# Empire Service Home. Bustitution, Metro North



## Long Train Runnin' (Oct 25, 2010)

Everything started out great on Sunday morning. I had a good night out with my friends, and got to see most of my family. I was quite satisfied with everything, when I said good bye to my dad at the Little Silver Train Station. I boarded a North Jersey Coastline train that was making all local stops to New York Penn Station. It was nice and familiar traveling along my “home rails” if you will. The trip went by a lot faster then I anticipated since I was really enjoying the ride that used to be nearly routine for me. We popped on to the Northeast Corridor in Rahway, and before I knew it we were in Penn Station.

I headed to the Club Acela where I asked the agent if the fire had been put out, and if trains were running on time. Little did I know there was another fire this time much closer to New York City. The warehouse fire in Albany was old news, there was a fire on the Spuyten Duyvil Bridge, and told me to have a seat. I was starting to feel glad that once again I would have a business class seat for what was shaping up to be my second adventure on Amtrak in just 48 hours.

I went and got some lunch inside the station, and a few other small items for the trip. When I came back I headed online, and Amtrak had posted a service disruption on their website for service to and from New York on the Empire Corridor. Now it was officially an adventure! The agent at the desk told me she had no idea what was going to happen. At 1:30 there was a long confusing announcement which I couldn’t hear properly inside the Club Acela. I walked into the Customer Service office and she told me I would be taking a bus to Grand Central Terminal where a Metro North train would take me Croton-Harmon.

I joined the several hundred people waiting on line at the 8th and 34th St. exit for the bus service. It was clear this was going to be a very long process, and when someone I met in line suggested we split a cab I took her up on the offer. I KNOW I KNOW I COULD HAVE TAKEN THE SUBWAY, but I decided to bring a few things back with me including a sub-woofer and 24 inch computer monitor. My one bag was extremely heavy and I didn’t want to deal with that on the subway, and I wasn’t too thrilled about having delicate and expensive equipment thrown under a bus. That’s why I joined my new found friend in a taxi to Grand Central.

I enjoyed the short taxi ride to Grand Central including a nice glimpse at Time Square. It ended up being 11 dollars with a generous tip. After being in Penn Station for 2 hours I had to remind myself as I basked in the glory of the main hall that Penn Station was NICER then Grand Central once upon a time. There of course was no one from Amtrak to be seen, but a Metro North Employee told me to just board the next train to Croton-Harmon which would be leaving in 15 minutes. A few more steps and I was at track 28 where the train to Croton-Harmon was waiting. It was jam packed with a mix of regular riders and folks trying to get on Amtrak. I found a set of seats, and sat with the woman I split the cab with.

The highlight of the ride was when we got to see the Spuyten Duyvil Bridge for ourselves. There was a single P42 number 200 sitting in the middle of the bridge and scores of people wearing orange safety jackets. That’s all I was able to see from where I was sitting, but I didn’t see any clear signs of fire damage. The rest of the ride went by reasonably quick, and I called Amtrak to see if they knew when the train from Croton-Harmon would depart. The Metro North Conductor must have read my mind, because as I was calling he made an announcement that he had new information for us.

It was determined that we would make a cross platform transfer to waiting Amtrak equipment, and we would wait there for one more Metro North Train behind us, then be on our way. What I didn’t realize was just how many different trains people were hoping to transfer to. I realized we had people from the Maple Leaf, the Adirondack, and 3 Empire Service trains hoping to get to places like Toronto and Montreal. I soon learned that the Maple Leaf had left New York this morning, but it was turned around and spent back to Penn Station.

The cross platform transfer was a little chaotic, as they tried to sort hundred of passengers into the right cars. I think the train was 14 cars long, because it extended a few cars off the platform on both sides! Amazingly, there were even the proper number of club-dinette cars, and I was directed to a Business Class Seat. Once the other Metro North Train arrived we pulled out in less than 10 minutes. I couldn’t believe I was on another combined train, but hey I honestly thought I would be riding a bus back! I was very pleased with how things went. We pulled into Rhinecliff-Kingston at 4:55 which meant we were 1:45 minutes down. At this point it was clear I would be in for another long night!

We made pretty good time all the way to Albany. Although we were a little slow the last couple miles. Once we got to Albany the train was broken down. I never got a chance to figure out our consist all I know is the train was so long we were 2 cars off the platform. We sat there for about 20 minutes and eventually the car I was sitting in became the last car of the train.

The next concern was the question of food service for the remainder of my trip. Everyone was certainly hopeful that the café car would open, but there was no stock in the café car, and the only commissary is in New York. Even if we had an LSA they had nothing to offer us. The conductor informed us that the café car would not open during the trip. He said the best thing to do would be to write you representative and support fully funding Amtrak. I couldn’t agree with him more even though I remember it was the State of New York that killed food service on trains that only run NYP-ALB which in a way killed the commissary. Anyway, it was a very good response and I couldn’t agree more.

Shortly after leaving Albany the clock stroke 7 PM and on a Sunday night that means one thing its tome for the Amtrak Unlimited weekly chat. I had pretty good connection and was able to chat with a dozen different AU members who came in and out. You can consider this paragraph a shameless plug for the weekly chat :lol: if you can be online its really worth dropping Sunday’s at 7 

Time really began to pass quickly as I focused on the AU chat, and watch my progress via GPS on my laptop. II was pretty hungry, and broke into the snacks and things I had taken from home to eat back at school. It was nothing substantial but it was a little something.

