It’s one of those days.
A Con Ed problem forced Metro-North to provide extremely limited service between Stamford and Grand Central.
Hourly service will make all local stops. The 1st train began a few minutes ago, at 9 a.m.
That’s why the train station parking lot was almost empty this morning.
Some commuters drove in. Some will work from home. Some may (ahem) take advantage of fantastic weather on a found fall day.
This is the morning commute when the trains don’t run.
What’s your plan? Hit “Comments” if you’ve got a great idea.
i’m in the ‘staying at home’ category, and i’ll be checking out the staples soccer game at 4!
Thanks, Tom — should be a good one. Staples (4-1-1) plays Wilton (4-1-0) AT Wilton High School’s Kristine Lilly Field, 4 p.m. See you there!
Go Staples! Tight competition, but Staples soccer wrote the book!
Thanks, Nancy. Staples 1, Wilton 0 — hope some commuters were able to see this very hard-fought match!
Metro North has abysmal communications. When I got to the Greens Farm station for the 6:25 (or so) the sign said “Good Service”. The train pulled in pretty much on time and the sign still said “Good Service”. The conductor reported the problem and said we would get as far as Stamford. When we got to the Stamford station, he did not have a clue what was happening. At that moment, the station announcer said that there was a train coming in that would go to GCT, stopping at 125th Street. Which it did.
While I would love to blame Metro North, this appears to be a Con Ed (another company I love to hate) problem, Metro North communication is worthless. Nobody has a clue what is happening. The station signs are actually misleading.
So, I got to the office. All in all 30 minutes late. I have no idea how I will get home this evening, if at all.
It’s really astounding the lack of communication/information from MN about the problem. 40,000 commuters affected. Roadways clogged. The only information all morning is that they are running limited hourly service. No information on the severity of the problem or when it might be fixed. No one can make any plans for going to or from the city for the rest of today, maybe even tomorrow.
After being charged $30 per passenger for a taxi back from the Stamford train station at 6:30am I considered running a livery service with my wife’s SUV. Then I remembered that the final race in the longest America’s Cup in it’s 150+ year history is scheduled for this afternoon so I think I’ll plan my day around that.
Metro North is run like the Toonerville Trolley! There should be some means of communicating to commuters – and there isn’t.
Bloomberg News is reporting it could be 2-3 WEEKS until full power is restored.
Yes, that’s what Con Ed is saying is the normal time it takes to fix an outtage like this. Somehow I think this will get expedited but service could still be out for some time.
Fifty years ago, we were the envy of the entire world because of our phone system, Interstate roadways, abundance of items to buy in our stores, and many other public services. Nothing much has been done to upgrade from that point. Our Interstate highways are in shambles, built for 30 years and now over 50 years old. Our train system is outrageously bad. How can we not have redundancy built into such an important mode of transportation? There really is no other way to get into the city at that time of day without spending several hours on the road. Shame on us for allowing our infrastructure to crumble around us.
Absolutely true John. And in the end a disruption like this, when you figure in the lost productivity of tens of thousands of commuters, costs exponentially more than a modest investment in infrastructure maintenance would have in the first place.
The severity of this outage is, ironically, due to maintenance work being done on a backup system. The main feeder failed while the backup was offline for an upgrade……From MN’s announcement…..”Con Ed crews are working around the clock to make repairs to a feeder cable that failed earlier today. Another feeder normally providing service to the New Haven Line was out on scheduled repairs to accommodate upgrades required by Metro-North.”
Yes, focus on infrastructure (not war). Surely, tax dollars are meant for
roads, bridges, schools, hospitals… It’s simple.
Imagine if we had spent that trillion dollar war money on infrastructure upgrades? We’d be living in paradise. When you consider things like our NYC subway system is over a hundred years old. The water pipes in NYC and other metropolitan areas are that age as well. So many upgrades and replacements are needed just to make life liveable for the average working person. I love to dream!
Stamford (where we must change from the diesel to the electric trains) was chaos Thursday PM rush hour (approximately 5:00 PM). East bound trains cancelled and others late. “Equipment problems”; and these are the “new” train sets. PA system inaudible. Station signs inane (“Changed Service” duh!) No MN employee had a clue when trains would arrive. One train (first stop Bridgeport and on to New London [?]) started to move while a passenger was half out.
While the initial problem was not caused by Metro North, Metro North is certainly performing at their usual level of ineptitude trying to cope.
They need a change in management starting at the top.
MN’s latest update here: http://web.mta.info/mnr/NewHaven/current-information.html Note they seem to be taking pride in arranging this bus-train connection from Rye to White Plains. Yet this morning I saw an email from a commuter in Rye who said there were no passengers on any of the buses – “12 buses, no passengers.” The fact is it’s so inconvenient and grueling that it’s probably not worth the effort. The fact is MN and Con Ed really screwed the pooch and we’re all stuck as a result. I agree heads should roll over this.
Drive to Katonah and go in on the Harlem line with someone I know from Ridgefield.