With snow sort of pelting the area, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has announced that Metro-North will cease service after 10 p.m. tonight. Here’s what the press release says:
Because of the accelerating severity of the storm as well as projected snowfall accumulations of more than a foot, Metro-North Railroad will begin a suspension of train service on the Hudson, Harlem and New Haven Lines at approximately 10 p.m. This service suspension will continue until further notice.
With the significant increase in snowfall and high winds, the risk of a train becoming disabled with customers on board also increases significantly. Therefore, it is important to stop service at this time to ensure customer safety and to allow Metro-North employees to conduct aggressive snow fighting operations to keep the right of way as clear as possible. Road conditions have also deteriorated, with many road closures in Metro-North’s service territory.
In addition, Grand Central Terminal will close after the last trains arrive, approximately midnight.
The MTA has stressed that there are no plans to suspend service on any of the subway lines that run overnight, but some express routes are operating on local tracks to allow for underground train storage. Whether this Metro-North shutdown is too conservative is open for debate, but the MTA does not want to risk a power outage stranding a train in the snow.
13 comments
Cuomo seems to to enjoy grandstanding by shutting down the rail system. Not that I think it’s necessarily the wrong choice in this case, but isn’t this something the railroads themselves can figure out?
He puts his name on it. It’s the MTA’s decision.
OK, so it’s completely harmless grandstanding.
Fine by me!
It is grandstanding by the little caudillo.
I don’t recall former governors making such announcements. Maybe we can sack all the MN execs and just let Andy make all the decisions,
Btw MN has a big Connecticut branch of course. I guess he’s the govenor of CT also.
Andrew’s running for president in 2016 and saw all the praise Lhotta got in October for the MTA being proactive about Sandy. With no full-time chairman in place, no surprise he’s taking credit. Now all he needs is for New Jersey Transit to take several hundred of their railcars and pilot them into snowdrifts, and the comparison between Sandy and this weekend’s snowstorm will be complete, and he can get the same credit Lhotta did…
Andrew is unlikely to have a chance of winning the Presidency in 2016. He’s not going to be popular among New Yorkers.
Why doesn’t MNR keep the New Haven branch open? It runs on overhead catenary and so it isn’t subject to the snow hazard that third rails have.
I’m pretty sure some parts of the New Haven branch run on tracks that use third rails in open air. Safer to not run at all than to run service that’s at risk of stalling on shared track, especially those that might have Amtrak service running on them once the storm’s through.
It’s not just a concern about the third-rail getting blocked – some parts of coastal CT have two-and-a-half to three feet of snow on the ground with high winds blowing drifts. There is serious risk of a train getting stranded with no way to get emergency crews to them.
Not too conservative at all, in my opinion. This storm has been forecast for days and should have caught no one by surprise. People need to hunker down and get out of the way so cleanup crews can do their job unimpeded and emergency responders can get where they need to go.
Any idea why Metro North (Hudson Line) is still suspended yet Amtrak is now running trains back and forth to Albany? I would assume this means the line is okay, but there must be something going on.
the hudson line started running a few hours go
The New Haven Line is opperating as far as Stamford & the Harlem Line is opperating with LIMITED service as well.