Metro-North announces Fall Railfan Trips

4 Express wrote:

DutchRailnut wrote:The two FL9m's on excursion are 2027 facing north and 2024 facing south.

Are each one going to be on opposite sides?

I don't think so. Traditionally in these fan excursions, these units operate back to back.

Units are back to back and will run around train at siding just north of Canaan station.
The train or engines can not use the Wye in Canaan due to tri-axle rear trucks.

For those that did not see or read the customer letter here it is again, pay attention to the shoes part.

Dear Farewell to the FL9 Customer,

Thank you for purchasing this unique package. We are sure you will enjoy your day with Metro-North as we salute our FL9 locomotives.

Please keep in mind the following for this trip:

Departure will be at 8:07 AM sharp from Grand Central Terminal (track # 34), 9:20 AM sharp at Stamford, CT, and 11:00 AM sharp from Danbury, CT. Check in will begin 45 minutes prior to departure from both Grand Central and Stamford, and one hour prior to departure from Danbury. Please arrive early to ensure on-time departures!
Your return will arrive Danbury at 6:30 PM, and Stamford at 7:40 PM. Those continuing to Grand Central Terminal will depart Stamford at 7:54 PM, and arrive at Grand Central Terminal at 8:40 PM.
For those planning on participating in the photo stops, it is very important that you wear appropriate footwear. Please, no open toe sandals or high heels. Please wear sturdy footwear, preferably with a defined heel, and be aware that those not appropriately attired will not be permitted to participate in these activities.
Customers are asked to e-mail us with your choices for lunch.
Coach customers' choices are:
Honey Ham and Swiss Cheese on a hard roll
Egg Salad Wrap with lettuce and tomato
Turkey Breast with lettuce and tomato on a hard roll
Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad with classic caesar dressing
All Coach meals include an apple, a fresh baked cookie and choice of beverage (Coke, Diet Coke, 7-Up, Snapple, Bottled Water).
We regret that we are unable to make substitutions or changes to the above meal choices. After you receive confirmation of your ticket purchase, please e-mail your selections to [email protected]. Please be sure to include your name(s) with your lunch selection.
Your tickets will be mailed to you within 7 days of the purchase date. If you do not receive them by Thursday, October 20, 2005, please call Metro-North's Group Travel Dept. at 212-499-4398.
Only ticketholders will be permitted to board this train. Please be sure to have your ticket(s) with you when you arrive at Grand Central, Stamford or Danbury.
For questions or more information, please call Metro-North's Group Travel Department at 212-499-4398.

Have a great time, and thank you for joining us on this trip!

Metro-North Railroad Group Travel

That's correct. For details' sake, here's the consist, east to west, leaving Stamford: 2027-2024-MN2-5 BOMB Coaches (4 center door toilet, 1 center door non-toilet coach) - MN1

Specific bomb car numbers not available yet (they were off tonight's 1372 - any idea, Dutch?).

Jim

nick11a wrote:

4 Express wrote:

DutchRailnut wrote:The two FL9m's on excursion are 2027 facing north and 2024 facing south.

Are each one going to be on opposite sides?

I don't think so. Traditionally in these fan excursions, these units operate back to back.

To me, this sucks since for some reason I hate locos only on one side. But still looking forward to the trip.

Thanks for the information, MN Jim. See you guys on the trip!

Joe

car numbers's are east to west:(north to south)
MN-2 -6349-6347-6341-6344-6311-MN 1

it looks like the weather will be cooperating for our trip, the forecast calls for the showers to end in the morning, they are scattered showers anyway. and to be partly cloudy the rest of the day. MN must have some contacts pretty high up the chain because all week the forecast was saying heavy rains all day sunday!
i'll be traveling alone on this trip (my GF is in grad school and is swamped with work this weekend). and its too late to ask anyone else to go because the event is sold out (although a friend of mine asked if he could just buy a ticket at GC, is that possible?)

anyway, if anyone wants to say hi feel free, i'll be wearing dark jeans, a brown jacket, a grey NY Jets sweatshirt and i'll be in car for the people who ordered the ham and swiss on a hard roll (i think they are grouping us into cars based on the lunch we ordered - i could be wrong).
also, i'm about 6"2" so you can't miss me!

should be a great day,
-Steve

Kudos to the Metro-North and Housatonic staffs for making this trip the best one I've been on so far. The unexpected pizza stop made it clear they'd went beyond their means to keep us happy.

