Howard Beach (their still fixing the lay-up track in the middle of the flats) the R1-9 Museum train finally entered passing the new sea wall. I get a picture of the back of the train with the banner that should say Rockaway Here We CAme! a bunch of contractors get off to get back to work fixing Broad Channel (they had a slightly extended lunch break to go to the ceremony).
  
We go back and north out of Broad Channel over ‘The Flats’ new fencing is being put along the new, temporary roadway on the non-Sea Wall side of the tracks. One thing I notice is how the tracks clearly haven’t seen trains as much. There is some of the brown coloration that tracks receive when no train has rolled on them in some time. Normally subway tracks with their nearly constant daily use have the complete silver color of frequently used tracks.
  

We head back up and over the North Channel Swing Bridge and by all the fishing boats again, its stop and go a few times waiting for the Rockaway Park shuttle to switch into and out of the middle tracks at Howard Beach since the sidings in the flats aren’t repaired yet.

Entering Howard Beach we pass a Shuttle Train terminating in the middle of the station before making quite a long stop arriving at 12:58 leaving at 1:01. Lots of people, mainly members of the media (there were at least two TV newsmen riding the R1-9s back to their trucks parked outside of Howard Beach)

We then start a non-stop express run via the local tracks to Euclid Avenue, first we pass Aqueduct-North Conduit Avenue-(3 Photos)

The train than left the abandoned Long Island Railroad Right of Way and rose up and onto the Liberty Avenue el. We caused a Manhattan-bound A train heading from Lefferts Blvd to wait partially in and partially out of 104 Street-Oxford Ave-(3 Photos)

We skip Rockaway Blvd and 88 Street before passing Bayside Cemetery

Then bypass 80 Street and gradually head down and underground through the tunnel portalat the Brooklyn/Queens border

We skip Grand Avenue and stop at Euclid Avenue-(1 Photo) at 1:12

It’s a quick express run to Broadway Junction. There the train gets genuinely crowded with people starting to stand.

Then Utica followed by Nostrand Avenue-(1 Photo from today, 3 more recently that I hadn’t gotten around to uploading)

We stop at Hoyt-Schmerhorn Street (I try and get a photo of the abandoned platforms but they come out way, way too dark and my elderly camera I discovered has flash issues), Jay Street and High Street. With a burst of wind we zoom under the East River and get to Fulton Street and back in Manhattan at 1:37. A bunch of Japanese tourists get onto my car. The train is standing room only.

Nice reactions from waiting passengers at 14 Street-(1 Photo)

Also at the next stop of 34 Street-(1 Photo)

We stop at 42 Street and then 59 Street-(2 Photos)

Its a nice fast express run from 59th to  125th. At 125 Street we wait to make a connection with a C train across the platform.

We stop at 145 Street and at 2:09 we arrive at Wash. Hts. 168th Street (this station I really need to rebuild and will include these photos when I do).

A totally empty A train comes into 168 Street right behind the museum train and I decide to ride it uptown to see if I can see the train inside the yard tracks within Dyckman Street. It isn’t visible so I continue to 207 Street, exit and walk over to 10 Avenue and go up to the Uptown platform to see if the train is visible in the yard. It isn’t there either and I run into another rail fan that I recognize and ask him if he’s seen it, he hasn’t and immediately hopped on the 1 train when we arrived at 168 Street (he did wait 7 minutes for it) and in that time perhaps the museum train got into the yard and entered the indoor shops. (The repainted Redbird SMEE cars are the historic cars visible in the photo)

I take an uptown 1 train to 215 Street and get a few more photos of the northern end of the shops from there. No sign of the R1-9s, just the remains of the R110B prototype experimental train set.

I walk back to 207 Street-(4 artwork and 1 station photos) on the A and finally get some more artwork photos of the mosaic inside the street elevator shaft.

I swipe back in and head home after this very successful Rockaway Here We Come! (Again) trip.

Today, for the First Time Since Sandy:

As of Noon today the subway is fully an officially back with service to every station! The MTA reopened the line in style sending out the Museum train first full of dignitaries (from the MTA and FTA, no elected officials bothered to show up) from Howard Beach, to a short event at Broad Channel and followed by the podium and speeches at Rockaway Park. The R1-9s were supposed to run in revenue service as the first public train from the Rockaways back to 168 Street but the ceremony ran late so a regular Shuttle Train was the first train to depart Rockaway Park at 12:02pm. I headed out to ride the inaugural train and photograph the festivities in 90 degree heat, the first real day of Summer temperatures, a very fitting re-beginning for subway service to the Rockways.

