Community Corner

Commuter Council Chair: MTA "Insulting and Condescending"

Chair: "Commissioner[...]that is insulting and condescending to the ridership of this railroad to assume that you have to hide as software problems things that you've been able to explain [tonight]. Please don't dumb it down and say that we don't get it."

Saying it’s not a promise, but a possibility, the state’s transportation commissioner Wednesday night advised that some of the new rail cars for the New Haven rail line may go into service in eight weeks.

Jeffrey A. Parker mentioned the possibility the cars will begin carrying passengers as a member of a panel of railroad officials from the Connecticut Department of Transportation and Metro-North Railroad attending the February meeting of the Connecticut Rail Commuter Council.

The council billed the meeting in Stamford’s Government Center as, “Winter Crisis: Commuter Summit,” aimed at discussing the severe service problems the New Haven Line has experienced this winter.

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With, at times, half its fleet of 30 year and older passenger cars out of commission this winter because of electric circuits damaged by snow, the railroad is in desperate need of putting its new M-8 cars in service as soon as they pass acceptance tests, which are in progress.

“We’re not surprised by what we’ve seen (during the tests),” said Tim McCarthy, Metro-North Railroad’s senior director of capital programs.

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McCarthy said the problems found with the M-8 cars so far have mostly been solved by modifying their computer software, with few hardware modifications required.

McCarthy said 26 cars have been delivered by Kawasaki Rail Car Inc. from its facility in Kobe, Japan, and they have been undergoing numerous tests, including 150 mile roundtrips from New Haven to New York’s Grand Central Terminal.

At a cost of $866 million, the state and Metro-North have ordered 342 M-8 cars, with most of them to be built in Lincoln, NE. It’s been proposed the state spend another $81.6 million to order 38 additional cars, resulting in a fleet of 380 M-8 cars.

Parker drew a tongue lashing from Council Chairman Jim Cameron after responding to a question from Stamford resident Brian Mitchell, who said he was trying to understand what the problems are after testing the new cars and what Kawasaki was doing about them.

“We’ve made a decision … (to) talk about things in a more general sense,” Parker replied, “not to hide things at all, but to make sure that we can deliver a message to people in a way they can understand it.”

Pouncing on Parker’s statement, Cameron said, “Commissioner, I believe that that is insulting and condescending to the ridership of this railroad to assume that you have to hide as software problems things that you’ve been able to explain (tonight).”

“Please don’t dumb it down and say that we don’t get it,” Cameron said.

Most of the evening was spent listening to complaints from commuters battered by the railroad’s reduced schedule and shorter number of cars available for rush hour trains.

In particular, several riders on the Waterbury branch complained that all of their rail service has been switched over to buses.

“It’s mass chaos,” said a woman who rides the branch. “Every Monday morning and every Friday night it’s mass chaos,” and the biggest problem, she added, is that the bus drivers are “downright rude most of the time.”

In reply, John A. Longobardi, line superintendent of the New Haven Line, said, "My apologies …. I know you guys have had a tough go of it …. Thank you for your patience …. We’re going to try to get you the trains back as soon as possible."

In general, Longobardi said, “This has been an unprecedented winter. We’ve had three major storms and one ice storm.”

As for storm-related shutdowns, Longobardi said Metro-North sees periods of inclement weather as times when people might look toward train service rather than travel by car.

“I think the folks at MTA should be congratulated on the tremendous work that your people have done throughout this disaster,” said Bill Bosies of Darien.

Nonetheless, Bosies said, it’s very frustrating to stand on a train platform for 40 minutes or an hour in the morning in the cold and see trains running past “so packed that they literally cannot stop at the station,” and then receive no communications from the railroad.

Longobardi said twelve New Haven line cars are being repaired at Metro-North’s Harmon shop in Westchester County, NY.

“You know, we took those mechanics off the Hudson and Harlem line fleets to help out, and try to get some of the M-2s back in service,” Longobardi said.

"All I’ve heard tonight," said Larry Kleinman of Westport, is “we’re doing the best we can, we’re trying to fix this, we’re sorry, talk to customer service.

“When are we going to get a train system that works?” asked Kleinman, who's been a commuter on the New Haven Line for 19 years. “That’s all my question is. New cars and a train that works. When?"

Parker said that everyone needs to realize that Connecticut’s under-investment in its rail system “has caught up to us in a very bad way this winter.”

Parker apologized to commuters on the Waterbury branch, saying locomotives switched from their branch to the main line meant being able to carry 1,000 commuters instead of 500.

“I’d like to say on behalf of the people that aren’t here,” said the council’s newest member, Mark Maruszewski from Darien, “that the service and the entire system is completely inadequate.

“You’ve got hundreds and thousands of riders who are suffering from battered spouse syndrome. They basically have given up.”

Maruszewski said cars routinely don’t have air conditioning in the summer and leak fluids from their ceilings in the winter, and the platform in Darien doesn’t have a canopy over it.

“All you people are responsible to us, the commuters,” Maruszewski said. “We’re your clients.”


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