Q: Engine Bob, the other day I was waiting for my train in Grand Central, I looked up at the huge arch window above the concourse and saw what looked like someone walking around inside of it. What’s the deal? 

A: This may be a close to magic as the MTA is capable of. Well, no, actually, I guess true magic would be a reasonable monthly-commutation fare. But anyway, your eyes did not deceive you: It’s actually possible to walk about inside the concourse windows at Grand Central. 

The optical illusion is pretty simple, though. Those windows consist of two panels of plate glass—one facing the concourse interior, the other facing the outdoors. The panels are about four feet apart from each other, allowing for narrow catwalks to traverse them at each floor level of the Terminal building.  

Even more kick-ass than this: The catwalks themselves are made of huge slabs of frosted glass, allowing the outdoor light to pass through them and thereby making them nearly invisible from the vantage of the concourse floor. This is why, when you saw someone passing along one of the catwalks, he appeared to be walking on air. 

According to my GCT blueprints (public information, by the way), the four rectangular window bays on either side of the concourse rise 60 feet above the level of the balcony doorways. At the top, the cornice entablature interrupts them (that’s the fancy, gilded-plaster band on which spotlights alternate with scrolled brackets) and then 20 more feet of window glass caps the bays in the form of corresponding window arches that gradually curve outward into the concave shape of the ceiling.  

There are eight catwalks in total—six in the rectangular bays, two in the arches. (And while there are five glassed bays, there are six arches atop them, as the southernmost, 6th bay—which you’ll see rising behind the ticket booths—is a brick dummy.)  

Okay, enough of the technical stuff. Why the hell are the catwalks there? 

Unknown to most people, the Terminal building actually has quite a bit of office and storage space tucked way up and behind all those beautiful stone walls. Hell knows what the MTA uses them for today—quite possibly the Late Train Planning Center—but all the space is, obviously, a premium commodity for a midtown-Manhattan building. The catwalks were part of the original 1912 plans for the Terminal, and they allowed convenient access to the breadth of the hidden office space, which freed the architects (Warren & Wetmore, with Reed & Stem) from having to mar the effect of that stunning expanse of glass windows with closed corridors or iron balconies. Aside from serving office and storage spaces, the catwalks lead to the opulent landings of hidden, internal staircases that rise inside the Terminal’s corner piers. The very top catwalk (this one contains only a few windows that rise no higher than your knees) leads around to the base of a tiny run of steps that rise to the iron walkway suspended over the barrel vault ceiling. In the old days, the maintenance guys would use this walkway to replace—from behind—the tiny light bulbs that form the constellation painted in gold on the other side of the ceiling—which is plaster-on-lath and not much thicker than two of your fingers. (These days, those lights are LEDs, and don’t need replacing.) 

Yeah, I know. I’m dancing around the big question: How can one get up to the catwalks yourself? Legally, of course, you can’t. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t up inside both of those windows. Lots of times. (In fact, I know about the barrel-vault walkway because I managed to get up there once, too.) Thing is, all that was during the proverbial “pre-9/11” days—that blessed, unfathomably innocent period when we train geeks had little to fear from the authorities. I only got caught once, but the cop bought my line (I guess he ignored the fact that I was also wholly fortified with martinis I’d just knocked into my gullet at the Oyster Bar) and he let me go. 

These days, I’m pretty confident that they WON’T let you go if they catch you. Remember, too that—duh—if you do get up there, it’s damn well hard to keep a low profile when you’re walking around inside of a window overlooking the largest public room in New York City. I can also say (from experience) that just because you think you’re getting away with being up there does NOT mean someone’s not watching you and will be waiting for you once you slip out of the elevator on your hasty way out. 

Elevator, in fact, is about as close as I want to come to saying how it’s possible to get up into the window catwalks. Okay, somewhere between Tracks 21 and 23—but that’s ALL I’m gonna say. There are also some stairs by the Campbell Apartment—but that’s IT, okay? No more hints.  

But, listen Sherlock–chances are either a half-soused investment banker or an alarmingly sober cop is going to spot you before the little adventure even gets off the ground. I don’t go up there anymore myself—and not only because I don’t want to go to jail, but also because I don’t think it’s right to distract the cops when they could be doing more serious stuff like, oh, catching terrorists.  

So my advice is: Keep that shoe leather on the nice Tennessee marble floor of the concourse where it belongs. The Terminal’s got plenty of other cool secrets you can check out without trespassing, and I’ll write about them soon. 

—E.B.

Q: Engine Bob, a couple of years ago I got into an argument with a New Haven Line conductor over something stupid. I had missed my morning southbound Harlem Line train at Fordham Road. A New Haven train pulled in a few minutes later. It stopped, and I got on. As we were pulling away, the conductor recognized a new passenger (me) and started yelling that his train was for discharging passengers only. He didn’t care that I had a monthly commutation pass for Fordham, either. I don’t get this. If I’ve paid Metro North to travel a certain distance, what the hell difference does it make if I get on a red train or a blue one?

