Open House at Harmon Shops

[RearOfSignal]

Ridership is at an all time high so the MTA must be doing some thing right to lure more people to avail themselves of the service provided.

Yes and in the years since the last open house MNR has provided new services, a new station and service to Yankee Stadium, football trains. M8 trains, refurbed M3s, Station upgrades along the New Haven and Hudson lines, train time, CooCoo and various other infrastructure improvements. These are the things that have ridership at an all-time high; the most significant increases in ridership have been in off-peak and weekend travel, so these are not people just commuting to work. While the open house is great, these aspects of running the railroad have the potential to go much further.

While the open house might give the public an appreciation for all that goes on behind the scenes; if the service that is provided on the rails is not useful, of what good is it. The point is to get more people on the trains, MNR has been doing that well in past years.

[Trainer]

It's a game, but unless we play it, and play it well, someone else wins it.

Metro North has no competitors.

That belief forms the crux of this discussion, and many similar discussions in this forum. Am I the only one who thinks otherwise?

[DutchRailnut]

Discusion ?? the Discussion was " will there be a open house in Harmon" answer was no.
currently we are just argueing about how wrong MNCR is, for not having a open house.
while no one wants to concede, there just is no money for it................


ps. the discussion should be: how can we get other commuter agencies to give open houses, cause 90% of all buffs have seen the MNCR stuff a time or two..

[truck6018]

Dutch, I believe your right in the bottom line in this discussion.

Trainer, I'll bite, I don't know if you are the only one that thinks Metro North has competition but since you brought it up, please tell me who competes with them in providing service? While you said they have competition you have fallen short on naming the competitors.

To back up my previous post I looked up Amtrak this morning to get back to Poughkeepsie as I didn't want to wait over an hour for my train from GCT. The 7:15 train from NYP to Poughkeepsie would have cost $46.00 for one adult ticket! In my opinion that is hardly competition when Metro North's charges $15.75.

[pbass]

I for one are not "arguing" or finding fault with the MTA,Metro-North,NYCTransit,MTABUS, or any one else for not holding an open house at Harmon. My understanding before I left the service of the company was the electric shop was to be rehabilitated and brought up to be a functional, modern day 21st century facility capable of handling the maintainance and upkeep of the equipment more efficiently and safer than in past practice.That being the case, in the best interest of safety for the customers, employees,contractors,etc, it would not be a wise decision to hold the event at this time under these conditions even if the money was budgeted and available.Perhaps when the project is completed the financial situation at MTA improves they may hold another open house. FYI: loss of productivity for this event is expected.

[Trainer]

Dutch, I believe your right in the bottom line in this discussion.

Trainer, I'll bite, I don't know if you are the only one that thinks Metro North has competition but since you brought it up, please tell me who competes with them in providing service? While you said they have competition you have fallen short on naming the competitors.

truck6018, I thought my point was self-evident, but I apoligize for not making it more clearly. Every single entity whose survival depends upon public taxpayer funds to sustain its operations and aquire capital for future growth is in competition with each other - today more than ever. There are many obvious examples that relate directly to railroads, such as decisions to fund rail maintenance vs. highway and road maintainance, but even the less obvious ones include an understanding that this is not a normal budget situation and someone is going to lose something. Will it be MN? Apparently, there are many who are indifferent to the idea that MN will not get everything it wants - or even everything it needs - during a free-fall sinking economy.

My point is that until MN is revenue-neutral, it must understand that it does not exist in a bubble and can just chug along "providing service". Events such as special trains are indeed railfan events. Events such as open houses should NOT be railfan events, but should be used as media events that pierce that bubble in order to keep as much of that taxpayer revenue coming in as possible. But as Dutch said, that point goes beyond the simple yes/no of holding the event in the first place.

[R36 Combine Coach]

This puzzles me, but why does NYCT (another MTA agency) continue to run holiday trains each year why MNCR cuts back on such events like Open House? I feel that during a serious fiscal crisis, these "discretionary" events and programs should not take priority over other important items.

[DutchRailnut]

ask NYCT for answer.

[Otto Vondrak]

What does any of this have to do with the Harmon Shops Open House that Metro-North is not having?

-otto-

[alewifebp]

This puzzles me, but why does NYCT (another MTA agency) continue to run holiday trains each year why MNCR cuts back on such events like Open House? I feel that during a serious fiscal crisis, these "discretionary" events and programs should not take priority over other important items.

Reasonable question. I don't pretend to know all of the answers, but I think we have a few reasons:
* They charge for nostalgia rides. An upcoming trip will run $35-50.
* I believe they are run by the Transit Museum, so they have a separate budget. At those fees a trip will be cost neutral at least.
http://www.mta.info/mta/museum/programs.htm
* Much bigger pool of potential customers. 7+ million in the city versus how many will/might make a trip to Croton?

[Terminal Proceed]

What the NYCT does has NOTHING to do with MN - end of story - NEXT IN LINE, Plse.

[fordhamroad]

-The NYC Transit Museum and the Electric Railroaders Association have been able to run special fan trips or guided visits to RR shop facilities, covering their own costs with relatively high fares. These involve relatively small numbers of fans, many of them professional railroaders. I would imagine that at some point a tour of Metro North shops could be arranged for such small groups.
-What was special about the Croton Harmon Open House is that is was open to everybody, especially the kids of Metro North workers and their friends. It was a real celebration of the identity of the railroad, and an appreciation of the people who worked there. It was not just some PR gesture.
-Deciding to forego such events in the future is not just a matter of budgetary savings. Its as if the Railroad gave up having pride in itself.
-I'm not sure on which line of the MTA Budget they put "Pride".

Roger

[DutchRailnut]

Pride has nothing to do with it , but nice try.

[freightguy]

It really is a nice facility. It just received a prestigious award known as the Brunel Award for its new design. Only a handful of other US projects received this world wide acclaim for design. Maybe when times are better they will be able to show off the award winning shop.

[LES1117]

the best way to see the shops is to apply to Metro North for employment