My Day south to Rockaway Park aboard the dignitary special and Photo Updates:

The morning began on my last (until the next G.O. takes away service over the Rockaway swing bridges) Howard Beach-bound A train,  leaving 181 street at 7:35am. I’m slightly aggressive with “seat, seat, seat.” and snag one. It’s an uneventful ride except for a beggar in a wheelchair who tells us about his displaced life in the Rockaways that had made him unemployed and homeless. He mentions ID with the Rockaway Park address for anyone who wants proof. I get off at Fulton Street at 8:11, and notice the Fix&Fortify service restored as of noon today sign in the train car window.

I hop on a Citi Bike (I’m an inaugural Yearly member) and arrive at pier 11 at 8:20. The pier is empty from a lull in the morning arrival of boats. I walk the pier and find a big signage issue. No signs for the location and slip of the Rockaway Ferry.

I then find two signs about ferry service to the Rockaways the emergency $2 ferry I’m taking (who’s service has been extended six weeks into the summer) and a weekends only for profit service ($20 one-way, $30 round-trip) to the Rockaway Beach.

I ask the woman in the New York Waterway ticket office who doesn’t know but says the ferry is arriving. The slip arrives at 8:31 on Slip-C1. A good crowd gets off there me and about six people, mainly beach goers get on. There also a few people I learn who are heading out to the Rockaways to visit family.

I hand over my $2 and board the Martha’s Vinyard exprss. I walk though the main lower deck cabin and pass a sign in the bar. The crew is clearly sick of answering questions.

I head upstairs to the outdoor sun deck and head back outside. We leave at 8:35 and have the wonderful scenic and fast trip to the Rockaways. We go around Governors Island, not through Buttermilk Channel like on my last trip.

8:47 – Pass St George off in the distance, we move at about twice the speed as the large Staten Island ferries.
9:16 – Slow down for docking. I notice a subway train on the platform at Rockaway park
9:18 – As we arrive a subway a train passes off in the distance on the Rockaway el. It’s a test train running down to Rockaway Park, not in service.

I walk by Beach 105 Street-Seaside-(40 total photos added from today) and try to enter the still closed station, the turnstiles are off. There also some employees on the street (it is closed to Far Rockaway-bound traffic), their doing a project repairing the concrete elevated.

I keep walking down Rockaway Freeway and see a Q53 bus off in the distance and catch it to cut down the walking to Beach 90th Street for my final H train ride. On board is this sign:

I get off at 95th Street at the last stop before the Cross-Bay bridge. I get to Beach 90th Street-(10 Photos) at 9:36 and find trains are departing from the normal Manhattan (and Far Rockaway-bound) platform. They announce that the train is being held in the station due to signal problems. I get off for a back of the train photo and it is no longer the H but the S, the sign already changed. They keep announcing we’re being held due to signal problems. I also can see off in the distance a train farther down the el. It’s a short 4 cars and I can make out the grey of the S, sitting in Beach 98 st-Playland. I wish I had just stayed on the Q53 over the Cross Bay Bridge to Howard beach to catch the R1-9s.

At 9:55 I decide to abandon taking a last ride on the H train (now signed as Shuttle) to the Shuttle bus to get to Howard Beach and head to the Q52, my phone and Google Maps advising me about the schedule. As I walk I glance at my iPhone and dated  9:54 I get an e-mail from the MTA (sending them an e-mail about a FastTracks question (would the elevator at 181 Street be opened) subscribed me to subway alerts:

b/d no H Shuttle service b/t Mott Av and Beach 90 St, due to a LIPA loss of power in the Rockaways

The Q52 is vertually right on schedule (maybe a minute late). I get on and have a nice scenic ride up and over the Cross-Bay Veterans Memorial Bridge and through Broad Channel. There is minimal traffic and the ride is much more scenic than the Far Rockaway Shuttle Bus Ride via Nassau County. I see the subway off in the distance. It looks quite different, the new new metal sheeting forming a sea wall is clearly obvious, I’m curious how much it will impair the view.
10:17 I get off at the second stop on the Queens ‘mainland’ at 157 Avenue. I get off to walk get to Howard Beach–(34 Photos). A bunch of MTA Cars and news trucks are parked outside the station.

I walk up the stairs and go through the High Entrance turnstiles at the direct entrance to the Rockaway-bound platform, its full of dignitaries and the press. I notice this photo reprint.

I head towards the northern end of the platform and a couple A trains come through and terminate (some of the employees on the platform aren’t there for the dignitaries and press run run but making sure the cars are cleared of passengers before the trains reverse or run all the way to Far Rockaway in stimulated regular service).

At 10:40, ten minutes late this approaches and enters the station:

It’s the Rockaway Here We Come! train, with a sign in front just like the poster. These are the destination signs since the train is returning as the first revenue service train from the Rockaways. To my dismay its ending at Wash. Hts.-168 St and not going all the way up to 207 Street.