Since the New Haven could never have afforded to build a terminal in Manhattan—much less obtain a right-of-way onto the island—it brokered a deal that allowed New Haven trains to use the Central’s 16 miles of track into Grand Central Terminal. Operating costs would be split between the two railroads based on a percentage calculated from the number of train cars that the New Haven brought into Manhattan.

With this arrangement in place, the New Haven laid an 11-mile spur from its mainline to hook up to the Central’s. Today, the junction point is easy to spot—it’s just north of the Woodlawn Station where there’s a “flyover” that loops the New Haven tracks down into the Harlem Division’s iron over some square-arched tunnels. (It’ll make sense when you see it, trust me.)

Okay, so, the Central was happy because the New Haven would now be subsidizing its operating costs by paying rent for track usage. Emphasis on usage. The Central might let New Haven trains roll on its tracks, but it would be damned if it was going to let the New Haven generate actual revenue from New York Central customers who’d be boarding trains at the handful of stations between Woodlawn and Grand Central.

And so the New Haven, while free to discharge its own passengers at stations such as Williams Bridge and Fordham, was prohibited from boarding passengers there. If you were a passenger traveling between two points in New York Central territory, your money was going to stay with the New York Central. (Listen, the robber barons did not get rich by accident.)

To this day, that rule—or a surviving incarnation of it—is still observed, only now the players are the New Haven Division and the Harlem Division, both of Metro North. And that’s the rub, isn’t it? The rule made sense back when you had two competing private railroads—but the New Haven and the New York Central railroads have been gone for about 36 years now and Metro North runs everything.

So why is this dumb rule still in place?

I won’t pretend to know the deepest bureaucratic vagaries that must apply, here, but the essence of it is that, even though the red (New Haven) and blue (Harlem and Hudson) trains are all operated by Metro North, one train is not necessarily interchangeable with another. New Haven trains are partially funded by tax revenues from the State of Connecticut, just like Harlem and Hudson trains operate with help from New York State money. And so the accounting books must still be kept separately to some degree. Just like in the old days, Connecticut trains ain’t allowed to make money with New York State passengers.

If you’re bound for Stamford and boarding at Fordham, well, that’s fine—because your destination is in Connecticut. But if you’re going from, say, Botanical Garden to 125^th Street, you have to board a Harlem Line train.

I’m confident that I’m ignorant of a good 80% of the hairsplitting technicalities that purport to make this rule sensible in the eyes of MTA management—and the gods be praised for that—but what I’ve told you is the way it was long ago explained to me by an old-timer. This guy, incidentally, used to love to argue with New Haven conductors about the boarding prohibition, and would grandly denounce the 1848 law (which the gape-mouthed ticket-takers had probably never heard of once in their entire stinking lives) Perry Mason style.

I’m quite sure his ass still got kicked off the New Haven train, all the same. 

Q: Engine Bob, is there any truth to that old story about a secret train platform beneath the Waldorf-Astoria hotel that Andy Warhol gave a party on? Or is this just urban legend?

A: Actually, the story’s true-a good portion of it, anyway. You’re referring to what Grand Central maintenance crew (and Metro North brass, though I doubt they’d tell you much about it) knows as “Track 61.” Now, of course, if you’ve ever paid any attention to Grand Central’s numbered gates, you know that there is no Track 61. But that’s part of the idea: The secret platform was never meant-yesterday or today-to be found my members of the general public. But if you want a sense of where it is, say you were to stand on Track 24 (with your back facing the concourse) and look northward; the secret platform would lie dead ahead of you, up below 50th Street. Track 61 is technically part of the Terminal’s hidden lay-up yards that stretch between Lexington and Park Avenues, running from 48th to 50th Streets.

The story of Track 61 requires a bit of background. The tracks approaching Grand Central ran at ground level until July of 1903, when the New York Central Railroad commenced the incomprehensible project of lowering everything underground and, eventually, constructing all of lower Park Avenue on top of it. The project took ten years and ended, in 1913, with the opening of a new Grand Central Terminal (that’s the one we have today, which happens to be the third to occupy the spot.) Most all of the buildings occupying property between Lexington Avenue to the east and Madison Avenue to the west; and stretching between 42nd Street on the south and 50th Street on the north-are literally built on stilts. Tracks thread themselves around steel pilings that hold up the buildings, all of which paid the railroad for “air rights”-meaning, they paid for the right to float above the Central’s trackage, holding no deed for actual earth. (Damn, the things lawyers can come up with.)

One of the buildings built in the New York Central’s “air” was the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, which began rising above the tracks in 1929. Recognizing the strategic importance of its location, the hotel had a short, cement platform installed astride one of the tracks that passed through its basement. This became Track 61, an exclusive platform for the Waldorf’s use. From the start, it was intended as a way for dignitaries (who, in those days, always arrived by train and most often rode aboard a private railroad car) to get in and out of the hotel discreetly, avoiding the flashbulbs of press photographers. An elevator rose from Track 61 up into the core of the Waldorf itself.

