I’d walked to Grand Central  Friday under a black cloud shaped like a Mohawk haircut; clear skies over the East River and the Hudson, angry thunderheads roofing the middle of Manhattan. I thought of potential dry spots to duck into along Park, but got to the station before the deluge.

I bought a Sam Adams to mark the end of the work week and got onto the 5:46. The doors shut and we started up the track, then stopped about 30 seconds later.

Two minutes passed.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re being held momentarily,” said the conductor, with no further detail.

Two more minutes passed. I tried to concentrate on the Times but couldn’t.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” went the conductor a moment later, “we’re told a tree is down on the tracks and none of the trains are getting out. We’ll let you know when we have more information.”

Groans. Silent curses.

At around 5:55, the conductor came on again, told us they’d open one door in each car so we could stand on the platform, get out and use our phones, etc.

I sat and waited. Neither the phone nor the Blackberry was working. I silently seethed.

At 6:05, our conductor got back on. He said multiple trees were down, multiple trains were screwed, and the Harlem line was essentially jammed up for the foreseeable future.

I’d heard enough. I jumped out and made my way up the ramp, where another train’s worth of people were massed at the track entrance in Grand Central, hungry for bits of information. One man asked me what I knew. I told him what the conductor had said. He shook his head and thanked me.

I scanned the giant Hudson line board–I actually had to figure out where it was–and saw there was a 6:20 to Tarrytown, a doable cab ride from Hawthorne.

Walking to track 40 for the famed Hudson line and all its picturesque river glory, I wondered just how jammed the 6:20 would be–every poor Harlem line refugee jammed in there. I bought a Post at Hudson News and stepped onto the train.

In fact, it was half empty, and would stay half empty right up until departure. My cell and my Blackberry worked; I called The Missus and told her I was late, and retrieved my three CleverCommute emails (and, some time later, MTA Web Advisories) about storm damage on the Harlem line.

The train rolled out at 6:20, and we were mercifully headed to points north.

(It’s worth noting the MTA Web Advisory I got at 6:11:

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Service has been suspended on the Hudson and Harlem lines due to storm impacts (high water, trees down across the tracks).

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 Uh, the Hudson line is moving, folks.)

I’d been on the Hudson line one time in recent memory, while doing a little “research” for a magazine story about a pub crawl on each of the three Metro North lines. The part of the story taking place on the Hudson line had ended at Striped Bass in Tarrytown, where I’d taken a cab home and spent around $14 for it.

In fact, the cab remained as the lone iffy wild card on my trip. Even though the train was not full, surely there would be dozens of Harlem liners looking for a cab at Tarrytown, the first stop on this train.

I stepped off the train under the shadow of that wonderful erector set project known as the Tappan Zee and saw a cabbie from Tarrytown Taxi. I waved and he nodded me into his car. I told him where I was going and he nodded again. I shared the back seat with another Hawthorner, and just like that, we were off.

When we got to my house around 12 minutes later, the cabbie told me it was $20. I told him I’d spent around $14 for that same ride a few months before, but he confirmed it was $20. I shelled out $22 and was just thankful to be home–around 45 minutes later than I would’ve been on the usual 5:46.

I called Tarrytown Taxi the next day and asked how much it would cost to go Tarrytown to Hawthorne. I encountered a very strange man.

“Anywhere between $16 and $25,” he said. “Depends who drives ya. If it’s a white guy, maybe $16. If it’s a Hispanic guy, more.”

I said something along the lines of, shouldn’t it be a flat fee.

“Why should it be?” he said. “If they can get $20, they’ll get $20.”

I suggested it might be illegal to charge different fees for the same ride.

“This is the most crooked company in the world,” he told me. “I’ve been here 15 years, and it’s the most crooked company in the world.”

I asked his name and he said John Anderson. He then proceeded to blame the price range on the “local politicians,” and told me the true fare should be $16 to $18.

In truth, I was so happy to get the damn cab that I didn’t mind a little price-gouging.

Longest headline ever, or what?

The new Mileposts is out, which Trainjotting readers know tickles TJ to no end. Among this month’s factoids and findings: The winner in February’s on-time performance race was, for once, not the darling Hudson Line. Indeed, the Harlem Line was best in class, posting a 99.2% on-time* performance (*”on-time” of course means within 6 minutes of being on-time according to the MTA’s stringent standards). That was a tenth better than the Hudson.

