Halloween.
The season of ghosts, goblins, children dressed as CC Sabathia, and other scary things.
It’s also the season of the dreaded slippery rail–the oily leaf residue that sticks on train tracks in the northeast and causes all sorts of havoc on trains.
I first encountered its tyranny shortly after moving to the burbs exactly three months ago. Eight car lines were reduced to 6…5…4!! as cars skidded through the oil, flattened their wheels and were taken out of service.
It was awful.
Last year, Metro-North finally got the upper hand, as an initiative dubbed “Water world” sprayed water and sand onto the tracks just before the wheels rolled over them. It was actually a very successful program, and commuters barely even noticed it was fall last year.
Well, Wednesday’s mad winds brought down lots of leaves prematurely, just as another gossamer object floated from the sky–the new issue of Mileposts.
“We’ve reprogrammed the software of our M7 fleet to allow the braking sytem to adjust to slip-slide conditions. And we have instructed our engineers to report slippery conditions immediately to our Operations Control Center. We have also trained them how to operate through these “slippery” areas.”
The railroad is also reducing trains’ speed as they go through the extremely leafy areas, to minimize skid. We seemed to be doing this yesterday morning, just about crawling through the ‘dales, Eastchester and the North Bronx.
“We can reduce the incidents of slippery rail, but we cannot eliminate them,” said Mileposts, while urging patience.
Speaking of patience, those poor fools on the New Haven Line were rewarded for theirs by finishing second (as in, not last) in the August On-Time Performance race, its 97.5% total nearly a point ahead of the Hudson’s 96.7%.
This is like Teddy Roosevelt winning the foam mascot race at Washington Nationals games. Or, for that matter, the Nationals winning at Nationals games.
[image: letteddywin.com]