Among the first to use Track 61 was General John J. Pershing, who visited the city in 1938. But the secret platform’s most famous (and probably most grateful) patron was FDR. While members of the press corps were aware that the President was paralyzed, it followed an unwritten (and amazingly, never breached) agreement not to mention the fact in print, nor use photographs of FDR using his leg braces or his wheelchair. Nevertheless, discretion had its merits and, for security reasons alone, a private and secure means in and out of Manhattan made plenty of sense for a wartime president. Arriving in the private Presidential railroad car-often arriving from his boyhood home in Hyde Park, just up the Hudson Line-FDR and his entourage would pull up to Track 61, alight, and take the elevator straight up to the hotel’s Presidential Suite. It must have been something to see.

With the passing of years and the coming of air travel, the need for Track 61 diminished (FDR was, however, the first President to use a private plane for executive travel, though the name “Air Force One” would not arrive until, I believe, the Kennedy Administration.) Ironically, the “secret” platform would next be used for two very public events. In 1946, the New York Central Railroad showed off its new 6,000-h.p. diesel locomotive in a PR event it called its “Debut at the Waldorf,” pulling the new engine up to Track 61 for a photo op. And then-yes, finally-there was the Andy Warhol party. That was in 1965 and, in classic Warhol style, the party was themed and named: The Underground Party. Fitting, if nothing else.

And there, the record of the secret platform pretty much ends. Many stories and much mystique have arisen since then, including the tale that the Waldorf kept a freight car down there stocked with surplus china (this was actually confirmed by a friend of mine who worked for the Waldorf for many years, though I never pressed for more details.)

The quest for Track 61 has also become a holy grail for many urban explorers (a successful visit is described in the book “New York Underground,” by Julia Solis.) But, post-9/11 security concerns being what they are, even these fearless souls seem to have realized that a glimpse of a dark old platform served by a rusty elevator is not worth the handcuffs that invariably come with being apprehended in the act.

But if you’d like a risk-free way to get close to the secret platform-and you’ve got some time to kill before catching your train and are profoundly bored-check this out: If you make your way up Park Avenue to the Waldorf-Astoria, walk beneath the awning to the corner of 50th (you’ll be facing St. Bart’s), make a right, then take three steps and look on your right. You’ll be standing before a set of heavy silver doors marked with a red plastic sign that reads, in effect, Metro North emergency exit. On this spot, you’re standing directly over Track 61. Behind those silver doors are stairs that lead down to the fabled secret platform-or, at least, that’s what my track map of Grand Central Terminal shows. And if you happen to see Pershing, Roosevelt, or Warhol emerging from those doors, do please write me.

-E.B.

Several months ago, I signed up for the MTA’s WebAdvisory service, which tells you about delays and problems via email. I believe this morning’s Advisory is the first I’ve received. Thank God the MTA got through slippery rail season and an ice storm without any delays or problems!

Today’s Advisory mentions problems with the “catenary” wire. Of course, the only people in the world who know about “catenary” wires are Engine Bob and the sick pups who read him.

New Haven Line trains bound for Grand Central Terminal are subject to 15-20 minute delays this morning because of problems with the overhead ”catenary” wire in the vicinity of Rye.

New Haven Line service leaving from Grand Central Terminal is currently suspended.

We appreciate your patience and cooperation.  This information will be updated as conditions change.  

Q: Engine Bob, is it legit for Metro North to blame late trains on snow and ice? I mean, how many problems can a few inches of snow really cause a train?

A: Believe it or not, quite a few. Back in the 1950s, the Lackawanna Railroad (and, no doubt, some others) struck on a way to gain an advertising edge over the airlines by claiming that a trip by train was “weatherproof.” Um, nice try. While obviously a huge snowfall can cause problems for any means of conveyance, the fact is that even small amounts of snow and ice—especially when outside temperatures remain below freezing for extended periods—can bring a train to its knees (or its couplers, whatever).

First, I present you the easy ways that snow and ice can botch up a train. Even a thin layer of snow on a rail reduces the train’s adhesion coefficient—er, just think traction. On slick rails, the train wheels will slip and even skid considerable distances. Bad thing.

Next, snow, ice, and below-zero temperatures can also delay or even disable trains by freezing up the switches that connect one set of rails to another. If several or even one important switch is stuck, trains cannot be routed to the right lines. So they have to sit there.

Until when—the spring thaw? Well, no. Many railroads—Metro North included—have actual heaters installed at key switch points to keep ice from clogging up the works. But when it’s really, really cold outside, even switch heaters don’t always work. (I am not kidding about what I will now relate because I have actually done it myself: Sometimes the only way to free an iced-up switch is to take a flamethrower to it.)

