NH Line Standees All But Eliminated

Gotta love the M8's.....

http://wilton.patch.com/articles/metro- ... s-d4af9fb0

Even though the railroad's ridership on the New Haven line increased in 2011, the average number of passengers riding without seats was nine in December, down from 1,111 in February when the harsh winter reduced the number of cars in Metro-North's fleet.

Congrats to MNRR and CDOT; James Cameron must have been unavailable for comment........

Nice of them to chant about this and comparing it to a time where they saw roughly 40% of it's operating fleet OOS. Also mind you, M8's have less seating capacity than the older rolling stock it's replacing. Perhaps the RR is increasing it's consist car count each train requires, resulting in less standees. I know during the holiday season there were plenty of 10 and 11 car train sets floating around due to the increased ridership.

For standing room, go to the bar car.

Steamboat, I thought the same thing; comparing it to the winter nightmare is awfully convenient. Nevertheless, getting the SRO number down to nine is pretty good, considering how common SRO used to be. It must be nice for NH commuters to finally have a fleet at full strength, even if 2/3 or so of the fleet is still old.

And, as I've heard, you guys have had a fairly mild winter.

Has the M8 fleet had a hard winter yet? That'll be the real indicator of standing room's future. Also, summertime friday nights are usually SRO out here in Chicago, not sure how it works there.

It's been a very mild winter thus far. But in my opinion the car counts certainly have a huge effect on SRO trains, obviously. With the mild winter the New Haven line MU fleet hasn't been hit so hard, so less cars taken OOS which means more consists can have their normally assigned amount of cars. I personally think that the 4 and 5 cars consists need to be eliminated from the New Haven line, with branchline service being the exception. Maybe this has changed, I haven't worked the New Haven Line since the winter from hell!

R36 Combine Coach wrote:For standing room, go to the bar car.

I like that solution!

Rockingham Racer wrote:

R36 Combine Coach wrote:For standing room, go to the bar car.

I like that solution!

Bar cars are pretty annoying on off-peak trains when they're on the south/west end of the consist. Eliminating bar cars on off-peak trains would go a long way to reducing standees.

Don't forget that the MTA counts assume everyone takes the middle seat if it's open, which is obviously not the case.

Amtrak7 wrote:Don't forget that the MTA counts assume everyone takes the middle seat if it's open, which is obviously not the case.

That is their choice. If the seats are there, no one is forcing them to stand. For that matter, some passengers won't sit next to someone in a two-person seat, either. Is Metro-North then to count a train with 60% of its seats filled as "standing room only"?

One may argue that in an era of supersized people (all those people saying "supersize me!", no doubt ), 5-across seating is unreasonably tight, but that is a separate discussion (and applies to all 3 lines.)

amm in ny wrote:

Amtrak7 wrote:Don't forget that the MTA counts assume everyone takes the middle seat if it's open, which is obviously not the case.

That is their choice. If the seats are there, no one is forcing them to stand. For that matter, some passengers won't sit next to someone in a two-person seat, either. Is Metro-North then to count a train with 60% of its seats filled as "standing room only"?

One may argue that in an era of supersized people (all those people saying "supersize me!", no doubt ), 5-across seating is unreasonably tight, but that is a separate discussion (and applies to all 3 lines.)

There are probably also a few people out there like my late father, who actually *preferred* to stand in the evenings on his trip from GCT to New Canaan-- he would say that he'd been sitting behind a desk most of the day so it felt good to stand up for a while.

I still won't sit in the middle seat, but at least the aisle seat on the 3 seater row is of same height as all the other's so I'm more apt to sit down in one of those if no window's are availible. As I've said time and again here, I'd rather stand on a trip from here to Fairbanks, Alaska then sit in that midget seat on the M2/4 & 6.