A man boards the 8:28 at White Plains. He’s tall and heavy-set, and looks like he played high school football 40 years before. He’s got white hair, glasses, a large suitcase, light blue jeans that look scarily close to Toughskins that his wife bought for him at Caldor. (Two Toughskins mentions on Trainjotting in the past few days. You’d think they were advertising here or something.)

He’s quiet for the first 10 minutes, though I feel him looking around, searching for an opportunity to make his presence felt.

As we near Bronkers, he can’t contain himself any longer. He makes eye contact with a guy a few rows up and across the aisle who’s facing him.

“Duz thee-is trayyn go ex-pray-is to Grand Central?”

“Yup,” comes the response. “125th then Grand Central.”

“Wow,” the guy responds. (I’m going to stop writing in phonetics cuz it’s hard to do.) “That’s a lot of ground to cover.”

The guy up and over nods, smiles and goes back to his book.

But the big fella continues.

“My first time on the Metro-North,” he says. “I’m just a country boy.”

The up and over guy nods, this time without the smile.

“Sure covers a lot of ground,” he continues. “Expensive too. I was in L.A. recently, paid $1.50 to ride 50 miles.”

“Bet you were still in L.A. when you got off,” comes a response from another guy across the aisle.

Then it’s quiet for a few minutes, but the big fella isn’t content reading his Google Maps printout.

“You sure are reading that book fast,” he says to the second guy he’d spoken to. “Are you really comprehending it all?”

“Probably not,” the guy says with a laugh. “But if I’m not comprehending it, I’ll probably never know.” It was some sort of joke, the best you’ll do on a Monday morning train.

The Metro-North virgin is smashing every commuter rule he can: Talking to strangers, especially those not right next to him. Talking to a guy who has to turn around to respond. Talking to a guy who’s clearly immersed in his reading. The only way it would be more of a transgression would be if the big hayseed was chatting up a guy in headphones.

The man then starts asking about getting a bus to LaGuardia, and the first man he spoke to tells him there’s a bus at 125th [Editor’s Note: Freudian Slip of the day–I typed “buzz” instead of “bus.”]. They dissect the finer points of bus transportation, LaGuardia and 125th until we arrive in Harlem. The first guy was getting off, and said he’d show the big hayseed where to go.

As they exited the train, Big Country continued to pepper the poor commuter with inane questions.  

One thing I like about the snow is the footsteps I see as I walk to the train.

I live in a neighborhood where no one walks unless the doctor demands it of them. My house is a very doable, at least by my book, 15 minute walk to the train (13 if you’re really chugging), but no one does it. Mind you, most people around me don’t commute to the city, but those that do for the most part do not walk. (A pair of large hills figures into their decision as well.)

So as seemingly the lone walker in the neighborhood, I sometimes feel a bit self-conscious. As the giant SUVs roar by, I can read the drivers’ minds: Is he serving out a DWI? Did he never learn to drive? Is he on the prowl for young children?

But when it snows, I see the footsteps of those who’ve walked before me. I spied two pairs in the snow this morning (by the way, great snow for pedestrians–light, fluffy, pretty). When the footsteps hit Elwood, and one of the few sidewalks in the area, one set opted for the sidewalk and the several inches of snow on it, and the other for the paved street. I took the latter.

I’d left myself 21 minutes to get to the train, and only needed about 18. That artless pirhouette I did on the ice on the Sprain overpass notwithstanding (how the hell did I knot fall?), it was a really enjoyable walk.

Once again, Dolores L. had failed to deliver my newspapers, so I stopped into the Station Deli to grab a Times.

“What time do you think the 8:16 will pull in?” I asked the counter guy.

“It’s actually been pretty close to on time today,” he said, while another guy chirped in, “8:30!”.

Sure enough, the 8:16 rolled in at 8:16, and we were on our way, pulling into GCT right on time. Well done, Metro-North.

Another thing I like about snow days such as this is not only hearing the commuter survival stories at work, but seeing the outfits most coworkers seem to sport on such days. They’re what our mothers once called “play clothes” decades before–jeans, ginormous boots, flannels preferred by ’90s Seattle grungers and bicurious New England coeds.

It’s especially fun to see the sales guys leave the suit at home for the day and traipse about looking a bit out of sorts in their Toughskins and Timberlands.

Metro-North left some handbills behind for riders last night explaining the fare hikes that arrive March 1. “The vast majority of monthly and weekly commuter rail tickets will increase between 3.76% and 4.25%,” reads the “New Fares” flier.

(Am I the only one that thinks that the fare hikes would be less if Metro-North didn’t have to pay cleaners to scoop up all the New Fares fliers?)

Furthermore, “Ticket prices for one-way, round-trip and ten-trip travel between other stations will increase up to 7.7%.”

The one winner in all of this is Connecticut riders, as the rate hike only applies to New York stations. As if those super-low property taxes weren’t enough of an enticement ot move to the Nutmeg State.

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.

I don’t have a doorlight.

Get it yet?

No, Dennis.

Uh, let me try.

Something…uh, that didn’t work.

bzzz….click

Ladies and gentlemen…

We don’t have a doorlight. We’ll get someone to look at it outside.

bzzz…click.

I got a doorlight now.

Hold on!

Just wanna let you know, I got a doorlight now.

I think we’re good now, Kev.

OK, can we go?

Yessir!

