Metro-North announces Fall Railfan Trips

Farewell trip was a success!! One of the best trips I have been on in recent times and maybe in my lifetime!!! Hope to get my photos back tonight....The 2 NH painted units looked great!!! Thank you Metro-North for doing this trip!!!


Thanks,
Steve




P.S Nice to see you there NickO!! Also glad to meet you Pgengler...

Those of us "of a certain age" will remember that the late great New Haven Railroad was probably the most agreeable and enthusiastic fantrip operator that ever ran on rails.

To judge from the kudos on this forum it sure looks like Metro North is a well-deserving successor to that title!!!

(Gee, too bad there a lot of missing railroad out there today. Nice to think about what else could be possible if more had survived)

I had a great trip, met some great people and took really nice pics! Everything was good....but the people on the photo line in West Cornwall were acting like morons. They kept screaming like they owned the FL9s..they yelled at people as they were getting off the train to join the photo line but you have to get in the way a little to get in the photo line, but these guys were acting like impatient idiots. They even yelled at the woman who owns the West Cornwall station to get out of the way when she came out with her daughter. So other than those clowns, it was a great trip!

Wow... what a long day. A great ride- thank you Metro-North for organizing the trip, and thank you Housatonic for making it happen. I wish some of the ride could have been a little faster... but that's what you get when you run on a freight railroad. I thought the trip was executed very well... I spoke to a lot of MN staff that day, and many of them seemed disappointed- they really wanted this trip to be perfect for us. They kept 300 railfans very happy, and deserve our deepest thanks, because I think they felt they let us down in some way. Sure, we didnt get sunlight every time we wanted it, but darnit, I thought we made out pretty good. My only complaint: some of the MN staff who are photographers should have made a better effort to coordinate a photo line at West Cornwall. Would have saved a lot of time and a lot of swearing. You guys got the bullhorn, use it.

It was great to meet many of our forum members too-- Mike and Jessy and I enjoyed meeting all of you. Nice to put some faces to the screen names. Nice to see a lot of young people out, too. Did anyone see Dave Telesha? That kid is trying to bring back the traditional railfan garb of the 1940s and 1950s (back then, any NRHS or ERA fan trip meant that you would be 'fanning in a suit and tie... it was just the style back then)...

MN did a great job of keeping the train moving, keeping us fed, and more or less giving us a great trip. We were missing sunlight, but given that we're on the tail end of the Atlantic hurricane season, you's takes what's your's cans gets. At least it wasn't raining (but snowing would have been kinda fun). I had considered shooting black and white for this trip... kicking myself for not having two bodies.

Sure, there were about three photo stops for those of us on the train (at Stamford, at West Cornwal, and at Cannan)... some of us ran off the train and had an impromptu night photo session on the platform at Stamford... not too bad! Hopefully my shots come out- I only had time to compose three or four frames before the train was ready to shove back into the yard. What a sight, I'll never forget those units making one last shove into the yard ladder...

(My one friend was chasing all the way and says he got fifty shots of the train. NICE.)

Again- great to see you all, nice to meet you, hope to see you trackside again... and please write a note to Metro-North Group Travel and let them know how much you enjoyed the trip and let them know that all their last-minute planning was not for naught.

-otto-

Gosh, am I the only one that did not get off at Cornwall & did not have a camera?

I rolled over to Canaan and caught the run, followed it for a way
back.
The sun came out for a few seconds in Canaan and again in
Kent. I have the pix to prove it! ;-)
I would post some if somebody has a site to accept my pix.

Im glad it all worked out and sad I could ride.
Compliments to MN.

onder wrote:I rolled over to Canaan and caught the run, followed it for a way
back.
The sun came out for a few seconds in Canaan and again in
Kent. I have the pix to prove it!
I would post some if somebody has a site to accept my pix.

Im glad it all worked out and sad I could ride.
Compliments to MN.

Webshots is a great photo hosting website.

Yeah, I feel bad for the woman and daughter who owned the stationhouse. They were nice enough to let us photograph it, and ended up getting yelled at. I only hope they won't see all of us the same way.

Otto Vondrak wrote: It was great to meet many of our forum members too-- Mike and Jessy and I enjoyed meeting all of you. Nice to put some faces to the screen names. Nice to see a lot of young people out, too. Did anyone see Dave Telesha? That kid is trying to bring back the traditional railfan garb of the 1940s and 1950s (back then, any NRHS or ERA fan trip meant that you would be 'fanning in a suit and tie... it was just the style back then)...
-otto-

I saw Dave lol, btw thought I would let you know I was the guy in the BFD shirt, you asked me if I was from Bedford. As you walked away I realized who you were...

Anyways I thought the trip was great, once we got started I realized the scale of the planning that was really neccesary, and they did a great job. I had a few problems in the beginning, I was told by one of the employees what the car numbers were, but when I got in and found a seat I later realized I was in 2 instead of 3. Turned out not to be a problem, I walked back, got my lunch, and returned to my seat to eat. I was surprised by the extent of the wash out, the Housatonic crews really did a great job getting that repaired. The pizza pick up was a big plus, I brought snacks but it was nice to have a real dinner. Overall hats off to everyone who participated in making the trip possible, it was a great day.

Was anyone here chasing in the green Jetta, or one of the new Mustangs? Everyone in my area of the car was very surprised at how well you guys(and the other chasers) kept up.

Im glad I was not there to see the few on here embarass themselves and everyone else by screaming at people who are in the way of their shot. I recall on the ACMU trip a select few including our beloved moderator making an ass of themselves because a mother and her child were waiting to board. Some things never change...

Otto, how did you manage to get Metro North to hand out those flyers?

4 Express wrote:Otto, how did you manage to get Metro North to hand out those flyers?

He didn't.

Jim

MN Jim wrote:

4 Express wrote:Otto, how did you manage to get Metro North to hand out those flyers?

He didn't.

Jim

You mean the "propaganda" about RR.net? That was I believe Jessy handing them out.

Pretty cool to see that though.

I don't know if you read my posts up Jim, but just want to make sure my thanks are made accross again and that you too had a good time yesterday. It was quite a feat and everything worked out very well.

NJD8598 wrote:Was anyone here chasing in the green Jetta, or one of the new Mustangs? Everyone in my area of the car was very surprised at how well you guys(and the other chasers) kept up.

I noticed them too. I was on the east side of Car 2 (and later 3) for the trip. On top of those cars mentioned, there was also a guy in a gray SUV type vehicle who I saw a lot.

They really had their game planned out. I saw the same chasers at least 7 or 8 times going up and a few more coming back down south.

At times, the chasers had a train of their own.

Here is almost every picture i took ...

http://protocol7.org/gallery2/v/FarwelltoFL9/


It was such a great trip - I can't think of anything to complain about - other that never being able to do it agian :)