Metro-North riders endure hellish commute

Add the nightmarish, hours-long commute many Metro-North riders endured Friday morning to their growing list of frustrations.

Cold weather led to a domino effect of disabled trains — three lost power within 15 minutes — in two key Manhattan locations, leaving thousands of commuters who were desperately trying to get to work instead stuck on trains or delayed for several hours.

Commuters like Yonkers resident Peter McManus were left wondering what happened to the railroad they once so admired.

"Like many other things in today's society, Metro North is going soft," said McManus, describing the past few years of service as "dreadful."

"I remember the good old days when that train would come chugging around the corner in the middle of a blizzard that had dumped two feet of snow overnight," McManus said in an email. "Today the trains are delayed for a sun shower and when they show up, they are two cars short."

Joe McBride of Mount Vernon agreed that service has deteriorated consistently for at least two years.

"I cannot recall the last week I went without some sort of 'incident' whether it's a disabled train, consolidating two trains, trains that are two cars short and standing room only, or just your typical packed to the gills train ride home," McBride said in an email to The Journal News.

Metro-North spokeswoman Marjorie Anders said the biggest issue in Friday morning's disrupted commute was ice build-up on several trains' shoes that connect to the electrified third rail, preventing those trains from drawing power. It took til mid-afternoon for all three lines to return to on-time service.

"All in all it was a horrible morning," Anders said.

But it wasn't just one bad Friday commute or even a winter full of them that has left Chuck Goldberg fed up with the railroad. A rider since 1987, the Mount Vernon man said service has been declining for five years. He doesn't know why but he had harsh words for the agency on Friday.

Among his and other commuters' concerns: late trains; too few cars; a lack of communication; bathrooms that are not maintained; M-7 cars that "rock and roll" from side to side; arm rests that rip open pockets on pants; and a handful of conductors who are not helpful.

In two weeks, you can add a 4 percent fare increase to the list.

"Raising fares is the irresponsible way of dealing with the inefficiencies, and I say that with kindness," said Goldberg, who said it took him two hours and 15 minutes to get from the Fleetwood station to his job in the city on Friday.

Molly Munn was on the 7:53 a.m. train out of Grand Central Terminal that got stuck at 79th Street in the Park Avenue tunnel, on her way to work in Mount Vernon from Brooklyn. Munn said the wait wasn't so bad (she had a book) and praised the conductors for keeping the riders informed.

"This ordeal was not nearly as frustrating as the fact that the morning northbound and evening southbound trains on the Harlem line are always late — I mean every single day, late," said Munn, who has been riding the train for 20 years but had never been stuck on train that long until Friday.

Metro-North officials did not respond to questions Friday about the riders' concerns. But they have previously said their once-vaunted on-time performance will now take a back seat to safety. The railroad also has been making operational changes that were suggested by federal officials following the deadly December 2013 derailment in the Bronx. Last month, six people were killed, including five on a train, when an SUV driver pulled into the path of a train in Valhalla, making it the deadliest disaster in the three-decade history of Metro-North.

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