Some 48 hours since we implored the Metro-North braintrust to spill us out into a more user-friendly corner of GCT, we were rewarded with a drop-off on Track 25 today. For those who don’t study the Grand Central blueprints every day, Track 25 is, in commercial real estate parlance, Main Street and Main. It’s somewhere between Park Place and Boardwalk. It’s above the fold, it’s front row center.

Thanks, gents. Let’s hope it keeps up.

Mystery Men 

I don’t take Metro-North too often on weekdays, but  found myself heading up to Southeast on the 10:48 a.m. last week to speak to some drug court practitioners about relapse issues.

I was way, way too early and wandered around Grand Central for a while, marveling at all the neat shops, the Starbucks coffee stations, the children’s toy store where I bought dinosaurs for my son’s kindergarten class, the cool pen store, and the jaw-dropping main hall.

I know all you Metro-North-ites are used to the constellations above you and the grand staircase, but I’m not. I’m a Penn Station-ite and let me tell you — Penn Station is no Grand Central Station.

I got to the platform at 10:15am — still way too early and the first person on the platform. The train was on the track and men and women were inside wearing blue jump suits and plastic gloves, filling bags with the detritus of the morning ride. I was reading my notes for my presentation.

I was wearing a suit – something I only do on presentation days – and rocking back and forth on my heels. A man joined me about ten yards away, a paper under his arm and a coffee cup in his hand. He was in a suit. He checked his watch.

Then, two men riding an orange mini-car, wearing clean orange jumpsuits, motored down the ramp from the entrance at jogging speed. They beeped the man with the paper and coffee out of the way, even though there was plenty of room to go around him. I stepped forward too, thinking they probably needed a wide berth.

They went down to the end of the track, turned around and put the car into park, facing me. They sat there for about ten minutes, neither one talking, just sitting there with the engine idling.

I stared at them. They stared at me. They were far enough away so there was no real tension, just curiosity.

Then, as if on cue, they moved into gear, passed behind me, ran up the ramp and were gone.

The train doors opened a few minutes later. There were about ten of us by then.

Just who were those orange men? What was the significance of that little orange car? And why were their uniforms so clean?

Connectic Energy tells us a rail tail about his ride back to Stamford after a media-industry wingding last night. Some burly guy boards with a pair of tallboys, wearing a mug that looks like he’s already downed a half-dozen of them.

The guy’s got the gift of the gab, chatting away at everyone within earshot, especially the pair of comely young ladies seated nearby, who find themselves laughing along with his ‘let’s turn this train ride into a party’ routine.

The guy is inviting fellow riders over to his five-seater with lines like, ‘c’mon, you KNOW you wanna join us’, some are actually taking him up on it, and everyone’s sharing a good laugh.

The conductor comes around. Mr. Big Jokey Guy even tries to pull the Man in Blue into his web of bon homie, riffing along the lines of, “What if I don’t have a ticket? What if I just don’t have one? What would you do?”

The conductor apparently missed the wink, the nudge, whatever cue the Big Jokey Guy offers. Or he simply wanted to punch his tickets and get his job done.

After several awkward moments, Big Jokey Guy pulls out his ticket, and tries to show the conductor it was all a big joke. All in fun, dude!

Conductor doesn’t see it that way, angrily shaking his head and storming on to the next rider.

Unfortunately, no one in Big Jokey Guy’s new social circle sees it that way either. Silence envelopes the car, and people gradually start inching away from him–returning to their books, their Blackberrys, their sleep.

Party’s over.

As Metro-North has left us with precious little to grouse about these days, we had to dig deep to satisfy our complain quote.

So we turn to beer selection.

While we’re unfailingly grateful to be able to enjoy an adult beverage on the evening train (or the morning train, if that’s what the day calls for), it’d be even nicer if Metro-North’s booze selection was shaken up (or stirred, for that matter) every once in a while.

See, we get a bit tired of the same old Bud bottle/Bud can/Bud Light/Miller Genuinely Bland Draft/Sam Adams-if-it’s-payday beer selections.  How nice would it be if Metro-North took a page from the hospitality industry and went with seasonal selections: A nice Sam Winter Lager around this time of year, a little Negro Modelo in early May, perhaps a wheat beer come summer. Keep the Bud family intact, but offer up the premiums for a little extra.

Further borrowing from the bar biz, maybe Metro-North could import some attractive bartenders to work the Grand Central beers stands, flash you a quick smile with your beer, make you think they really truly dig you and want to ride the 5:46 to White Plains home with you. It’d be a far cry from the men in bowl cuts and baby blue MTA shirts currently hawking brews.

Just a thought.

She’s a Metro-North conductor. She checked my ticket this morning and, in fact, checks it a few times a week.

She’s a Latina, about 30, pretty, and pleasant.

And she looks exactly like freakin’ A-Rod.

As such, it’s hard to return her pleasantness. She’s politely thanking me for showing my monthly pass, and I’m gritting my teeth so I don’t snap at her about sullying the Fall Classic with her announcement that she was spurning the Yankees to test the market, her crawling back to the Yankees after a heart-to-heart with Warren Buffett, and her overall state of arrogance, artifice and manufactured earnestness every time a video camera is near.

Has anyone else out there encountered A-Rod’s Sister on the train? Any of those conductors out there know who I’m talking about?

(I know, I know, time to get a damn cellphone camera.)