We knew something was up just after we left White Plains at 8:28 this morning, the train positively crawling along as it quixotically (Editor’s Note: First time “quixotically” has ever appeared on Trainjotting) crawled toward the city.
We limped through Hartsdale and made our way toward its posher cousin Scarsdale, going about as fast as a septuagenarian on a bicycle. (Nope, not the first time “septuagenarian” has appeared in Trainjotting.)
At around 8:40, we got the first announcement, which was very faint and difficult to hear. I’m pretty sure the man said:
“Some broken tracks down in the Scarsdale area are causing a bottleneck.”
Things didn’t get much better for several minutes, and a second announcement came on about five minutes later. It featured a woman’s voice and you truly could not make out a word she was saying (yes, I’d taken off my sweet Bose headphones, putting Bob Marley’s “The Great” compilation on ice for the moment).
At 8:46, near the southern tip of Scarsdale and almost 20 minutes after we left White Plains, we finally got cooking, and pulled into Grand Central at 9:13. That’s nine minutes late–which happens just 1.9% of the time in the A.M., according to Metro-North mouthpiece Mileposts.
A special morning indeed.