Passenger may have threatened conductor

A passenger who reportedly did not want to pay the higher onboard fare when he got on a southbound Metro-North Railroad train at White Plains became belligerent with a conductor Saturday night. Metropolitan Transportation Authority police are investigating a report that the male passenger pulled out a gun to threaten the conductor after he left the train at 125th Street. The passenger had been asked by the conductor to get off the train because he failed to pay the fare. A Metro-North spokeswoman said no one was injured.

http://www.thejournalnews.com/newsroom/ ... nopay.html

This type of scenario should make MNRR provide portable radios to all of it's trainmen. 125th Street usually has police in the area.

ain't worth gettin' killed over a step-up fare...

Right at the time of the recent BIG INCREASE in fares (see also MTA Mismanagement, see also illegitimate accounting practices) there were literally dozens of these incidents. I remember being on a train on the Hudson (14:20 GCT-->HM) and these two gentlemen got on at Riverdale, destined for Irvington. They were expecting to pay the former fare of $2.25 (normal fare account no agent on duty), but when the Ass't Conductor requested $6.00 from each of them for the new "on-board fare" they told her they didn't have that much cash and made a few remarks about her being a "crazy b***h", and remarking how they shouldn't have to pay for a ride on a crappy old train with a b***h like her.

She told them if they didn't pay up they would be forcefully removed from the train at Yonkers. When told this one of them blocked her way towards the end of the cab end of the car, and said, "maybe we should take her money to pay for it".

She turned and walked towards the "B" end of the car to move to the next car to get to a cab and call of MTA-Donut Party to meet her at Yonkers. She made her way to the next car. By this time we had already pulled out of Ludlow.

She got all the way to the cab in the next car as the two guys decided to follow her. I heard her call the RTC on the radio (I had my scanner and an earbud with me because I was in NYC taking photos). The RTC responded to her third call of "735-conductor to District C RTC". He then told her to stand by as he called MTAPD. The train remained stopped in Yonkers for about 5 minutes with doors closed until she and the rest of the crew heard from the RTC.

Apparently the MTAPD told her they couldn't put down their donuts long enough to help her as she said they wouldn't be able to meet her train until Tarrytown... I find that funny since there is an MTAPD station at Yonkers (or perhaps at Hastings at the time account construction).

The RTC then said that he could have local PD (Hastings-on-Hudson PD) meet the train at Hastings. She accepted that offer. By this time the two guys were standing in the double door area nearest to her cab.

She remained in her cab and by Glennwood the other C/R had made his way down to where she was in the cab. He keyed open her door, stood and talked to her, and then they (the two C/R's moved north another car, away from the two guys.

They pushed down the two door locks on both the door on the north facing and south facing cars. They made the stop at Greystone, and then as we arrived at Hastings, there was one local PD cruiser with one uniform on the platform. He walked to the C/R's position and conversed with the C/R's. They then opened all the doors, the cop stepped on, asked the two guys to step off, they did, spoke with the cop and the two C/R's. Some arrangement must have been made, because the two gentlement were allowed back on board, and as far as I could see they DIDN'T hand over any money. The female C/R looked rather upset that the two were allowed back on her train, but none the less, after spending close to 10 minutes in Hastings, we finally took off for the north, 17 minutes late. For the durration of the ride the female C/R was out of my sight, and the male C/R worked the rear two cars. The two guys took a seat in the middle of the rear car, and despite talking loudly to each other had a pretty much uneventful ride the rest of the way to Irvington where they detrained.

Now lets review what we learned:

1 - The MTA doesn't seem to want to concern itself with the security of its employees enough to equip each of them with a radio, and investment of $200-400 a person assuming retail pricing.

2 - The MTA spends money on their own police force whe are very unresponsive. Thank you to the local tax payers of Hastings-on-Hudson. I don't know exactly what changes were made when it went from MNPD to MTAPD, but it seems the officers very much stopped working as hard, and stopped 'caring for the best interests of the railroad'.

3 - The MTA should not institute such assenine (?sp) policies as the "on-board-fare". Many times the machines fail to work, or fail to accept one method of payment. Recently, the machine at Scarborough was "not accepting bills", so I COULDN'T BUY A TICKET in cash. The C/R charged me and about 10 others the higher fare, and told us to visit the ticket windows in GCT to obtain a refund. (Spend EVEN more wasted time at MN, not to mention wasting the time of the ticket seller...) Then, once in GCT, the ticket agent REFUSED to refund us the money because the said he "wasn't aware of any defect" on the machines at Scarborough.

4 - The crew would rather endanger themselves over a lousy $3.75 difference for a company who doesn't care for them... Now thats DEDICATION!!!!!!! I wish one person in my office worked that way!

NJT practice was (and maybe still is) for the local police to take the complaint, and remove the fare-beaters from the train. The conductor files the complaint with the local police, and is picked up by NJTPD. That lets the PD check wants and warrants for the violaters

When trains are running light (one conductor and one trainperson), they may not be following this practice.

Still aint worth gettin' killed over a $2.50 step up charge, though

NJT trains have the rules in each car about failure to pay. MNRR allows the Conductors to bill a passenger if they are short of funds. This allows alot more of the undesireables to ride and beat the fare. MNRR has to stop the billing and start cracking skulls to get rid of this element on these trains. If I have to pay then I expect everyone else should as well.

