Fleet Question

I've noticed by looking at pictures that the Hudson, Harlem & New Haven lines all have specific colors. I know that the New Haven trains can't run on the other two lines. The question is, can Harlem trains run on Hudson tracks and vice versa?

Most MU cars have the colors of their respective line. Does that mean that a blue Harlem train, can't run on the green Hudson line?

Thanks.....

The Hudson and Harlem line stations have green and blue striping on their signs, respectively. The New Haven line stations have red. The cars designated for the Hudson and Harlem lines have blue stripes on the side of them, except for the new M7's which have no stripe. The New Haven line has red striping on their cars. The Hudson and Harlem line cars are the same but the New Haven line cars run on 3rd rail and on pantographs. They are not assigned to the Hudson or Harlem line but on a very, very rare occasion (if they were being shopped for some reason say at North White Plains for a paint job and a train were needed) they could be used but I think you could count on one hand the times this has been done.

When I was working for Metro-North in the mid 1980's, New Haven cars
(M-2's at that time) were used from time to time on both the Hudson and
Harlem Lines. I have heard that it was done even more frequently after
that.
I would suspect that now it would be quite rare as it seems that the
biggest shortage of equipment is on the New Haven Line.
Noel Weaver

"blue" represents New York State

"red" represents Connecticut.

Don't forget, when the LIRR M-1's were delivered, they had a similar blue stripe signifying ownership by New York State.

Equipment is not captive on MN like it is on the MBTA subway- Red Line trains only run on the Red Line, Blue Line trains only run on the Blue Line, etc... only thing keeping our "blue" trains off the New Haven Line is the lack of third rail beyond Pelham (or the lack of pantographs on the M-1's and M-3's).

-otto-

Despite the M2 fleet being red(orange) the cars are split 66% Conecticut 33 % New York.
About 1 in 3 cars on New haven line are owned by Metro North and can be used anywhere. a lot of M2's venture out to Harmon (wheeltrue)
Brewster(window modification) North White plains (painting)
the cars logo's and lettering specify if they are owned by Conndot or MNCR

Minor correction -- the "red" electric fleet is partially owned by MNR, but the diesel/coach fleet is 100% CDOT, except for the cars MNR loans them in the event of shortages.

M-2's are owned 50/50 MTA/CDOT -- these were purchased before the current service agreement was in place
M-4's and M-6's (and anything else purchased for mainline service that won't touch the branches) is 65/35 CDOT/MTA -- these are purchased under the current service agreement.

The red/orange stripe is indeed a tribute to the old New Haven railroad... more or less, it seems that the state of Connecticut has adopted the old New Haven look for any commuter rail project it supports. When Shore Line East was started in 1990, they had a couple of F7's painted in the NH scheme, along with a GP40 painted in the FL9 scheme (Athearn would have been PROUD!).

I want to attribute the blue stripe to the MTA... when the MTA began to underwrite commuter trains on the Hudson and Harlem Lines, the ACMU's got a new paint scheme- aluminum with a blue stripe below the windowband- very similar to the paint scheme the R-16's were getting on the Subway... was this MTA's way of making the entire rail fleet uniform? At any rate... blue window bands began appearing on MTA equipment at this time, and later, the FL9's got painted in a blue and yellow scheme (to represent NYS colors). In the late 1970s, the F's got silver and a blue stripe... (and then MN added the red below the blue, most likely a nod to Connecticut) and so on and and so on...







And here are some variations of coach paint over the years:

http://www.tsny.com/otto/mta-1.html

-otto-

So if I understand, CDOT & the MTA purchase their own equipment? If that is the case, I assume they each maintain that same equipment in their own shops and yards. Is this the same regarding NJT on the west side of the Hudson?

Also, what about track and station maintenance? Does this go simply to whatever state the maintenance is in?

Finally, are all employees of Metro-North (either in NY-NJ-CT) employed under the MTA umbrella?

Thanks for all the info.....

Stations are maintained by metro north regardless of what state they are in.

All employees of MNRR are employed by the MTA regardless of what state they work in.

Exception: The train crews West of hudson are employed by NJT, however there are now MNRR signal maintainers and conductor flags over there now.

To be clear, Metro-North and CDOT jointly purchase jointly-owned equipment -- there is no mechanical difference between a CDOT-owned M-4 and a Metro-North-owned M-4 -- they are all part of the same fleet, its just a question of who owns what car.

Metro-North maintains all of the equipment that runs on its East of Hudson territory, even the CDOT-owned equipment, which is maintained either in CDOT-owned shops in CT which are staffed by Metro-North, or at Metro-North owned shops in New York State. NJT operates and maintains Metro-North owned equipment in the West of Hudson fleet.

Besides M equipment, is there any other fleet besides the ACMU's? Where did the ACMU fleet travel to on M-N? Were they electric cars? Or were they simply diesel coaches?

The ACMU's are Electric MU cars, they travel GCT to North White plains and GCT to Harmon only.

RC '75 wrote: Also, what about track and station maintenance? Does this go simply to whatever state the maintenance is in?

Just to specify a bit, in Connecticut the station maintenance is usually done by the local town or the State DOT, I'm talking about construction projects and things like that, I'm sure Metro North handles routine things like garbage disposal and all. For example, Stamford station is now under the control of the state DOT and they ran most of the renovation project there, they took over operations because they felt the city wasn't doing a good job. But if you take Noroton Heights station, the town of Darien payed for the recent renovation(new paint, some lights etc.) with town money, mostly parking revenue I think.

Noel Weaver wrote:When I was working for Metro-North in the mid 1980's, New Haven cars
(M-2's at that time) were used from time to time on both the Hudson and
Harlem Lines. I have heard that it was done even more frequently after
that.
I would suspect that now it would be quite rare as it seems that the
biggest shortage of equipment is on the New Haven Line.
Noel Weaver

I have been riding the Harlem line for over 15 years, and I have never seen any NH equipment north of Woodlawn (I mean M2/4/6s, I HAVE (and have ridden on) NH diesels, but they don't count for the purpose of this post). Does anyone else know anything about this?

Once in a while, NH line MU's use the Harlem for regular service. If most of them wander off the NH, then they end up at Harmon, but much of the time they stay where they're supposed to. The NH Line needs every bit of its electric equipment. You have like two big maintenance facilities on the NH. Stamford and I believe NH, which will be up for a major rehabilitation.