Okay, those are the simple ways that ice and snow cause train delays—but they are not the main culprits. Those come next, and they plague Metro North in particular because the majority of its trains run on externally-fed AC power. The high voltage required to power a train is delivered to the traction motors via either the third rail—that’s the raised, thicker rail you see just off to either side of the track—or by a catenary system, which is the suspended, high-tension wire that looks as though it’s part of a spider web strung along the line, several feet above the tops of the train cars. (You’ll find third rail on the Hudson and Harlem Divisions; catenary on the New Haven. The diesel engines are used in territory that is not electrified, such as the Hudson tracks north of Croton-Harmon and branch lines of the
New Haven like Waterbury.)

When snow piles up on the third rail, it can seriously interfere with the mechanism that delivers the current to the car’s traction motors. If you’ve ever watched trains pass from a vantage point on a platform, have you ever noticed those square, flat pieces of metal that stick out about a foot from the passing train’s wheel trucks? Those are called “shoe plates,” and they’re designed to slip along the top of the third rail and induct electrical current in order to power the train.

However, when snow accumulates in patches on the third rail, the shoe plates start skipping. When that happens, the high voltage from the third rail “arcs”—literally, leaps through the air—to get to the shoe plates. Arcing’s searing temperatures will melt the snow on the third rail. That melt will re-freeze into ice after the train has passed. And then the ice that has resulted (now acting as an insulator) will only further interfere with the shoe plates’ ability to draw voltage when the next train rolls along. Eventually, the connection gets so bad that the traction motors on the train don’t get enough juice. The motors stall, the train stops, and that’s the end of that.

A similar process takes place with the overhead catenary wire. Ice will form along that, too, and sometimes get so thick it can effectively insulate the wire so that no voltage can reach the train. Atop the roofs of New Haven cars, you’ll see those Z-shaped contraptions (they look to me like huge disposable shaving razors) that can be extended upwards and retracted back down. These are called “pantographs,” and they are the conduit for power between the overhead wire and the train. An ice-covered catenary wire keeps voltage from the pantograph just like an iced-over third rail keeps voltage from a shoe plate—same exact principle. Same exact result, too: Arcing between wire and pantograph melts snow; snow re-freezes into ice; ice keeps voltage from reaching the train; motors stall; train stops.

Oh sorry, I forgot the last step: …train stops, commuters pissed.

An icy wire can also rip up the carbon strips on the catenary’s induction surfaces, eventually rendering them useless. Ice will also form on the pantographs themselves, disabling them so they can’t even be extended up to the overhead wire at all. At times, even the weight of the ice clinging to the overhead wires will bring the whole catenary web down to the ground.

Tip: Should you see this happen, ever, do NOT try to help by picking the fallen wires up; you’ll be roasted like a partridge.

And your charred, smoking carcass will become yet another reason for a train delay.

—Engine Bob

Got a question for Engine Bob? Hit him up here: trainjotting@gmail.com.  

Q: Engine Bob, Why does my morning train take 48 minutes, while my evening train—with the exact same stops—takes 42 minutes? Does it take longer for people to get on than get off? 

A: First, pat yourself on the back for picking up on a detail that 99.98% of commuters have never noticed. We’re going to have a little fun with your question because, first, I’m going to give you my speculation and then, second, we’re going to see what the MTA has to say about it. Last night I stopped into the Stationmaster’s Office to retrieve a customer-comment/question form, and on it I wrote down a more detailed version of your question, using two specific New Haven trains for comparison—ones that showed a seven-minute discrepancy between north and southbound runs. The Stationmaster promised me I’d receive a personal reply from the Public Affairs Office. We shall see. 

Meanwhile, here’s my take. Assuming that the trains you’re comparing share all the relevant parameters in common—both peak, same station stops, no transfers with one and no the other, etc.—what you’ve struck upon here is evidence of a practice that’s as old as train schedules themselves. 

It’s known as “schedule padding.” 

While it may take a wee bit longer to board a train than disembark from one, I doubt that such a thing would result in a schedule adjustment. And if it did, logic would hold that you’d see a greater amount of time allotted for station stops where the most people get on—and when I tore through some Metro North schedules last night, that’s not where I found the discrepancies. More on that in a minute. 

Here’s another interesting observation. While your trip home (northbound, I presume) is taking six minutes longer, I found that the opposite appears to be more often the case. For example—and these are all peak trains I’m referring to, with all station stops common to both directions—catch a morning express train at South Norwalk and you’ll get to Grand Central in 55 minutes. Homeward on the same run? 1 hour, 4 minutes. Hop an early local out of Stamford and you’ll be at GCT in 1 hour, 2 minutes. Grab the same run back and it’ll take 1 hour, 9 minutes. 

Is that just the New Haven’s quirk? Nope. Let’s get a morning-rush local out of Croton-Harmon on the Hudson Line. Train No. 704 will take precisely 1 hour to reach Grand Central. But at evening peak, the same run (Train No. 757) will take 1 hour, 4 minutes. 

I found a few other examples in which run times were exact, and a few, like yours, in which the return runs took less time. But overall, it seems far more common for the northbound runs to take longer. And this brings me back to the practice of schedule padding. 

