It appears Late Show host Craig Ferguson can only make out a single stop’s name when he rides Metro-North to “Albany.”

Here’s the link, cheeky wee monkeys.

Thanks to Conductor Bobby for sending it along. Perhaps Bobby and his ilk can learn from it and polish their diction.

It’s the second of three installments of “The Great Train Revelry,” the Metro-North pub-crawl feature that appeared in the Journal News mag INTown. Part I focused on the Harlem Line, and Part II on the New Haven Line. Extra added bonus: A drag queen sighting!

The New Haven Line

Unlike on the Harlem and Hudson train lines, the New Haven’s cars are ancient, dark, and more prone to breakdowns. But that’s more than made up for by some of the liveliest downtowns in Westchester, which will serve us well as we endeavor to reach the next four bars. Our spirits are further lifted as, heading out of the city, we’re treated to the spectacle of a full-grown, full-blown transvestite high-stepping into the car somewhere between Harlem and Fordham.

About 6-foot-6, he’s wearing a mesh dress and faux fur coat, a platinum blonde wig topping a massive latte face. The conductor tells us he’s “Paris” when glammed out and “Rocky” while wearing his guy duds—he apparently being a regular rider, too.

The train pulls into Pelham as Paris describes his fearsome footwear to a young female rider. From here, it’s a short walk down Fifth Avenue before the Publick House comes into view. The Publick smells like a bar should—eau de cheeseburgers and beer. There’s all sorts of sports memorabilia on the walls: an ancient pair of boxing gloves, a program from a high school football game back in 1957, the Daily News from when Joe Torre was named Mets manager—yes, he managed the Mets, all the way back in 1977. We order a round of Buds, the drink of choice at the Publick. After a game of pool and a few rounds of Big Buck Hunter, we’re back on Fifth Avenue with a hop to our step. The Stamford local ambles along, and three minutes later we’re in New Rochelle.

A couple of cops man the platform, a reminder of New Rochelle’s urban landscape. As we head up the staircase to Bridge Street, we pass a moving van unloading its wares at a brand new Avalon apartment, a reminder of the city’s growth. We pass Mason’s Pub and Mo’s New York Grill, owned by Yankee legend Mariano Rivera. Every time we visit the city, there’s something new and interesting. Sure enough, like Rivera closing out the opponent in the ninth, Main Street comes through once again. We happen upon a sleek storefront, artfully lit and looking, for all the world, like a tornado lifted it up from Chelsea and dropped it in the middle of New Roc.

How new is Gnarly Vine? So spankin’ that a woman is hanging a cardboard sign, “Gnarly Vine” written in marker, in the window. The menu’s got tapas and small plates, such as a bruschetta with white bean, shrimp, rosemary, and olive oil, plus an endless wine list, ranging from a $7 Bogle on up to a bottle of something called Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, which sells for a cool grand (uh, is that negotiable?).

Cursing my limited budget, I order the Bogle. There’s an open kitchen and an array of loungy couches. The house music plays Coldplay from before they got lame. We chat with Ray Schramm, who says he opened shop with co-owner William Leon just days before. He says he wants Gnarly Vine to grow via word of mouth—work out the kinks and build a local clientele before the press catches wind of it. The dark lighting, soothing tunes, and comfy couches beckon us to order a second Bogle, or even try that Domaine de la Romanée, and hope InTown doesn’t happen to notice the four-.gure tab. But there are bars to see, tipples to topple, and new memories to make—so we wish Schramm luck and hustle back to the station.

The train is late—get used to it, it’s the New Haven Line—which gives us a moment to ponder our mission. We’ve hit six of the 12 bars on our dance card; shouldn’t there be some sort of halftime show? I close my eyes, but no Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction is forthcoming, not even a crummy Aerosmith concert.

When we arrive in Larchmont, Globe Bar & Grill looks enticing, but since we’ve met our quota of upscale joints, we instead opt for the Cellar Bar next door. True to its name, Cellar Bar is a little hole in the ground; manager Gary says it looked old even when it was new. Built in an old warehouse, Cellar’s got a vaguely hip energy—there’s a guy in a vintage Miller High Life hat at the bar, explaining the code of hockey violence to a pal; there’s a giant parrot mural in the men’s room; and Dave Matthews fills the cozy space. We order up a round of Guinness. Matthews rips through a Hendrix-inspired version of “The Star Spangled Banner”; maybe it’s the booze talking, but we get a little choked up. Then we spy the “No Sniveling” sign behind the bar. It’s our cue to move on.

The station is all of about 50 feet from the Cellar; one could very easily take the pub-crawl concept literally, but fortunately we’re not at that stage yet. We make liberal use of the cash machine on the platform and hop on board.