Only the front doors have opened so I hurry down the platform to get off before walking back to R6 #1000, there is no one else in the car (eveyone seems to have stayed in the front of the train). We leave at 10:46, Rockaway Here We Come! (Again)

I stand by an open window as we get photos heading south including with quite a few fisherman right nearby the northern side of the bridge. I notice that the rails on the opposite track are slightly rusty, not the smooth looking silver of all other subway tracks since their so widely used. At 10:52 we come to a stop in the middle of the north Rockaway swing bridge. It looks nearly the same with the low and unique blue fence. An A train passes going the other way. Its running out of service simulating regular service. We sit on the bridge, it’s hot even with the fans and the sea breeze 10:57 move again and go down the swing bridge.

We then enter the flats with their new metal sea wall. The magic isn’t quite the same as before of floating over the ocean although the metal walls remind the passenger just how powerful the ocean is. There not really that easy to look over if your sitting down. Standing up offers easy views over them. I get photos of Kennedy Airport across from us, and the new metal sea wall that protects the tracks from the marshland beneath. There is also a wide gravel area that was clearly the road built to allow contractors access to the washouts along the flats. There also some spotlights along the tracks, construction must have been a 24 hour job. As we approach Broad Channel there is a large area that was clearly once used by the contractors for staging equipment.

At 11:02 we come to a stop at Broad Channel–(32 Photos) clearly for some press event. An A train passes (not in service but mimicking service, going the other way). I immediately notice the new light fixtures on the old blue lampposts, its an odd contrast from the MTA that normally rebuilds everything or lets everything be. They only open up the front section of the train, I walk up get some photos and get back on.

We get an “All Aboard” and leave 11:11 to finally go over the South Swing Bridge and Rockaway Here We Really Come! The train crosses the first shorter bridge to a little island that lacks a Sea Wall but odd cloth sheeting, I assume the Sea Wall is currently being made and designed and will be installed soon.

At Hammel’s Wye we enter the Rockaways! and take the southern track at the flying junction to curve west and head towards Rockaway Park. I see many employees take a pause from their work to acknowledge and photograph the museum train. A few have quite fancy cameras, one becomes the cover image on the MTA’s website.

We continue through Beach 98 Street

Then over the entrance to the Cross-Bay Bridge

The next stop to bypass is Beach 98 Street-Playland-(2 Photos) (there was an amusement park from 1902 until 1985)

We see the water of the sewage treatment plant and bypass Beach 105 street-(40 total photos added from today)

Then we pass the temporary ferry dock at the end of Beach 108 Street and head down to Ground Level.

We arrive at Rockaway Park-(53 Total Photos) at 11:22. I get off and get the customary front and back photos, they end up bringing the train up about ten feet (flagging it like a car) to align better with the service hours sign.

Next I stand in the back and get some photos of the speeches. The podium has a fake sign for Rockaway Park, made just for the event. This is a standard feature when the MTA is doing something special for a subway station. The point I like the best is from FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff discussing how important New York City is in terms of numbers of mass transit riders in the country and also how more people ride the subway to the Rockaways than the entire length of may rail systems in the US. There also displays behind the speakers with photos of the restoration process.

I then get some photos of inside and streetside of the station house.

I finish and there is one problem. I don’t have (and have no desire for) a press pass and can’t get back in. At 11:48 the turnstiles haven’t been opened yet. The employee manning the gate just lets us (there a couple other people who have come down hoping to catch the R1-9s) through and I snap some final photos of the inaugural event.

I head out to the platform and get some more photos. I find out that because the event is running late a Shuttle train connecting with a normal A train will be the first to leave and I get on that to get a photo of the R1-9s at another station.

We leave at 12:01pm, I feel excited and slightly amazed to be on the first train to leave Rockaway Park with regular passengers in almost exactly 7 months.

Continue Reading: The trip back on the R1-9s to 168 Street in revenue service will be a Part 2 that I plan to write tomorrow (this post is way too long already)!

• Vernon Blvd-Jackson Av-(45 Photos), what is strange about this streetstair?
  
• Hunters Point Av-(38 Photos of the Station and 4 of artwork)
  

Enjoy!

• Court Square (formerly 45th Road-Court House Square until 2011)–(69 photos)
  
• Court Square (G)–(11 Photos Added)
  
• New Citibank G to E,M transfer corridor-(6 Photos)
• http://subwaynut.com/ind/23_elye/, new signs-(12 Photos)
  

Enjoy!

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.

• Oceanside-(section rebuilt with a description and 50 new photos)
  
• East Rockaway-(31 Photos)–the station crosses a river!
  
• Centre Avenue-(11 Photos)
  
• Lynbrook-(section rebuilt with a description and 35 new photos)
  

I have also visited some other stations that I felt needed additions:

• Nostrand Avenue-(44 Photos)–The unique subway style signs
  
• Queens Village-(4 Photos)–an elevator is under construction
  
• New Hyde Park-(6 Photos)
  
• Stewart Manor-(14 Photos)–and a proper summery
  

Enjoy!