What is “schedule padding”? Schedule padding is the practice of adding a few extra minutes to a run—time that a train does not really need to cover the allotted distance—merely to “help” a late train make up time on paper, and hence arrive “on time” even if, in fact, it’s not. In short, schedule padding helps boost a railroad’s on-time performance statistics. Before you shake a fist at Metro North for stooping this low, consider: New Jersey Transit does it, too. So does Amtrak. So does VIA Rail in Canada. Most every railroad uses schedule padding. 

But let’s take a closer look at how it works. We’ll go back to our local train between
Stamford and Grand Central, because the discrepancy is pretty dramatic—a full seven minutes more on the return (northbound) run. 

I made a chart and marked down all the station stops with the corresponding route-mile distance for each (Grand Central is Mile Zero; Pelham is at Mile 15; Harrison is Mile 22, etc.) With some simple subtraction and comparison, we see that both southbound and northbound trains take the same time to cover the same distances for the vast majority of the run. For instance, The southbound train travels the 14 miles between Mt. Vernon East and GCT in 26 minutes—and the northbound train takes just as long over that same stretch. It’s an even time match for the bulk of the route. 

But watch closely! Let’s take a look at the last two stops at the top of the run—Stamford and Old Greenwich. Those two stations are 2 miles apart. If you’re taking the train southbound out of Stamford, you’ll get to the next stop in only 2 minutes. Returning home, however—why, this is amazing!—to cover that same distance of 2 miles between Old Greenwich and Stamford, Metro North allots SIX MINUTES. 

Where did those four extra minutes come from? Does the northbound train pause to pick up a crate of caviar and champagne? Hardly. The schedule has been padded. So if northbound Train No. 1360 out of Grand Central is running a few minutes late, not to worry! That two minutes the train should take to traverse the final leg of the trip has been conveniently tripled. Think of it as loosening your belt by two holes. There now, don’t you feel thinner? This numeric hocus pocus means that a really late train will be less late, and a slightly late train will suddenly, magically, be “on time.” 

(Incidentally, the one other extra minute on the northbound run that adds up to the total extra northbound travel time of seven minutes comes from the stretch between Harrison and
Greenwich. That’s six miles of track; the southbound train does it in 10 minutes while the northbound takes 11.) 

As I said, schedule padding is not a secret that only Metro North knows. A number of years ago when Shirley Delibero headed up New Jersey Transit, an absurd amount of padding was added to the schedules—always between the second-to-last and the last stop, as in my example above—to keep on-time statistics high. But too many people noticed the trick, and the railroad’s loose schedules quickly became known as “Shirley Time.” 

In theory, if a railroad uses padding to improve on-time statistics, it should be able to use them in both directions, right? But in the case of Metro North—I’m making an educated guess, here—the four-mile stretch between 125th Street and Grand Central is so complex a choke point shared by so many trains at any given time, it’s just not a wise place to toy with the schedule. Uniformity rules on this stretch; I’ve seen no examples of trains taking longer in either direction. Plus, I just have this feeling that discrepancies would be easier to notice down on the GCT end of the timetable; it’s not a good place to hide stuff. 

But let us not close the book on this matter yet, and wait to see how the good people at Metro North explain these discrepancies—if, that is, they reply to my comment form.

Got a question for Engine Bob? Email it to trainjotting@gmail.com. 

Q: Engine Bob, I got used to seeing those old-style diesel locomotives pulling my train and then suddenly a few years ago they all disappeared. What happened? 

A: Those old engines were among the last relics of post-WWII railroading still in regular passenger service anywhere in America. The official name for the locomotive you remember is the FL9, and Metro North had them in service on all three divisions (most served on the Hudson.) Even commuters who weren’t railroad fans developed a soft spot for those engines because, from the front, they looked almost human: A pair of windshields slanted down like an expressive pair of eyebrows above a characteristic “pig nose” with a headlight at the tip.  You might not think much of General Motors cars, but GM sure knew how to build a locomotive. The company’s Electro-Motive Division began rolling out FL9s between 1957 and 1960, and polished off 60 in total. While the assembly lines at EMD cranked hundreds of “F units” that looked very similar, the FL9 was exclusively a New Haven RR engine—and it had no shortage of impressive stats. The majestic, 59-foot-long FL9 tipped the scales at 282,000 lbs., could run on both diesel fuel and third-rail power, and sported a unique, six-axle A1A flexible-coil wheel truck at the back (granted, only a railfan will get a woodie from a deet like that, but it sounds cool anyway, doesn’t it?) Each engine generated 1,800 horsepower from its two-stroke 16-cylinder engine—and those cylinders were bigger than coffee cans (I know because I was lucky enough to stand on an FL9 engine’s catwalk once, and my hearing has yet to recover). Best of all, the engines were simply kick-ass: Loud enough to wake up hell, they left roiling clouds of black smoke in their wake, those hammering pistons weeping in a high-pitch wail that was as exciting as it was haunting. 