New Haven, true to character, pulled up the rear with a 98.1%.

Speaking of the New Haven Line, all its riders are eagerly awaiting the arrival of those flashy new cars (and, more important, the demise of those crappy old cars) in 2009. But lest one think that means you’ll be zipping along to Rye in a hot new M8 within a year, you’re in for a longer wait. Mileposts says all of eight cars will be on the line in the last half of 2009, with 10 more joining the fleet each month until the whole of the New Haven Line has new trains by…get this…mid 2012. So get used to the blue ooze of cleaning fluid and urine spilling out of the bathroom, and all inherent odors.

On the bright side, the M8s will feature higher ceilings, auto-flush toilets, individual headrests and looped armrests that promise not to tear your trousers.

The Hudson Line, the darling of the Metro-North trinity, gets a whopping 41 more trains each week when the spring timetable goes into action April 6.

All told, Metro-North is adding an extra 67 trains each week to keep up with growing–and changing–rider demand.

Besides those sweet river views, the Hudson Line gets 21 additional weekend trains, including a pair of Upper Hudson “Saturday Only” expresses leaving from Poughkeepsie and Grand Central.

As defits its middle-child status, Harlem Line gets 16 new trains, including an early morning express out of North White Plains at 5:55. (North White at 6 in the morning…is there a more depressing thought?)

The 7:52 p.m. out of Grand Central now goes express from White Plains to Chappaqua, and the poor suckers in between (North White, Valhalla, dinky little Hawthorne and Pleasantville) will have to wait for the new 7:57.

The black sheep New Haven Line gets mostly lip service with an early morning ride out of Waterbury, Connecticut at 5:57, arriving in Grand Central at 8:18. (Dude, get a job closer to home.)

Finally, the young UBS bucks sentenced to Stamford can be at Jeremy’s Ale House on Fridays by 5 p.m., thanks to a new Stamford express leaving “The City That Works” (yes, Stamford’s actual slogan) at 3:47 and pulling into GCT at 4:41.

I couldn’t tell if the deejay on the Peak this morning said “drenching rains” or “trenchant rains,” but either applies. MTA Service Advisory #1 landed in my email at 8:14 this morning, right around when one puts one’s Blackberry in one’s bag to prepare to step onto the 8:16.

“There are currently delays on all Hudson, Harlem and New Haven line trains,” it read, “because of storm-caused flooding problems in the Bronx and lower Westchester county…All trains operating toward Grand Central Terminal are subject to 30 minute delays.”

Everything seemed normal until we slowed in Hartsdale, then stopped, then picked up a gaggle of irritated Hartsdale types. The same thing happened moments later in Scarsdale, and the train got cheek-to-cheek jammed.

One Scarsdaler spied a coworker or neighbor across the train.

“That’s what you get for trying to get to work early!” he jibed.

“That’s what you get for wearing a suit like that!” the other jibed back. (His sparring mate wore a cheesy wrinkled seersucker jacket.)

Eventually, the Scarsdale “humor” subsided, and we trekked toward the flooded Bronx, with Fordham the exact hot spot. A lady in the aisle ate a bagel and dropped poppy seeds on my Journal.

Truth be told, the delays weren’t as bad as predicted, and certainly not 30 minutes. We stopped for a few minutes near Fordham, but otherwise held a steady pace into Manhattan, and pulled in 14 minutes after our scheduled time (technically “late,” even by MTA standards).

In fact, the worst part of the commute awaited. The platform to enter Grand Central was jammed, and I had to resort to walking through an empty train to the end of the platform, risking the doors shutting on us for an inadvertent joyride to, say, Stamford. The steps down to the 6 train were jammed too, as was the subway platform, the turnstiles at 28th Street (Emergency Door locked, nice), and the revolving doors under the Met Life building.

Then, the fun part–stepping into a downpour so heavy that we had to call on the emergency backup cheenos in the bottom desk drawer.

Surprise surprise, things were worse on the New Haven Line (soon to be rebranded the Beleagured New Haven Line). Texts Mamaroneck’s own G. Francis, “hey my train stopped in bronx. conductor announced ‘high water condition’ and signal probs ahead,” followed by, “‘not totally blocked but rest of trip will be ‘arduous.’”

Which I think means the same thing as ‘trenchant.’

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.