Next stop is Mamaroneck, and we can see the Town House II from the station—bar number eight is within spitting distance! Unfortunately, upon closer inspection, the dusty old joint is about as inviting as last week’s sushi. The evening isn’t too cold, and a walk down Mamaroneck Avenue will surely get the blood pumping, so we venture onward.

Next we stumble across the bar that time forgot—a perfectly preserved German brauhaus, with stained glass in the windows and an ornamental gnome lugging a keg on the door. Unfortunately, it’s locked, and looks as though it’s been that way since Friends ruled Thursday nights. Some locals tell us it’s the Hofbrau, and it’s indeed shuttered. Zum Donnerwetter!

Mamaroneck is making things difficult on our tiring gang, but the notion of doing what no Westchesterite has done propels us forward. We head toward the harbor, past Sal’s Pizza and its new gelato offspring next door, and our perseverance is rewarded as the Duck Inn comes into view. The room is done up in, yup, ducks: hunting decoys, stuffed animals, ceramic ducks, rubber ducks. We order a round of lager, and I endeavor to count the ducks.

It’s a bad idea. First count, I come up with 112. Second count, it’s 131. I ask my friends to give it a try but they know better. I give up and gaze out the window, where the boats sway with the waves. Mercifully, there are no more ducks.

Eight bars down, four to go.

PUBLICK HOUSE Pelham

ORDER A Bud by the bottle—the preferred potable here (139 Fifth Ave.; Pelham).

GNARLY VINE New Rochelle

ORDER A Glass of the Gnarly Head Zin from Sonoma, in keeping with the wine bar’s

gnarly theme.

PUB GRUB Try the gorgonzola, caramelized fig, and balsamic vinegar bruschetta or the shrimp, octopus, and baby clams in Mediterranean vinaigrette (501 Main St.; New Rochelle; 355-2541; thegnarlyvine.com).

CELLAR BAR Larchmont

ORDER A Pint of Guinness. “Freshest Guinness in town,” promises manager Gary.

PUB GRUB No food, but the bartender will order pizza if you ask nicely (8 Railroad Way; Larchmont; 834-8723).

DUCK INN Mamaroneck

ORDER A “Fluffy Duck”—pink grapefruit juice and vodka. (Regulars call it “Duck Juice.”)

PUB GRUB Freebie shepherd’s pie during happy hour (128 W. Boston Post Rd.; Mamaroneck; 835-8791). 

Sneaking up like an on-time 8:20 morning train into Valhalla, the Harlem line was the winner in Metro-North’s 2007 annual customer satisfaction survey. Fully 99% of Harlem line customers reported they were “satisfied” with service, two ahead of the Hudson Line.

What’s surprising is that the Hudson Line, with its scenic river views and longtime stranglehold on the on-time percentage crown, trailed the Harlem Line.

No great surprise over at the New Haven Line, as 88% of those Mamaroneck/Rye/Greenwich types voiced their satisfaction.

All told, the railroad posted a 93% satisfaction level, which Metro-North called a record. President Peter Cannito said the scores reflected customer satisfaction “from the track to the parking lot to the station, on-board the trains and at Grand Central.”

Offered the choices of “not satisfied,” “satisfied” and “very satisfied,” 46% ticked off very satisfied. Furthermore, 88% said the service was the same or better than a year ago.

That’s a bit surprising as well, because according to Metro-North’s own figures, its on-time performance was actually substantially off in 2007. Overall, the railroad was on time 98.2% of the time in ‘06 (”on-time” of course meaning within 6 minutes of when it’s supposed to arrive), compared to 97.8% this year. Most lacking of the three lines was, strangely, this year’s top performer in terms of satisfaction. The Harlem line was on time 97.9% of the time in 2007, down from 99.2% in 2006.

Which I guess means Harlem Line riders are simply a lot happier than they were a year ago.

The Journal News (a.k.a. Teen Stabbed in Yonkers Today) reports that the Mamaroneck train station is for sale. Among the suggestions for the brick Romanesque revival building are a cafe, a flower shop, and a gourmet takeout place.

But Mamaroneck has all of these. As far as the ‘burbs go, Mamaroneck has a rocking main drag, with several restaurants, coffee shops, a theater and every sort of mom and pop shop one could ever require. I know this because we visited G. Francis and his brood at the Mamaroneck Historic Harbor Fair over the weekend.