Got a question for Engine Bob? Email it to trainjotting@gmail.com.

Q: Engine Bob, what would my commute have been like 50 years ago?

A: In some ways, very similar—and in others, worlds different. Fifty years ago, you’d still be joining hundreds of thousands of trenchcoat-clad suburbanites at 5:15 p.m., pounding their shoeleather down Grand Central’s limestone floors, stuffing themselves into commuter coaches and dreading being stuck in the inevitable middle seat.

The similarities, however, pretty much end there, and just how pleasant your commute was depends largely on how much you liked trains and commuting to begin with. Fifty years ago was, to be exact, 1956—well into the period that the railroad was sliding slowly but inexorably toward bankruptcy. The “railroad” was not, of course, Metro North, but the New York Central Railroad—the private empire that had built the Vanderbilt fortune and whose cash bags had swelled enough to finance the civic mansion that is Grand Central, back in 1913.

But rising automobile ownership and the burgeoning interstate system (to say nothing of the airplane) had begun to bleed the Central’s profits pretty seriously by 1956—the tenth year of red ink for the railroad, and those losses would only worsen. As a result, cost-cutting measures were in full effect, and the commuters suffered the most.

Let’s go back to 5:15 p.m. on a summer day in 1956. Late for your train, you’ve just burst through the main doors beneath the Pershing Viaduct on 42^nd Street and huff past the waiting room and down the ramp to the concourse. The place is sweltering and mobbed. An increasingly desperate New York Central has been searching for ways to add to its revenue, and only a few years earlier (1950, to be exact) had struck on the idea of selling space inside the terminal itself. And so you’ve just run beneath a mammoth “Big Ben” clock that the Westclox corporation has bolted between the columns abutting the facing banks of ticket windows. To your right, Kodak’s 18-by-16-foot “Colorama” slide billboard has obliterated the East Balcony (the Central’s baggage room for its long-distance trains sits beneath, inside the space that today holds the huge Hudson Newsstand.) Crossing the concourse—tough enough as it is, with porters pushing luggage carts around—is now even harder because Merrill Lynch has erected a huge information booth right in the center of the floor. Signs and billboards have sprouted like weeds from every corner. The smell of coffee and meatloaf hangs in the air from the ill-ventilated restaurants and food stands, mixing with the faint whiff of diesel smoke wafting in from the tracks ahead.

You don’t have a ticket, which is too bad, because you’re going to have to wait in line (no ticket machines, alas)—and because it’s 1956 and you are a commuter, all of your business is downstairs. The Central uses the main-level gates and tracks only for its long-distance trains (including the famed 20^th Century Limited, for which Track 34 is permanently reserved. It departs at 6:00 p.m., and if you look past the wireglass pocket doors you’ll see the deep-pile red carpet the crew’s rolled down the platform for the greater regality of the Chicago-bound passengers.) Ah, but you are hardly one of those! The Central has banished commuters like you to the basement, and your ticket windows are down there, too. And so, you make a quick left on the concourse and, dodging the glowing Merrill Lynch booth, lightfoot it down the stairs to the lower level.

So far, is this pleasant? No, not really. And yet, there’s hardly a hint of what worse there is to come. A little more than ten years from now, the fancy long-distance trains will all vanish, as will the Central itself. Even now, there are proposals to build skyscrapers atop the property. Someone has recently even suggested turning the main waiting room into a bowling alley. This is 1956: There are no landmarks laws yet, and the public thinks little if anything of turn-of-the-century architecture. To mount advertising signs, workers have drilled holes straight into the terminal’s polished stone walls—but these have been darkened by years of cigarette and diesel smoke anyway, and are hardly even noticeable. And yet, were you to know of what was coming—the end of railroading itself, and the near loss of the terminal to the wrecker’s ball—you might stop and consider the vestiges of the pre-jet age that still surround you. But you can’t see any of that in context in 1956, so you buy your ticket at the window bank, turn, and head for your train.

The Central numbered its lower level’s tracks in the 100s (110, 115, etc.) and chances are you know your train’s platform by heart. Passing through the gate, you descend a combination of ramp and stairs, grateful to see that your train hasn’t left yet.

What kind of train is it? Well, that depends both on where you’re heading and, well, luck. The Central’s equipment took quite a battering from hard wartime service in 1945, moving troops around, and even though the railroad put in a huge order for new, stainless-steel cars in 1948, these are now running on the fancy overnight trains to distant cities. The Central has thoughtfully rostered its most beaten, leftover equipment for you, Mr. Commuter. The chances are pretty good that you’ll be boarding a heavyweight coach that might date as far back as 1911. Its green paint is peeling; rust creeps up from the end sills; the glass rattles in the loose wooden frames. As you step aboard at one of the vestibule ends, you slide open the heavy metal inside door, squeeze your way down the narrow aisle, and look for a seat.

