February 16, 2008
25 Years of Metro-North on Exhibit
On Tuesday, the New York City Transit Museum opened a small exhibit dedicated to the 25th Anniversary of Metro-North Railroad in its Annex at Grand Central Terminal. It features some artifacts from both the pre-MTA takeover (which created Metro-North) days to today and provides a Cliffs Notes version on how the railroad that serves the northern suburbs and Connecticut operates.
It also touches, albeit a bit too briefly, on how the railroad is like the mythical phoenix rising from the ashes of decades of neglectful private ownership into a system that serves as a model for other passenger railroads, most of whom probably envy its 97.7% on time performance and high levels of customer satisfaction. (Why can’t the rest of the MTA be so good?)
The small exhibit isn’t worth making the trip to see exclusively (unless you are a hard core foamer), but if you are waiting for a train or are in the neighborhood it is worth spending a few minutes to take a look at. And judging from the unenthusiastic kids being trudged through the exhibit, it probably isn’t good for kids. Such is the handicap of the small amount of display space there which seems more of an afterthought to the Transit Museum’s store.
One tip, if you like trains or are an infrastructure geek, wait until Metro-North’s Harmon Shops Open House in the fall. It always features a behind the scenes peek at how the railroad is run along with things for kids to do. Plus it usually features a fall foliage train trip.
Picture of third rail snow shoe by author
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Metro-North indeed is a very good commuter railroad. The trains always arrive on time and sometimes even couple of minutes earlier than printed on the schedule.
The LIRR should learn from Metro-North.
Nice Write up, I'll have to check it out.
#1
Arriving ahead of time is bad, unless it just sits there and waits until its supposed to leave. Why? They've just screwed the next batch of people.
nivek - LOL! Your enlightened comments on railroads have made my morning. Where do you get your material?
Metro-North, as well as the other commuter railroads have notes in the schedule about some trains like "Primarily to discharge customers. Train may depart up to 5 minutes earlier than the time shown." That usually occurs at outbound stations in the evening rush.
One thing about the times at Grand Central - the actual scheduled departure time is one minute later than the posted time, which gives commuters an extra minute to get to the train and probably reduces the amount of people getting hurt running for the train.