It was when we arrived in Syracuse that my faith in Amtrak only grew stronger. After the train pulled out of the station the conductor told us there were some sandwiches for us. There was pretty much 0 hesitation from anyone in the car, and we all stood almost in unison and headed into the café half of the car. There were 8 trays of subs from Subway, 2 huge boxes of chips, and 8 cases of soda. Dinner was served! I took my food back to my seat, and informed those members in chat of my good fortune. I enjoyed my meal immensely and when I went to throw away my garbage I was offered more. Things like that only solidify my love for traveling by Amtrak.

The ride to Rochester was uneventful I spent the time writing this report while chatting with AU members who were still hanging around. We ended up arriving in Rochester 1 hour and 52 minutes late. I honestly was very impressed that considering how things looked this afternoon we were making pretty good time.

I continued to read various things online and such, and before I knew it we made it Buffalo we departed from Buffalo-Depew at 11:41. We made our station stop at Buffalo-Exchange at 11:56 PM. Then made an uneventful run to Niagara Falls. We started the back up move toward the station at 12:25 AM, and finally arrived at 12:40.

Overall it was quite a crazy day even more so then Friday night. Even though on Friday night I was 7 hours late it all took place on one train. Today involved busses, taxis, other railroads, and some interesting switching moves in Albany, Again I enjoyed the seat of the pants experience, and watch Amtrak create contingency plans.

Thank you so much for reading my report I hope you don’t find too similar compared to the one from Friday.

Photos from the trip can be found here


----------



## WhoozOn1st (Oct 25, 2010)

Long Train Runnin said:


> if you can be online its really worth dropping Sunday's at 7


That's 7 p.m. Eastern. Nice report, and it was fun talking about the ride online while you were experiencing it. From the CHI metro lounge, where the house computer is deathly slow.


----------



## Shanghai (Oct 25, 2010)

*Why is it that when our Stephen is on or near a train bad things happen???*

*You were wise to take the taxi to Grand Central.*

* *

*Your report was very interesting and informative. I too think Amtrak did a*

*good job considering the conditions.*

* *

*I missed the Sunday chat as I was on the Texas Eagle bound for Fort Worth.*


----------



## Railroad Bill (Oct 25, 2010)

A very interesting trip report Stephen. It good that you are famiiar with NY City and knew several options for moving along.

Those of us from the Midwest might have still been standing there waiting for a bus 

Hope you had a restful day in class today 

Best wishes RR Bill


----------



## Long Train Runnin' (Oct 26, 2010)

WhoozOn1st said:


> Long Train Runnin said:
> 
> 
> > if you can be online its really worth dropping Sunday's at 7
> ...


HAHAHA Thats true at this point we are still civil enough to have a combined east and west coast chat :lol:


----------



## Long Train Runnin' (Oct 26, 2010)

Shanghai said:


> *Why is it that when our Stephen is on or near a train bad things happen???*
> 
> *You were wise to take the taxi to Grand Central.*
> 
> ...


I don't know why I had such bad luck this weekend, but I guess the more I ride the more likely I will run into some kind of disaster.


----------



## Long Train Runnin' (Oct 26, 2010)

Railroad Bill said:


> A very interesting trip report Stephen. It good that you are famiiar with NY City and knew several options for moving along.
> 
> Those of us from the Midwest might have still been standing there waiting for a bus
> 
> ...


Well believe it or not those who waited for the bus actually ended up having better luck then those of us who were impatient and got to Grand Central via alternate means. They were able to catch an express train and even though they left like 40 minutes after us they were only 10 minutes behind us. Oh well, at least I had the peace of mind that my things would be okay.


----------



## Long Train Runnin' (Oct 29, 2010)

Well as promised I got the pictures I took edited and uploaded. I wasn't to thrilled with the results my white balance was WAY off. I did the best I could, but there still pretty messed up. Didn't help that I was shooting toward the sun instead of having the sun light up the scene. I guess you could say I had just as much luck with pictures as I did with the trains themselves. Quite fitting if you ask me. Anyway if your interested you can find my pictures by clicking here

A couple lucky ones.


----------



## jimhudson (Oct 29, 2010)

:hi: pretty sweet Stephen! Tom,Eric and Patrick better watch out, the next Generation is on the way!  Jim


----------



## WhoozOn1st (Oct 29, 2010)

jimhudson said:


> Tom,Eric and Patrick better watch out, the next Generation is on the way!


Nice as Stephen's pics are, I'm far more impressed with the vast improvement in his writing. From his rookie days of unintelligible texting shorthand gibberish he's come such a long way as to be ALMOST readable! Far as the photo front goes, I don't think us geezers are breakin' a sweat just yet.


----------



## Long Train Runnin' (Oct 29, 2010)

WhoozOn1st said:


> jimhudson said:
> 
> 
> > Tom,Eric and Patrick better watch out, the next Generation is on the way!
> ...


Practice makes perfect guess I'll need to take a few (dozen) more trips just to make sure I'm getting the hang of things. Although credit must be given to my participation in good ol fashion course called Writing 100 :lol:


----------