Air conditioning? Are you kidding? Either the coach doesn’t have it, or it’s not working. The fabric-upholstered seats are stained and torn. Inside, it’s dark; a third of the bulbs are burned out, yet the colors in here were on the dark side even when the coach was new. By now, your shirt’s drenched from the run through a hot terminal and down the lower-level platform (where the temperatures can easily reach over 100 degrees.) You collapse into your seat, glad that at least your train will pull out soon. Up ahead, a stammering diesel engine coughs and gets started on its way north; the knuckles of the coach’s couplers jerking your car forward with loud, metallic thumps as their aged springs stretch out under the weight. Up into the blackness of the interlock you go and, picking up speed as your train enters the tunnel, you’ll fight off a wave of nausea as the reek of diesel exhaust leaks into the coach through windows that won’t close completely.

But once again, we can consider this experience from another point of view. These heavyweight cars—beaten-down as they are—are at least still heavy (that name was no accident), and that is an asset never to be equaled. There’s a floor of poured concrete beneath the carpeting under your feet, sir. Once your train pulls out, you’ll have a ride that’s smoother than on anything built since. Your seat, while torn, is roomy. You have an armrest, maybe even a padded one. And all that metal and insulation (probably a mixture of horsehair and asbestos) shields the noise pretty well; reading is easier. Sleeping, too.

Now, if you’re really lucky, once you get to your platform downstairs, you’ll see one of the Central’s new ACMU cars waiting on your track. These cars were just delivered this year—1956—from the Pullman factory, and they represent perhaps the lone concession that the railroad has made for you, commuter man. ACMU stands for “air conditioned multiple unit,” and the car cuts a smart profile with its smooth flat sides and rounded wagon roof. You don’t know or care what in hell a multiple unit means; but you sure know AC when you feel it. After a marathon through the terminal, you’ve stepped into a rolling modernist paradise: It’s cold as a skating rink in here; fluorescent tubes mounted lengthwise along the ceiling bathe the car in a blue light; and the windows are high and wide so you can finally see the scenery (even if it’s just Westchester scenery). Another nifty feature is the “walkover” cane-backed seat that has a back that can be flipped so that groups of four can sit two abreast, facing one another. The MUs idle noisily—those AC compressors are working hard—and wear a resplendent coat of dark green with two yellow stripes. Long letters spelling NEW YORK CENTRAL stretch out over the row of windows outside. You’re riding the commuter’s slickest set of wheels.

But whether or not you’ll enjoy an MU car depends on where you’re going. The new cars—which, unlike the heavyweight coaches—have their own traction motors and don’t need an engine to pull them. The Central couples the MUs up to the train lengths it needs (that’s the “multiple unit” part), but they can only run in third-rail territory. So, if you’re bound for anyplace below Croton on the Hudson Division or below White Plains on the Harlem, you could be among The Chosen. Oh, you live north of there, do you? Then it’s a creaking old heavyweight for you. Sorry.

If you ride an MU, as your train approaches your stop you’ll actually hear it announced over the intercom system—a very high-tech development, even though it makes the conductor’s basso sound tinny. (Aboard the heavyweights, conductors still walk the aisles, hollering out names of the upcoming stations.) One thing that both types of coaches share, however, are three metal steps below a trap door on each vestibule end. Center doors and “high-level” cement platforms on which Metro North passengers will stand on day are, in 1956, over 20 years into the future. As your train slows up near your stop, you’ll join a queue in the aisle that empties slowly as commuters one-by-one take three steps down onto the ground-level platform below. Many of these platforms—along the Hudson Line especially—are still long stretches of wooden slats.

And so you’re home—or nearly, for there’s still the matter of starting your automobile that’s parked in the station lot. But the train part of it, at least, is over. One last thing I should add: If you happen to be a Connecticut resident, you’re not a New York Central customer at all. The New York, New Haven & Hartford—which pays the Central for the track and terminal rights—is your railroad. And if you’re a New Haven man, while you’re likely in for a challenging ride in an old coach, you do have one amenity that the Central customer can only dream of. Your train might have a Grill Car coupled in. It’s essentially a rolling diner, complete with a counter, tables, and waitresses. Should your stomach be growling as you pant your way down to the lower level, a glass of cola with ice cubes and a ham sandwich on a plate await you for your trip home. And this is the kind of civility that the commuter rails will never see again.

—Engine Bob

Q: “Why the hell does it take a Metro North train 15 minutes to get from Grand Central to 125^th Street?” 