1) Significantly more train crews have portable radios now than ever before. MNRR purchased in the neighborhood of 500 radios. I would estimate that 80% of the Cond & ACs have them. Many of those people choose NOT to carry their radios. They leave them home, in their lockers, or in many cases never even took them out of the boxes. Why someone would not want to carry a tool which enhances their safety is beyond me. But most crew members have a radio now.

2) As for the radios cost. They DO NOT cost $200. The LIST price on the radio is $905. per unit. I am sure the state contract price is in the area of $600. So it is still a significant amount of money being spent toward safety.

3) Train Crews are REQUIRED to charge the higher on board fare AT ALL TIMES REGARDLESS OF THE REASON. The railroad has employed more manager types and spotters than ever before. So what would you do? These days train crews are being hauled in for investigation for something as stupid as wearing the wrong color T shirt beneath your work shirt. When you have no idea who is watching you onboard the train, what other choices do you have? You have to do what the company orders - or you will be looking for work.

4) Whoever said to go to the ticket window for a refund made an error. The ticket policy is clearly printed on the back of EVERY conductor issued C9 cash fare receipt. The passenger is to contact MNRR Customer Service who can verify that the machine is/was not working at the time. If found to be true, the RR WILL refund the difference in the fares. I KNOW THIS FOR A FACT. Many of my regular passengers have told me that.

5) The ticket policy is assinine, I agree. However, it is still the job of the train crew to collect what the company tells you to. I agreee that the billing policy needs to stop or needs to be administered in a vastly different way so as to stop the vagrants from riding for free.

6) I disaggre with you calling the MTA Cops Donut eaters. I don't care for the way they are managed either, however, they do have decent people working for them as a whole. Not everyone is gonna do their best at work - as in all crafts on the railroad or any career field for that matter. The chief issue is the fact that they are spread WAY too thin - some of them have a post that will cover from say POK to Tarrytown. So naturally, if you are having a problem at Peekskill, the post cop could be at Beacon or down at Tarrytown. After the creation of the MTAPD (as opposed to the MN & LIRR PD), they then accepted responsibility for the Triborough Bridges & Tunnels as well as rail facilites. This in fact has caused them to be spread even thinner.

I appreciate the sincere comments of the last post but I personally believe
that if the MTA Police weren't so busy hasseling photographers, they would
be more available when the conductor calls for assistance. I know in my
days with Metro-North, half the time the company would not back up the
conductor when he called for the police to come and assist.
If I were a conductor, the best I can say is I would be getting mixed
signals from the company.
Biggest consequence of the present apparent policy is that the people who
are allowed by the company to get away with something will be right back
next time around and do it again.
I hate to think of the possibility of a conductor or trainman or whatever
doing their job gets badly injured or worse by someone while the MTA
Police which is supposed to be at Stamford, Beacon, Yonkers or where-
ever is out hasseling a railfan with a camera.
STUPIDITY IN ACTION!!!.
Noel Weaver

I understand that, instead of turning in photographers, they should do other things like preventing fare evasion as described above. I would NEVER ride MNRR for free, never. I always pay the required fare (and besides, its much cheaper than Amtrak). Fare evasion is one of the causes for fare increases on transit system.

One more sorry instance of someone overwhelmed by contemporary life.

I'm no Henry David Thoreau in this life, but at some point we all just got to get like Simon and Garfunkel"Slow down, you move too fast'.

While no gunplay involved, I observed an incident of someone "freaking out' aboard Amtrak #136(22) over something as trivial as he could not find a center car seat in Business Class.

I certainly don't know the details of the railroad PD's assignments, but I do know that when I walk past their post in Grand Central's "North end access", there are usually at least 2, sometimes 3 cops sitting at a desk, behind a big glass window. If anything happened right there in front of the window, they'd be all over it, but as for everywhere else....

Maybe I shouldn't talk, since I don't really know what I'm talking about, but it seems to me that some of those cops might be reassigned somewhere more useful.

They can't re-assign those cops from GCT. They need to be there so that the illusion is perpetuated that the railroad is ready int he event of a terrorist strike. ha ha ha ha

Terminal Proceed wrote:They can't re-assign those cops from GCT. They need to be there so that the illusion is perpetuated that the railroad is ready int he event of a terrorist strike. ha ha ha ha

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I'm sure the GCT MN police are well trained to deal with most threats to the railroad. I was there in 1999, when some sort of a smoke condition happened, and they had bullhorns out in seconds, had smoke hoods, etc.

The people I feel sorry for are the national guard people. That's not NG work, patrolling the terminal, that's cop work. MN cops should be doing that, carrying M-16s if that's what it takes.

District D: I'm surprised that they kept the doors closed at Yonkers. Are you saying that passengers couldn't get off the train for several minutes? Surprising 'cause I've heard Long Island RR dispatchers instruct crews not to "hold the doors" in similar situations.

Also: when you had the problem with the machine at Scarborough, are you sure the conductor told you to go to the ticket windows for your refund and not to Customer Service. Again LIRR practice is that the dispatchers tell the conductor to instruct the passenger to go to Customer Service at Penn Station in similar situations.