My proposal is, how about Metro-North do something with the Hawthorne train station? Right now, half of it is a taxi stand, and the other half is storage space for the hygienically ambiguous gentlemen who run the taxi stand. How about giving us a little coffee shop, especially since our little downtown is so little that you can’t get a gourmet takeout meal, and you can’t get a proper cup of coffee (my apologies to Pop’s Deli), and you can’t get flowers for the missus after like 5 p.m. (And you can’t get a bearclaw at Dunkin’ Donuts, thanks to the Mount Pleasant government.)

So hook us up, Metro-North. Screw Mamaroneck.  

My first glimpse of the Mamaroneck platform this morning told me something was wrong. There were way too many people standing around looking even less happy than usual.

While I’m used to standing on the ride home, not getting a seat in the morning is not something I can recover from easily so to preserve my professional effectiveness I immediately went into full seat-scrounging mode. With the extra time I obviously had I hiked to the opposite end of the platform from my usual hangout. When a train finally pulled in (5 minutes late for me - probably more than 30 minutes late for many on the platform who had been trying to get on an earlier train) some quick footwork allowed me to score a window seat with full sleeping privileges.

Within a couple of stops the magnitude of my victory was apparent as the train went from merely crowded to officially “packed to the gills” as you can see from the above photo. Probably a minute after that photo was taken I was sound asleep. Gotta enjoy the good times while you can. Next time it’ll be me standing up there.

As if a Noreaster turning Mamaroneck into a giant aquarium last week wasn’t enough, our sources tell us the New Haven Line is positively crawling along this morning. In fact, one beleagured (would-be) rider took it upon herself to seek out Trainjotting for help.

“Deborah” writes:

Can you please tell me if I’m likely to get into the City from East Norwalk anytime this morning without significant delays? All I can surmise from ‘Trips 123′ is that there is only one track running to and from Manhattan. I can’t find anything about it on your website. HELP!

It’s the capitalized HELP! that really breaks your heart.

Well our fearless leader Malone5a has put out a call for all noreaster-themed commuter stories and as I’m a resident of storm-addled Mamaroneck he’s looking for me to come up with something.

Having not gone into the office the day after the storm I don’t have a storm-related commuting story exactly, but I guess showing a picture of the reason I didn’t make it in counts.

See the lake these rescue guys are launching their boat into in this shot? See the stop sign behind it? Well I usually make a right at that sign as I walk to the station…and as you might guess there’s usually not a lake there.

Actually you gotta hand it to Metro-North. As I took this photo Sunday night I noticed a train roaring by on the elevated tracks a block away. I don’t know if it was on time, but it was going faster than the rescue boat.

Special bonus for the truly desperate: A shot I took of Governor Spitzer walking past the Mamaroneck station the next day. Hey you can see where I usually stand!!

Ever zone out while driving and miss an exit? Embarrassing, right? It’s bad enough if it’s just your wife and kids in the car, imagine what it might feel like if you were driving, say, several hundred commuters on their way home. If you’re really curious, the conductor of a recent train to Harrison might be able to explain the sensation.

It was apparent that something was amiss as the train rolled into the Mamaroneck station…and kept rolling. As I watched my familiar platform whiz by, I had a thought that I’m sure many of my fellow commuters shared: “Boy, somebody just screwed up, and I really hope it wasn’t me.”

About a minute or so past the platform the train began to slow. Over the garbled P.A. system I heard someone ask “You OK up there Mike?” followed by a sheepish “Yeah.” The train came to a stop and began a slow ride of shame back to Mamaroneck.

As we pulled into the station (again) someone on the P.A. made a joke about wanting to see how nervous they could make us. It wasn’t that funny but we all smiled anyway.

Somebody had screwed up, but it wasn’t us.

TRAMNESIA \TRAMM-neezhh-ya\ noun: Waking up from a deep sleep on the train, not knowing what stop you’re at, and bolting for the door in the assumption that the current stop is yours.  

USAGE: I had two Bloody Marys at lunch, then had a serious bout of tramnesia when the train stopped in Mamaroneck and I thought it was Port Chester.

Much has been made of the demise of the newspaper: people get their news from Google and Yahoo, their jobs and used tennis rackets from Craigslist. But Gorgeous Francis of Mamaroneck posits another reason why the paper is going the way of the wine cooler.

While Engine Bob shared what it was like to commute 50 years ago, Francis says commuting on the New Haven line just three years ago was a different experience. The morning ride featured the crackle and twitter of people reading the Times and Wall Street Journal (no, never the Journal News, he says).

But today, the sound is gone. They don’t read the paper anymore. They play with their Blackberrys, reading and sending “important” emails and reaching for record scores in Brickbreaker.

On my beloved (OK, beliked) Harlem line, I see plenty of Blackberrys, but plenty of newspapers too. Even the Journal News.