A: Actually, it only takes 10 minutes (check any schedule) but it can seem like 15 minutes or even longer. The distance covered is actually 80 blocks (45th Street, which is roughly where the nose ends of the train are on the GCT platforms, up to 125th = 80 blocks.) And that’s four miles. First off, because a passenger sees little more than blackness outside the window, his sense of distance and time can become a little impaired. Still, 10 minutes to go four miles is only 24 m.p.h.—truly a crawl when you consider that even subways can hit close to 60 m.p.h. under the East River. So what gives with the delay? The principal reasons are two. Reason No. 1: Even though the complex was completed back in 1913, Grand Central’s trackage still constitutes the largest interlock in the world. You’ve got 41 tracks on the upper level, 26 on the lower—plus various layup tracks and sidings. All of these tracks eventually merge into a four-track mainline on one level just below street, which becomes the south end of the Park Avenue Tunnel.  Okay, so you’ve got all of these tracks moving up toward a bottleneck—crossing and converging in an ever-narrowing space. A switch governs each spot where two tracks meet, and here the train wheels have to roll over a small but significant gap in the rail. A train MUST go slowly when it crosses a switch, or the train could derail. And so, because the trains cross scores of switches on their way north, they CRAWL through the interlock—and that takes time. The tracks finally converge into the four-track mainline at roughly 51^st Street, but that’s six city blocks’ worth of switches that a Metro North train must navigate. If you’d like to see just how incredibly complex the GCT interlock is, go here for a look at the upper-level schematic:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:RailUS_GCT-upperTracksPlan.gif 

If your train happens to be departing from the lower level, the trip can take even longer. Why? Because the train has to literally climb a ramp to the upper level. Most mainline railroads avoid grades steeper than 2%; the inclined tracks that climb between levels in Grand Central range between 2.6% and 3%. This is a difficult climb for a train, even an electric one, and it takes a while.  Reason No. 2: Once your train has finally made it out of the interlock, another delay arrives to ruin your evening. In railroad parlance, you’re under a “speed restriction.” This will slow up the rate of your train for the next several miles. The restrictions are tightest within the Park Avenue Tunnel, but the reason for any speed restriction is the same: Safety. The slower a train is moving, the less chance it stands of colliding with another train. And the sheer number of trains you’ll find in the Grand Central complex at any given time is going to be far greater than what you’d see at most points up the line. Think about it: At poor old Purdy’s, for example, you might see two trains an hour, one northbound and one south. But at peak rush down at GCT, you might have a train coming in or leaving every five minutes. From the earliest days, then, back when the New York Central Railroad operated the line now known as Metro North, the GCT track region has been under speed restrictions that become progressively stricter the closer a train gets to the terminal itself. I’m using an old-time manual for the following numbers, and the speeds may have changed a bit—but the concept remains the same. A train moving anywhere between Woodlawn and Melrose in the Bronx is free to go up to 60 m.p.h., but on the stretch between Melrose and 62^nd Street inside the Park Avenue Tunnel, the speed limit is 35 m.p.h. If a train is operating anywhere below 62^nd Street—in the tunnel or within the interlock itself, the speeds are between 6 and 10 m.p.h.  But next time you’re on your train leaving GCT, take note of the change in speed restriction zones. Once your train reaches 62^nd Street (easy to find, because there’s an emergency exit platform at 59^th Street that’s lit up), you’ll notice that you’ll start moving at a nice clip. By the time you blow out of the tunnel’s mouth at 98^th Street, you’re going far faster than you had been back when your train was navigating the interlock. 

Still wanna know more? Speed are further restricted via what’s known as the “block” system—used in most all railroads—that operates on a simple principle: If you wish to avoid collisions (and who wouldn’t?) two trains cannot be in the same spot at the same time. A block, then, is a stretch of track inside which only one train can be at a given time. During peak hours at Grand Central, when you’ve got many trains having to share a mere four tracks in the Park Avenue Tunnel, it’s much more likely that one train will get too close to the block that another train is in. If it does, it has to slow down. Within the interlock and the Tunnel, blocks are easy to see. Stand in the head-end car and look out the front window and you’ll notice devices that resemble traffic lights that are bolted to the right-hand wall or standing freely on the same side. Each block of track is marked off by one of those banks of lights. If the light is red, it means there’s a train in the block ahead of the one your train is in—and the motorman must stop the train before he reaches the light. (If he runs it, by the way, he’s looking at one week’s suspension without pay, at the very least.) If the light is yellow, your train must slow down because the train ahead of you is just leaving its block. And if the light’s green, well, you’re free to roam. And so, your train’s speed as it departs GCT can also be affected by the number of other trains operating in the same area. Because the trains must remain at least a track block apart, slow-downs are inevitable. More recently, signal blocks have been augmented by the “cab signal” system. Instead of watching out for lights, the motorman listens for a rapid series of beeps that sound in his cab should his train be getting too close to another train ahead. The beeps or the lights are both triggered electrically by a system that senses a train’s presence within a given block through the axle that connects both tracks to form a circuit. If you’re sitting near the cab in the head-end car, the beeps are easy to hear, and when you do hear them, you’ll notice that your train will immediately slow down. Be it cab signal or block signal, the idea’s the same: keep the trains apart. But keeping them apart often means delaying them—and that adds time to your commute. And that, those of you who are still awake, is why it takes 10 minutes to get from Grand Central to 125th Street. —Engine Bob