Ah, fall. Every Metro-North commuter’s favorite season. You know, the one where trains are slipping and sliding… After this morning’s commute, I felt that a repost of this was necessary:
Most regular commuters are familiar with the fall slip/slide phenomenon, but if you aren’t, Metro-North always puts together a helpful little page explaining this recurring event. Please be a nice rider… don’t drop your banana peels on the tracks, or inside the train!
As Paul Simon said, “the nearer your destination, the more you’re slip-slidin’ away”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_H-LY4Jb2M
My favorite part of the MTA’s explanatory page is that there’s a Google Translate link at the bottom.
It’s the revenge of the Vanderbilts… All those “mighty oaks” that sprung up from acorns along the right-of-way are dropping leaves to stop those M-7’s in their tracks! Literally!
Bwahahaha, the revenge of Cornelius Vanderbilt at his heirs for pissing his money away…
IT’s worse on the M-N Danbury Branch because of grades which do not exist on the gradeless M-N Harlem and Hudson divisions.
The Harlem is not Gradeless,From MO to Chappaqua is uphill climb,
Chappaqua to Katonah is downhill,level to Purdys,
then uphill to CP DYKE(Dykemans),downhill to just north of
Dover Plains,then uphill to Wassaic. Grade average runs
between 0.5 to 0.7 %.(Lou Grogran’s Book pgs 215-216)
MN has fired-up the “Water World” trains for the season,
they run in the early am before the am rush as needed.
The real “fun” grades were from Wassaic to Millerton(0.53-0.86 %),
then both sides of Philmont Hill,Hillsdale to Ghent(0.7-0.86 %)