Dear Sir Snores-a-lot, 

You’re a Caucasian male, probably in your mid to late 30’s and have some kind of half-spiked blonde hair. You board the train at Fairfield. You’re usually on the 7:08 or the 7:24 and sit towards the rear of the train.

For the past two days, I’ve had the VERY unpleasant experience of sitting in the same car as you. Why, you ask? Because you snort and snore very loudly as you drool onto your tie. On Tuesday, you were passed out leaning against a window and had everyone in the car irritated.

I was hoping that this would be a one-time thing, but I was wrong. Yesterday morning, you snagged a seat in one of the five-seaters, once again snorting, snoring and drooling.  Since the 7:24 was packed, you irritated even more people than on the previous day. 

I’m not sure if you’ve got a new baby at home that is keeping you up all night or if you’re out partying until 3 am every morning, but you make an already unpleasant experience even worse. Whatever the problem is, maybe you should try sleeping at night.  Not like anyone cares if you sleep on the train (although the guy next to you on Tuesday looked pretty pissed that your head kept bobbing and landing on his shoulder), but we could definitely do without the snorting and snoring. (Since the drooling is only a visual thing, I guess we can deal with that — although I’d prefer not to see that either.) 

Thank God I saw you walking onto the platform this morning so I had an opportunity to head in the opposite direction. It was actually a pretty nice ride in silence after listening to you for the past two days. 

Has anyone been appointed the enforcer of Commandment #7 on the New Haven line?? If not, I suppose I’ll volunteer. Where can I buy a family-sized pack of Breathe-Rite strips?  Not only will I properly affix one to the bridge of your nose, Sir Snores-a-lot, I plan on using them like butterfly bandages to close your mouth, as that seems to be the primary source of the offensive sounds.  

–CTRider 

Yes, the New Haven line is up to its old tricks. The catenary wire has decided not to play nice with morning commuters, so there’s no service at all New Haven line stops from Larchmont to Greenwich.

No city-bound service, that is. Riders at the six affected stops are encouraged to head west to Stamford to catch the express. So, if you live in Larchmont, and moved to Larchmont because you’re a fan of 30-minute commutes, you’re schlepping 32 minutes away from the city, only to wait for another train, then enjoy the 50-minute ride to Grand Central.

You’re better off walking on the shoulder of 95.

I spotted a few thigh-high tykes on the train this morning, and remembered it was Bring Your Kid To Work Day (formerly Bring Your Daughter To Work Day).

That got me thinking: If yesterday’s Great New Haven Line Debacle had happened a day later, or Bring Your Kid To Work Day had happened a day earlier, what sort of mess that would’ve created.

For starters, the already jammed platforms would’ve had dozens more bodies, however small. Already irritated parents would’ve been extra-protective of little ones being crushed between irate passengers or getting shoved a little too close to platform edges for comfort.

Parents would’ve had to explain why trains were flying by without stopping. And once a train did stop, imagine the sight of parents and their offspring clamoring for a few square inches on a jammed train, some poor kid cheek to cheek with some guy’s arse all the way from Rye to Grand Central.

Perhaps it would’ve soured parents on the whole Bring Your Kid… concept for years to come, not to mention the kids themselves–yes, a whole generation of moppets might’ve decided that that commuting thing Dad or Mom does just isn’t for them.

Speaking of parental units, our own father, himself a former commuter with decades’ worth of war stories, is in town. We’ll tap him for a few of those stories, to be shared tomorrow.

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.

After this morning’s full-tilt debacle, the MTA says commuters on the New Haven Line can expect a normal commute. The problems this morning, which involved 90 minute delays, stemmed from a catenary wire that runs above the train (The crummy old cars on the New Haven Line rely on the catenary, whereas the sleek chariots of the Harlem and Hudson Lines use the third rail. Everything I know about this, I learned from Engine Bob.)

According to the MTA, a pantograph–the thing that connects the train to the catenary–lost its “shoe” (what is this, a freakin’ nursery rhyme?). The Journal News has all the bloody details.

“It’s a bad, bad, bad, bad day,” commented MTA spokesperson Marjorie Anders. (That’s not to be confused with ‘63 roadrace comedy “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.”)

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.

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. 

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.

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.  

Rough week for our New Haven line brethren. First, a train jumps the tracks in Grand Central, leaving several hundred commuters stuck on the train in the bowels of Grand Central. Then several trains bypassed Mamaroneck and Larchmont this morning after a car hit a train in Rye, leaving commuters waiting…and waiting…and waiting… in the 15 degree weather.