I hated commuting to NYC on trains from New Jersey. The service was terrible and the peak hour trains were usually packed beyond standing-room-only.
FWIW ... I'm a civil engineer by trade, and I did some work on the preliminary design of the LIRR Grand Central extension project way back in the 1990s. I think it was officially called the LIRR East Side Access Project.
The last time I was on the LIRR was 25 years ago. I was traveling to visit family with my then 3 year old to save them the 2-3 hour horror of picking us up at the airport. We were on an fairly empty early afternoon train from Jamaica at the back of the car.
We were riding along when my daughter says in her unmodulated child voice, “Mommy, why does everybody look so angry?” Slowly people looked up, looked around and started smiling at her, and each other. It was kind of amazing.
Too bad. So sad.
Train lines bringing in thousands of people to the harbor for the fireworks show that night.
Between 2200 and 2300 hours the various trains lines shut down for the night, stranding passengers from a return trip to their home stations & vehicles.
1. Long Island Railroad (118 million annual riders)
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You mean trips.
Right?
Noted that the only railroad I’ve experienced was Grand Funk Railroad.
Eating a cold sandwich should be OK. Pack it at home and eat it on the ride home
Bravissimo. Excellent analysis. Your analysis should be printed on every window at train stops.
“This level of detail is only attained by train geeks and I am one of them.” For sure. Only a train geek, train buff, and train expert can make such an analysis. Yes, cooked food on a train or subway is unethical and disrespectful.
FYI. Rome, Italy, also has super lengthy escalators going down to the subway.
Also,in the last year or so I've taken Metro North trains from Connecticut into Manhattan...on weekdays. The trains,going in and coming back,were no more that 10% full...as was the parking lot.
I’ve always enjoyed your comments about the NYC trains and this article is very informative.
I especially did not know that imbibing on the afternoon/evening trains is OK. That probably makes the whole trip more tolerable for some.
And I can definitely see why eating on the trains would not be cool.
Excellent post.
Used to take the LIRR when they sold food on the trains. If the train was crowded, like on a Sunday evening back to New York, there were people squeezing their way past you to get to the food car.
One time, on the way out to the beach with kids, we had to walk through a second train “horizontally” to get to a third train, the one we needed, on another track. The kiddies loved that!
We used to play games with the Long Island railroad conductors back in the 70s. A crew of about 10 guys from my neighborhood had season Ranger tickets and would take the LIRR home after the games. From Penn Station, we only went to the first stop, Woodside.
We would wait on the platform until just before the doors closed so we could scope out where the conductors were entering the train. Then we would board keeping as far away from the conductors as possible. Usually there were too many passengers for the conductor to get to us by the time the doors opened at our stop.
Then they got wise. They were ready to ambush us!
Once The train started moving, four conductors got out of their seats, put on their hats and started punching tickets and collecting fares in our car.
That trip they got us!
The next week It happened again, but we were ready for them.
As the conductors got up and put on their hats, the $100 bills came out! Being unable to count out the appropriate change quickly, the fare was less than $3 IIRC, many of us escaped once the doors opened.
The ambush conductors, who we later learned were just dead heading home to the Island, gave up. There were no hard feelings.
The Woodside Crew had prevailed!!!