ARTICLE: Yankee stadium station gets Metro-North nod

Wow thanks Jim, great news. Now if C.C. Sabathia will do his part.....should be a great season.

i'm sure Metro-North will do the same thing the LIRR does at shea, have extra trains waiting nearby (like at Neck). so that when the game is over they can just keep sending trains through until the crowds are gone. so you might not even have to worry about catching a scheduled train, as there will be extra's to handle the crowds.

Yes I think they may do that inbound to GCT but I won't be going inbound, I'll be going west/north to Tarrytown.

right, but since they could easily have an extra train to Poughkeepsie or wherever i'm sure they would, the LIRR runs extra's to woodside and to Port Washington.

Notice how people are speculating and trowing uneducated guesses before a schedule is published ???
Wait till new schedule, in one month before you guys start guessing at service, cause right now you guys have not got a clue.

DutchRailnut wrote:Notice how people are speculating and trowing uneducated guesses before a schedule is published ???

Somebody got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Jim has given some information -- at least semi-official -- and your employer has released some information too (which I linked).

Nothing's "easy", especially with a $1.2 billion dollar budget gap that Albany shows no sign of having the balls to properly fix. That said, our service plan for game days is very much a common sense plan that wouldn't take a brain surgeon - or experienced operations planning type - to develop, in concept anyway. Beyond that, I really can't say much because this is a high profile project, and others at a higher pay grade than me will be the ones to announce the details publicly. I won't steal their thunder because I like my middlin' pay grade better than the one I was at previously. :)

Jim

Here is what we do know about the schedule at this point.

Between the May 23 opening of the Yankees-E. 153rd St. Metro-North station and the last regularly scheduled home game on Sept. 30 (Kansas City), the Yankees will play 48 home games, scheduled this way:

• 30 weekday evening games
• 21 weekend/holiday games
• 5 weekday afternoon games
• 2 games (Friday July 3 at 1:05 p.m., and Monday, July 6 at 1:05 p.m. both vs. Toronto), that may fall on days that the railroad considers holidays (Independence Day, observed) but otherwise would be considered weekday afternoon games.

Of course, all of this is subject to change based on rain delays. And hopefully there will be some October games in there.
There may also be non-baseball events there. (For example megachurch Pastor Joel Osteen is preaching there on April 25, prior to the opening of the station.) Not sure if these non-baseball events will warrant special Metro-North service arrangements.

In all, it looks like there will be wide variety of scheduling puzzles that will have to be worked out. Good luck Jim, et al. We are looking forward to seeing how all this gets handled.

Monday, July 6th is not a Federal, state, or railroad holiday. Officially, the holiday is Saturday, July 4th. The law states that when a Federal Holiday falls on a Sunday, it is observed on the following Monday. It is silent on holidays that fall on Saturday.

That said, Federal Government employees and the financial markets (but only SOME banks...) will observe the Independence Day holiday on Friday, July 3rd. NY State government employees observe the holiday on July 4th. Metro-North, being an instrumentality of the State of New York, will observe the holiday on July 4th on the East of Hudson operation (although we'll run a regular Saturday schedule, not a Sunday/Holiday schedule). West of Hudson will follow NJ Transit's observance, which, like New Jersey government, is Friday, July 3.

Confused? I was, too, when I had to research the whole thing and come up with a proposal as to what schedule to operate.

As far as Joel Osteen and other events: we're aware of the Osteen event, but since our station opens a month later, it's not a concern. Other events will be handled as required, depending on the anticipated attendance.

Jim

Ah-ha. Thanks, Jim. So, just for the record, that means the Metro-North assisted regular season will consist of:

• 30 weekday evening games
• 21 weekend/holiday games
• 7 weekday afternoon games

Here's a new question related to scheduling. Now that we're in the new April 5 timetable, there's a new timetable coming out on May 3. Of course, the station opens on May 23. That means there is a 20-day gap between the next schedule debut and the station opening. Does that mean that there's yet another new timetable that comes out on May 23, or will there be some sort of asterisk or notation on the May 3 timetable that notes that service to Yankees-153rd will begin on May 23?

The Interloafer wrote:Here's a new question related to scheduling. Now that we're in the new April 5 timetable, there's a new timetable coming out on May 3. Of course, the station opens on May 23. That means there is a 20-day gap between the next schedule debut and the station opening. Does that mean that there's yet another new timetable that comes out on May 23, or will there be some sort of asterisk or notation on the May 3 timetable that notes that service to Yankees-153rd will begin on May 23?

Notation/reference marks in the May 3rd timetable.

Jim

Thank you, sir. In that case, I will be looking forward to the May 3rd timetable.

Erie-Lackawanna wrote:Notation/reference marks in the May 3rd timetable.

Of course, as the old saying goes, "the best laid plans..."

Will the train schedule slide to accommodate rain delays and/or extra innings? Or will the YES Network announcers be making fodder out of thousands of fans evacuating the stadium in the middle of an intense, tied, destined-to-be-classic pennant championship game to catch their trains home?

On the one hand, it might annoy people to leave before a really good tie game is over... but on the other hand, you can't reasonably expect the railroad to tie up all that equipment and keep paying crews to sit around waiting as some crazy game goes into the 15th, 16th, 17th innings, ending around 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning... when it would have normally been over no later than 11pm. And aren't engineers forced (by federal law) to clock out after being on duty for so many hours in a day anyway? With a state budget crunch in progress, it wouldn't be prudent to be paying crews OT just to sit and wait while their shifts end before the game does... and going to the trouble and expense of having replacements on standby.

Interesting points. The LIRR has served Shea/CitiField for decades, so there must be time-honored ways of handling this. (Not to mention other regional rail lines as well. MBTA Commuter Rail serves Fenway; MARC serves the Orioles at Camden Yards; Metrolink serves Angel Stadium in Anaheim. Sounder's downtown Seattle station may deal with crowds leaving Mariners games at nearby Safeco Field.)

I'm going to go over to the LIRR forum and start a thread asking how they handle extra-inning games.

Update: Here's that thread.