It's been a rough summer for our noses. First, a putrid puddle took over West 33rd Street. Then a collapsed manhole made Brooklyn smell like poop. And now, Queens is getting in on the nose-wrinkling action, with a nauseating chemical odor from railroad tracks stinking up Middle Village. more ›

Should we really be patting Metro-North on the caboose for running their trains on time? According to the NY Post, the railroad (allegedly!) had a 100 percent on-time record on Tuesday, with "all 659 runs east of the Hudson and all 61 runs west of the Hudson running exactly on time." Great, right? But shouldn't this happen everyday... or at least several times a week? Or several times a month? Or year? As it stands, this hasn't happened since April 29th! If this is some new standard of excellence in service with the MTA, we're going to have to find a way to lower this bar even further. The Post may be giving you a "star," but we say try harder, Metro-North. more ›

Ooooh, how European. Metro-North Railroad is considering buying double-decker coaches for its Harlem and Hudson lines, according to the New York Times. The purchase would bring less crowded cars to the commuter lines, adding enough space for 1/3 more people to get on board. The price is right, too: the two-level trains cost just as much as the current single-story ones. more ›

Yesterday, low voltage readings on train tracks in NJ forced Amtrak and NJ Transit to suspend service for three hours during the morning rush hour on a pre-Christmas Eve travel day. According to the NY Times, "The partial shutdown began about 8:30 a.m., disrupting an estimated 100 trains — about 20 from Amtrak and about 80 from New Jersey Transit." Though service was back up by noon, there were delays of 60-90 minutes in the late afternoon. more ›

Just before noon today, President-elect Obama boarded a vintage train at the 30th Street Station in Philadelphia on a whistle-stop tour of cities along the mid-Atlantic seaboard with a final destination of Washington DC, where he will remain until his inauguration takes place this Tuesday. Obama then picked up his VP-to-be Joe Biden in Wilmington, Delaware on the "two-hour journey stretched into more than seven, as other invited guests boarded along the way—the final pickup being in "O"-Baltimore. The Times called the mood "more serious one than it was on most days of the presidential campaign." Just today in his weekly address, Obama said, "There will be false starts and setbacks, frustrations and disappointments. And we will be called to show patience even as we act with fierce urgency.” The train recalled Lincoln's initial inaugural trip to DC by rail and even followed some of the same route, but Obama never referred to the 16th president by name. more ›

For decades, one of the best ways for moving people and freight to and from New York over land was by rail. As the car, truck, and airplane took over the railroads declined their importance – unlike most of the railroads weren’t cut off by the Hudson River. Today, most of that rail infrastructure is gone, but a surprising amount of it is still existing albeit in a rotting relic state. You may even have seen it preserved in places like Gantry Plaza State Park or Liberty State Park along the shores opposite Manhattan. Or you may have seen it in action with the railcar barges of the New York New Jersey Rail working their way across the harbor or when you take a train from Hoboken Terminal. more ›