I haven’t yet read everything on Amtrak nor Metro-North as yet but I do have an opinion as to the shutdown especially by Metro-North over a snowstorm. Now snowstorms are not new to the railroad industry, we had our share of them when I was still working not only on the New Haven Railroad but on Penn Central, Conrail and the rest. I can well remember a trip on the Danbury Branch with a pair of FL-9’s on 141 and 148 between Danbury and Grand Central Terminal on a Saturday with well over a foot of snow. The train came through from Pittsfield and they sent the two FL-9’s through to New York. They left Pittsfield with full tanks of boiler water in both units and with not too many cars there was still plenty of water for us to make it without losing our steam heat. We plowed out the Danbury Branch while carrying passengers and made it to New York and back that evening to Danbury as well. It snowed all that Saturday so Sunday I worked a flanger with an RS-3, flanger and caboose between Danbury and South Norwalk. On the northbound trip back to Danbury the dispatcher wanted us to flange the Ridgefield Branch but the conductor thought better than dragging the flanger and caboose up the grade on the branch so we left them at Branchville and went up with the 526. We made it up to Ridgefield and back and made it back to Danbury as well. Moral of the story, the New Haven felt it important to provide service weather or no and all over the railroad they made every effort possible to provide service, maybe not right on schedule but service, seats, transportation you get the point.
In years after this through snowstorm after snowstorm we never shut down but rather provided transportation for the people who could not get to their destination by any other means of transportation. As bad as some of the top management was on the New Haven they still made every possible effort even with a lot of old equipment, no radios and a physical plant that had seen better days. Snow on the tracks with Budd Cars, no problem we’ll put an engine on ahead of the Budd Car and go. Power off on the New Canaan Branch, we’ll use a diesel with a coach or two, maybe two diesels one on each end. Everybody was fond of taking pot shots at Penn Central but in 1969 and again in the 1970’s we had some pretty wild snowstorms and yet Penn Central found a way to run all or practically all of their commuter services at least in New York. I remember one particularly snowy weekend seeing E units in Grand Central Terminal, a train from Chatham came in with two RS-3’s with snow right up to the headlight on the lead unit and more snow than engine, loads of snow but they ran even on the Chatham end with only a train or two a day, they found a way to run. I remember one year on the New Haven with snow up to your hips, everything ran with FL-9’s, not full service but the passengers were accommodated to the best extant possible. That Metro-North chose not to provide any service to its passengers this weekend at least yesterday and early today is beyond ridiculous in my opinion. They have a decent fleet of diesels that should be able to handle the snow. They have some FL-9’s stored dead in New Haven and “F” units were famous for being able to handle the snow. Both the Burlington Northern and the Soo Line held on to a few “F” units after they were no longer needed for road service just to handle snow and they did it apparently quite well. What Metro-North could have and should have done was to run patrol trains all night in the snow back and forth between New York and New Haven, Brewster and Poughkeepsie at least. Whether they chose to carry passengers in these trains or now it really doesn’t matter at this point but the railroad could have been kept relatively operable for service when they were ready to open up again. Penn Central did that more than once and the Erie Lackawanna used to do that too in New Jersey with MU’s that were built in the 20’s. If they did not want to use passenger equipment for this they could have run freight hogs back and forth if the freight hogs will handle the snow and I suspect the GP-35’s would. I think it is time for top management to get off their behinds and find a way to do what they are paid to do whether it be snow or sun. Hurricanes are one thing but this was a simple snowstorm although a huge one, It is a disappointment to me. The New Haven Railroad used to display right on their timetable cover “THE ALL WEATHER ROUTE WITH CENTER TO CONTER CONVIENCE”, I guess that has gone the way of the DODO bird today.
I am not really that impressed with Amtrak either on this one but Amtrak is a different situation with a lot more territory and a lot more operating problems than Metro-North so I think it would have been a lot more difficult for them to try to maintain any sort of service out of Boston. For one thing there are a lot of overhanging and close trees along the ROW between New Haven and Boston and every time the railroad makes an effort to clean this stuff up some “do-gooder” in the area cries wolf over removing brush or trees even though Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts have lots of other trees to worship and would not miss the ones along the railroad tracks. Incidentally Amtrak found a way to run between New York and Albany even when Metro-North could not run over the same tracks to Poughkeepsie, how interesting. In closing I think it would have been a lot cheaper for the railroads to run patrol trains all night then it is going to be to try to clean up the mess that they now have to deal with before they can resume operation. I suspect there were people whom were ready, willing and able to work especially on Metro-North, I know there were plenty in my days and I doubt if it any different today. Railroaders are a pretty dedicated bunch when it comes to adversity and we used to call snowstorms pennies (lots of them) from Heaven.
Noel Weaver
branches. Sunday schedule will run for STM-GCT. Beyond STM is suspended UFN, including branches.
