After the great fun we had in charting Metro-North’s on-time percentage–and allowing for 59 seconds of tardiness, as opposed to the 5:59 Metro-North gives itself–we’re going to do it again.

Yes, starting on Monday, Trainjotting will bust out the stopwatch (mind you, the Brit term “trainspotting” means just that–charting trains’ times, not shooting dope while collecting checks on the dole with friends Spud and Sick Boy), and keep tabs on Metro-North for the month of October.

October seems like a fair month: the trains’ progress should not be affected by vacations, such as with the summer, and the dreaded slippery rail season, which sees cars slip, slide and skid out of commission and riders squeezed together tighter than Dewey’s Flatiron at Friday happy hour, won’t be upon us until November.

We put Metro-North to the test in July, and the railroad came through with a 41% on-time rate for the 32-odd rides we took that month. It’s a far cry from the 98-99% scores Metro-North gives itself, based on its generous 6-minute-late cushion. We were pressing MTA headquarters for a comment/excuse at the time, then backed off when that steam pipe burst.

Game on!