I generally try not to say nice things about the Yankees, but as the Mets were fighting with their closer after K-Rod’s season finished prematurely after a fight with his kids’ grandfather, Joe Girardi, Joba Chamberlain and Tino Martinez, among others, were schlepping on New Jersey Transit and the subway to accompany a blind Yankee fan and her guide dog to the Stadium for last night’s contest against Detroit.

It’s part of HOPE Week (Helping Others Persevere and Excel) for the Yankees, when the guys do nice things for people in need. (The Mets, meanwhile are conducting the less wholesome BUYFIL Week (Beat Up Your Father-in-Law.)

The pinstriped posse picked up the blind woman, Jane Lang, at her Morris Plains home, then took New Jersey Transit to Penn Station, and switched to the D train to get up to the Stadium.

You can view the slide show here.

Kudos to them for making the woman’s day–and for taking public transportation.

Those double-decker trains you see on the LIRR and NJT (the “Bitanic,” in conductor-speak) may be coming to the Metro-North, reports the NY Times. The railroad’s next purchase of new cars is in 2015, and the split-level trains are being considered for the order.

Riders generally like the trains: lots of seats, and cool views from the Promenade deck. (MNR riders would be able to see Central Park from the second floor, writes Timesman Michael M. Grynbaum.) On the downside, it’s been my experience that there are like two restrooms for the entire double-decker, which is ginormous. If you’re taking that thing out to the Hamptons in the summer–granted, hardly a typical commuter trip–the line is 10-deep with Snookified Hamptons weekend warrior scruff.

Reports the Times:

But a fleet of rolling duplexes would bring the railroad in line with its nearby cousins. Double-decker trains, then called “up and downs,” were commonplace on the Long Island Rail Road from the late 1930s to the late 1960s; a more modern version began operation in 1998. New Jersey Transit has run double-deckers since 2005.

Officials at both commuter railroads say the bilevel trains receive rave reviews from customers, particularly because their interior layouts eliminate the hated middle seat.

“Customers love them for a number of reasons,” said Dan Stessel, a spokesman for New Jersey Transit. “They are quieter, and you have more leg room. It’s been overwhelmingly positive.”

Howard Permut, the president of Metro-North, said he was attracted to the double-decker option because it could help solve a broader challenge facing Metro-North: its ballooning ridership, which has risen 10 percent in the last five years.

The railroad is nearing capacity at Grand Central Terminal, its Midtown hub, and at rush hour it currently runs trains in and out of the Park Avenue tunnel at the fastest rate it can.

We here at Trainjotting have been harping on this for years: the railroad’s “on-time performance” is a very misleading figure.

Metro-North touts an “on-time” percentage in its monthly Mileposts mouthpiece that’s about as high as the temps this past weekend–the Harlem line is “on-time” 98.7% of the time so far this year, and the Hudson is 98.3%.

Of course, “on-time” means any train arriving within six minutes of when it’s supposed to.

The New York Times pushed the MTA to release its full on-time records, and found the trains were much later than the railroads reported in 2009. Rush-hour trains may be late as much as 25% of the time.

The good news is, and you probably already know this, Metro-North is best of the local bunch. New Jersey Transit is the worst, and the LIRR is somewhere in the middle.

At the peak of the rush, from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m., about 25 percent of New Jersey Transit trains entering Manhattan arrived late; about 2 in 5 of the late trains were tardy by at least 15 minutes.

Things are better for Metro-North riders–at least those who don’t live along the Sound shore.

Metro-North’s lines to Connecticut and Westchester, which have the best performance in the region, benefit from having spacious Grand Central Terminal to themselves. Still, trains on the New Haven line perform worse than the others, primarily because the cars are holdovers from the 1970s and some of the track uses overhead electrical wires that are nearly a century old and prone to damage.

The various railroads’ on-time percentages look sweet because the non-rush hour trains are mostly on time, boosting the overall percentages. The rush-hour trains–the ones that affect most of us–are a much different story, as crowded tracks, tunnels and platforms make for significant delays.

Give it up for the Times, they did their homework on this one.

These are among the findings of an examination by The New York Times of the more than 685,000 trips in 2009 involving the region’s three major commuter railroads, using records requested by The Times that had not previously been made available to the public.

The review found that the official figures for on-time performance, often used as a promotional tool, contrasted sharply with the experience of tens of thousands of passengers who regularly ride the trains at peak hours. In fact, the most important trips for daily commuters, those that can make or break breakfast with a client or dinner with a spouse, experience far more delays than the statistics may let on.

Trips to and from Penn Station during rush hours, for instance, were two and a half times as likely to be late as trips taken at any other time. The disappointment among riders can be further appreciated by considering the record of specific commuter lines. For example, morning commuters on New Jersey Transit who passed through the Summit station were late on 1 of every 6 trips, nearly a third by more than 20 minutes. And Long Island Rail Road commuters who traveled from Huntington to Manhattan at rush hour arrived late on 1 of every 10 trips, twice the average for the railroad.