I've got some pictures of the trip up, enjoy!

http://public.fotki.com/vingong/farewell_to_the_fl9/

Most of these were taken on train as we were moving, so the quality may not be that great. But you know that. It was also great to see some familiar faces, some from the ACMU tour.

Hope you enjoyed as well,
Vin

Thanks for posting those photos!

All of you who were on that special had a very special experience indeed --- and it had only partially to do with FL9s!!! You had a chance to ride 54 miles of the New Haven Berkshire line --- in both directions no less ---, which no fan has been able to do for 34 years, and which many have been panting to do for most of that time!!!

The last such trip was April 24, 1971. That one did go all the way to
Pittsfield, but it only covered the line one way.

vingong wrote:Kudos to the Metro-North and Housatonic staffs for making this trip the best one I've been on so far. The unexpected pizza stop made it clear they'd went beyond their means to keep us happy.

I couldn't have said it better; I can't recall a fantrip this enjoyable. I snapped some photos, too: http://www.madre-de-dios.org/gallery/102305fl9. Enjoy!

Fred G wrote:I couldn't have said it better; I can't recall a fantrip this enjoyable. I snapped some photos, too: http://www.madre-de-dios.org/gallery/102305fl9. Enjoy!

In this shot: http://www.madre-de-dios.org/gallery/10 ... /Canaan_05, the guy on the left in the blue polar gear is me and to my right is chuchubob. Haha. It was cold up there!

I want to take this chance to sincerely thank everyone. It was an incredible trip and I'm happy I was able to partake in it. I was amazed with all that got done and that the crew did for us- including making a stop at Kent to pick up the additional pizza.

And it was cool to see some old faces: chuchubob, pgengler, njt4172 and it was also cool to meet some new ones: njt/mnrrbuff, MNRR PA Operator and of course, it was cool to meet the man himself, Otto Vondrak.

And MN Jim, I was the guy at around 8:50 PM in GCT who was scurrying up the platform trying to get to NYPenn and New Brunswick in the blue polar gear thing who as I was walking by, saw you standing in a door of a train and I screamed "Hey Jim- thank you very much!" as I walked pass and you smiled and acknowledged my wave. I wanted to have a chance to talk to you, but on the whole trip, you were busy running around doing everything and I didn't want to interupt you. So Jim and everyone else, thank you very much!

And was it me, or did 2024 seem to have a fresh coat of paint?

http://www.madre-de-dios.org/gallery/10 ... tamford_01

I see:

Our humble webmaster, "Happy Birfday Chris!" Stilson, and Super DAVE!

[Ed. note: the three blurry guys looking at the camera- Chris, Mike Roque, and SuperDave]

I snapped up a bunch of photos, though I haven't had a chance to do any editing of them yet: http://pgengler.net/images/2005-10-23

Thanks to everyone at Metro-North, the Housatonic Railroad, and the Danbury Railroad Museum for everything on the trip ... the pizza was excellent, and I'm sure we all appreciate that our connecting trains were held at Stamford. Thank you!

Oh yeah, I too was amazed at how they held that train at Stamford for us and held up (literally) the rest of the RR. Thank you MNRR!

Also amazing was how we left Stamford 20 minutes late (8:14 PM instead of 7:54 PM) and how we FLEW into NY's GCT and got in around 8 minutes late (8:48 instead of 8:40.) A 35 minute trip from Stamford to GCT. That was pretty impressive.

Yes, the trip was excellent, Metro-North did a great job making a 12 hour trip well, fun. I would have taken photos but I forgot my camera. Might I also say the food was excellent (especially the pizza which I thoughtr would be cold after sitting on the platform). I was also fun seeing people wave to us & follow us. The scenery was also nice especially since the train did not go that fast. Also, it was nice for Metro North to hold all trains for us (well, the New Cannan people were screwed though) they even held Amtrak for us. Also the ride home, we literally raced the Amtrak train (I think it was an AEM-7/Amfleet Regional train) until Port Chester, then our train left Amtrak in the dust, we were at least going 90, I didn't even recall seeing Old Greenwich-Greenwich!.