I took the late train home last night. Actually, it seems everybody on NJ Transit took the late train home last night.

Boarding my usual 5:17 Gladstone train in Penn Station, all seemed normal. But soon after we boarded, the first of many announcements greeted commuters. Things got much worse before they got better.

Actually, things never really got better.
 
Describing my odyssey in Joycean detail would be as painful as reliving last night’s journey home.

So here are the Cliffs Notes:
 
A disabled train in the mouth of the tunnel.
Two disabled trains in the tunnel.
All trains out of Penn Station suspended for up to 60 mins
Join the Long March to the PATH trains, and Hoboken trains
Overcrowding and confusion at Hoboken
Confusion and incorrect announcements at Newark Broad St
Express trains NOT making any extra stops, so passengers forced to crowd unsafely, onto one local train.
Home at 8:05 pm
 

All is quiet at Newark Broad Street. All was not quiet on the train from hell.  

As the ticker-tape of CleverCommute messages indicated, NJT sent customers to Port Authority to catch busses. However, when train service was returned (but still delayed), the busses STOPPED cross-honoring their fare.
 
From my experience, I report that conductors and train crew were very considerate through NJ Transit’s latest screw-up. Communication was the problem. Communication is a problem that another “JerseyJim” will need to address immediately–Executive Director James Weinstein.
 
– jerseyjim

With temps hitting the century mark for the second day in a row yesterday, New Jersey Transit cooled off steamy passengers, many with delayed trains, in Penn Station last night with free ice water.

NJT explains:

Our fleet of modern “ALP-46″ locomotives is equipped with temperature sensors that are designed to protect the equipment from damage caused by extreme heat.  When the internal temperature aboard the locomotive reaches 130-135 degrees, the locomotive will automatically shut down to prevent damage.  This situation can occur when the ambient (outdoor) temperature is high for prolonged periods, as with the current heat wave.

To prevent these weather-related locomotives issues, we are shutting down the equipmentduring layovers at endpoint terminals and turning down air conditioning systems when trainsets are not in service.  Despite these efforts, a number of trains were impacted during the evening commute of Tuesday, July 6.  Several trains were cancelled or combined (i.e. stops were added to express trains to accommodate customers affected by cancellations). 

NJT had a nice photo op, as executive director Jim Weinstein handed some cool Zima to a commuter who may or may not have been former governor Jon Corzine.

Over on Metro-North, things seemed pretty normal amidst The Great 2010 Summer Scorcher. Our evening train got us home 5-6 minutes later than normal, the trains slowing down a bit to avoid overheating.

It’s been a week full of surprises on New Jersey Transit, but riders are taking it in stride. As commuters absorb the increased delays and cancellations, and no A.C., summer has certainly left the station.
 
This morning’s train missed the platform by about 20 feet, but our suburban scrum barely blinked, and scrambled over the rocks to jump aboard, like khaki-clad Jack Kerouacs, ready for rave on.
 
Tuesday morning had everyone feeling upbeat, as a double-decker train replaced our usual train. With lots of empty seats, and premium air conditioning, nobody was complaining.
 
It’s been a week full of surprises on New Jersey Transit, but riders are taking it in stride. As commuters absorb the increased delays and cancellations, and NO A.C., summer has certainly left the station.
 
This morning’s train missed the platform by about twenty feet but our suburban scrum barely blinked, and scrambled over the rocks to jump aboard, like khaki-clad Jack Kerouacs, ready for rave on.
 
Tuesday morning had everyone feeling upbeat, as a double-decker train replaced our usual train. With lots of empty seats, and premium air conditioning, nobody was complaining.
 
And considering the Russian spy reports from Montclair, NJ, I now regret that I didn’t “say something” last week, when I “saw something,” as that something was the rider across from me, wearing an eye patch. This formerly-unsuspecting fellow was chatting loudly with his “sister,” as they spoke about “dad” and “the show.” I don’t mean to belittle his medical condition, but I would have opted for blending-in with big, girly papparazzi glasses that “The Situation” dons in “da Clubs” of the Jersey Shore, but an eye patch?
 
As riders gear up for trains crowded with summer sightseers, sudden bypasses to Hoboken, and the blast furnace of Penn Station platforms, we’ll hope for a few forgettable rides on the rails.
 

And considering the Russian spy reports from Montclair, NJ, I now regret that I didn’t “say something” last week, when I “saw something,” as that something was the rider across from me, wearing an eye patch.

This formerly-unsuspecting fellow was chatting loudly with his “sister,” as they spoke about “dad” and “the show.” I don’t mean to belittle his medical condition, but I would have opted for blending in with big, girly papparazzi glasses that “The Situation” dons in “da clubs” of the Jersey Shore. But an eye patch?
 
As riders gear up for trains crowded with summer sightseers, sudden bypasses to Hoboken, and the blast furnace of Penn Station platforms, we’ll hope for a few forgettable rides on the rails.
 
-jerseyjim

[image: NY Daily News]

I had a chance to take Little G to that new soccer stadium out in Harrison, New Jersey, right on the Newark border, over the weekend. It’s the home of the Red Bulls, but on Saturday it hosted an international rugby match, U.S. against France. There were no vuvuzelas, though there were Thundersticks–which Little G enjoyed way, way more than the match.

The stadium, which holds 25,000, is an ambitious endeavor. A soccer stadium! In the U.S.! In a town you never heard of!

Red Bull Stadium during construction last year, photo courtesy of Jersey Jim

Location is, of course, everything, and Red Bull Stadium was put there for two reasons. There’s a huge Portuguese population in Harrison (and Newark), and there’s a PATH station a few blocks away. (I also saw the New Jersey Transit trains chugging by, though I’m not sure where they stop in the area.)

Me and G, coming from the great northlands, drove in, an at times harrowing journey through those confusing Jersey highways seen in the Sopranos open. We parked in a giant parking garage built around the Harrison PATH station.

The stadium sticks out of the ground like a giant mushroom, and in between the parking garage and the stadium is a giant, fenced off square of dirt that’s about three city blocks square. Along the fence is an artist’s rendering of what the giant square is supposed to look like down the road. It’s a semi-urban oasis of multi-use development: restaurants, apartments, retail, offices, all built around the PATH station. It looks dreamy, as those artist renderings always do.

And just off in the near distance is the Newark skyline, which looks like a real city skyline, something between White Plains and, I don’t know, Buffalo or somesuch.

Will such a development happen? Frankly, if they pull off 25% of the development featured in the artwork, it would be a cool area.

Will Manhattan types move to Harrison, New Jersey? Hard to say. Certainly they flocked to Jersey City, which is a little closer to Manhattan, also accessed by PATH.

I always figured Newark would eventually be invaded by Manhattan people looking for cheap real estate and a really easy commute, either by New Jersey Transit or the PATH. That the city got a super-cool mayor in Cory Booker and took control of its huge crime problem only looked to open the door for a mini-influx.

In fact, after almost 20 years of either living in Manhattan or Westchester, I’ve never met a single person who lives in Newark.

Can Harrison sell itself–Major League Soccer, shops, transit–to urban hipsters? Time will tell. Maybe hosting a few big-name concerts at the soccer stadium would help people get familiar with the area. So would erecting something in the big dirt square other than weeds.

The commuter-advocacy group Commuter Nation is at Penn Station today, espousing the virtues of mass transit and even giving out a few iPads.

Says CN:

Commuter Nation campaign is back this year to educate commuters in the greater New York metropolitan area about commuter benefits and is giving away free commuting, parking, and iPads during the Commuter Nation FREE RIDE Sweepstakes!

Commuter Nation describes itself as “an initiative to bring awareness and encourage commuting employees to learn about and participate in commuter benefits through their employer.”

Look for their street teams at Penn today. Grab an iPad, I hear they’re cool.

POPCORNUCOPIA /POP korna COPE eeah/ noun: The paper Italian-loaf sleeve, filled to the brim with savory train station popcorn, offering an endless snack supply for the ride home.

Extra style points for the guy that can hold the Popcornucopia under one arm and the newspaper in the same hand, but continue to fire kernels into his mouth throughout the ride, like some kind of Popcorn Jason Bourne.

Usage: This guy on the 11:32 to Chatham was so drunk that he buried his face in his Popcornucopia when his feeding arm got tired.

- jerseyjim

[image: suburbanrental.net]

A quiet ride into the city on NJT this morning, as the buzz and chill of the train’s air conditioner was a welcome switch in the commutersphere.
 
Most days, our 7:10 a.m. Midtown Direct is quite low volume. As I board each morning with my locals, I usually march to the first car for an empty aisle seat in a three-seater. I pass, and pass up a lot of empty seats on the way, but those seats will be filled at the next and last stop, with the throng of Summit folks geared up for the non-stop “Summit-push.”
 
Here in the first car, most folks are reading paperback novels, quietly dozing, tapping on their laptops, or plugged into the prior night’s TV offering on their fancy new iPad.

I’m trying to break a bad habit of scanning the newspaper over the shoulder of the guy across the aisle.
 
Mostly though it’s quiet. Some small talk, but no cellphone barkers, or poker games, or chatty co-workers to break the lull.

I’m probably not alone, savoring those last few minutes of peace, before we hit the hot, loud and crowded city.