I was disappointed to read that MTA’s LIRR service to Greenport will be eliminated and that service to Montauk will be reduced. Of course, they are on the “Right Wing” of Long Island, and cutbacks have to be made to pay Joseph Rutigliano’s and Edward Koerber’s green’s fees. BTW, any news on these “humps’” RRA disabilities benefits litigation, if any?
Hays – Old “Cannonball” rider. That was fun!
The LIRR service to the East End has long been a rush-hour only rail operation with rail-bus service on middays and most of the weekends. If the overall ridership to the East End is down, service cutbacks make sense. Parlor car service got cut back a long time ago.
Actually the Greenport service is currently all rail service. Change at Ronkonkoma…weekdays lv Gprt 5:30 and 11:39 am and 9:44pm, one trip from RIverhead 3:19pm; arr Gprt 10:27am and 8:17pm, one to Riverhead ar 2:27pm, one to Yaphank ar 5:40pm (presumidly DH to G’prt.) Weekends: Lv Gprt 1:11pm and 6:11pm, Ar Grpt 12:05pm and 5:05pm. This is actually more service than the LIRR was giving back in the 50’s! Now the prospect is to discontinue all weekday services permenantly and weekend services will be summer only. I’ve done my Ridewithmehenry trips out there serveral times. Weekends are best leaving NY Penn Station at 9:15AM and getting back about 4PM. At Grnport there is both a whaling museum and a railroad museum plus several nearby sandwich shops. You only have an hour, but it can be fun. Now is the time to do it while the leaves are gone and you can see a lot. But summer is great when it is warm and the museums are open. If you want to do it real justice and have the time, take the 9:15AM train out, arrive at noon, spend the whole afternoon enjoying the musuems, watch the ferry boat to Shelter Island (ride it?), take in the town overall, leave at 6:11P getting back in the city just before 10P. Great family day and cheap, too!
“Cannonball” illumination: back in the '60s, LIRR ran solid parlor car trains (about ten cars) on the south shore, all by that name. Sometimes as many as three (sections?) of a Friday evening. Wunnerful service, wunnerful drinky-poos, in “Route of the Dashing Commuter” glasses! No plastic! I’d take one out and return Sunday nite or Monday morning. Life was good!
Hays
Must have been great. here’s the ex-Phoebe Snow parlor car “Aquabogue” in 1974.
The Cannonball of course is a South shore train that still runs Fri’s in the summer. That is also a fun fan ride the Ridewithmehenry groups have done several times in modern times. I remember a late 70’s railfan outing one Saturday sponsored by the Tri State Chapt. NRHS which was all parlor. Both ex Phoebe tavern lounges were in the consist along with almost a dozen more parlors!. Today its a good weekend fan trip even with regular equipment, too, but no accessable eating establishments at Montauk means bring your own lunch!
I am wondering that since Wi-Fi is beginning to come into wide use if this kind of service would again be in demand?
It sounds like a possibility but you would have to be realistic about it. Parlor cars are more likely to be 2-1 seating similar to airline first class. Parlor cars with a 29-seat & 1 drawing room configuration are a thing of the past.
they are like diners…different thus more expensive to clean, maintain, and stock… Plus there is the “service” angle which means an attendent for the bar and one for serving (per car or pair of cars?). I do believe, however, that the Fri. afternoon and Sat. morn. in the summer, do have some kind of “first class” service; to what extent I don’t know.
When the CN&W still had parlor/bar cars on 1-2 the Milwaukee division (running to the Chicago equivalent of the Hamptons, except daily) suburban trains, there was a membership fee which paid for the waiters, etc.
I was thinking more of s service and seating somewhat like 1st class ACELA service. The extra fare and service would be a must. Often wondered if commuter rail would ever get back to that kind of service. The potential of using Wi-Fi is going to be very interesting for AMTRAK service in future.
I forgot about having to take a ‘cattle car’ (MU) to the “Change at Jamaica” for the “Cannonballs”, from Penn Station, as they were locomotive-hauled on the eastern end. New York Central had membership-only “Private” MUs and loco-hauled cars, on both the Hudson and Harlem Divisions. One went “'Round-the-Horn”, from Golden’s Bridge to Brewster, via Lake Mahopac. New Haven had ‘members only’ MU cars, too, but I am not sure how far they went. I was never invited to join any of them! Har! You could tell if they were on your train in GCT: all the shades were drawn on the platform side and there was an attendant standing guard in the vestibule.
Hays
Lackawanna had a few routes, too. The Lakeland Express to and from Washington, NJ always had a parlor/private club. There were, and my memory escapes me, three MU’s. In the 50’s two went Hoboken-Gladstone and one went to Morristown. Then train 633 would leave Hoboken at 4:15P with 9 cars cutting a coach and a parlor/private club at Gladstone and another pair backed into the Railway Express track at Morristown. The other parlor/private club was on a later all Gladstone train. I don’t know the morning procession on these.
The PRR most notable was the Bay Head bound The Broker out of Exchance Pl. Don’t know how it was after EP was closed. Heard the CNJ had a few but never heard of any on the Erie (doesn’t mean there weren’t any).
Real demise was because of the demise of long distance passenger service and dining cars as these cars were stocked from the same commisaries and employed same attendents. Of course ridership faded as the super private automobile took over. Errr, who served the coffee and muffins in the morning and had the martini poured just right for the trek home? State Police!?
You would think the Wall Street tycoons (AIG, GS, JPM and Citi )would have such cars so they didn’t have to hear the abuse of the peons in coach!
One of the interesting things I have noticed about commuters is that they are quite democratic and would not consider “peons” to be amongst them. After commuter hours, yes. But during the commute there is a spirit of brotherhood that trancends class. Some of this is based on job and pay similarities of those aboard any given train as to where they are going and at what time; there is strong attraction or accpetance based on home communit, too, almost a sport rivalry with the tax district at the next stop… However, outside of peak hours there seems be a more notable aknowledgement of social divisions. If you’re aboard the 5:10 to Hometown waiting for the train ahead to clear, you’re all in the same boat…even if it is a commuter coach.
I would hardly consider the bi-level gallery coach in which I ride twice daily to be a “cattle car”, whatever that means. It is a high capacity coach but I still can read the paper or nap comfortably on the ride home in one of the single seats on the upper level. Even a walkover seat can be pretty cozy.
Nor would I, either back in the day or currently. The bi-levels are very comfortable. The bar cars on the C&NW that I recall riding a few times (a work friend from Lake Forest was a member) were converted single level intercity cars. Those folks, who were the North Shore blue blood types, along with a desire to drink while they rode, didn’t want to sit with the hoi-poloi.
I’m perplexed. If the Greenport service is cut back because it is uneconomical, how can the expense of maintaining the infrastructure be justified for a Summer-only service?
Could a through train (with parlors?) be run after the height of the peaks with a mid-day turn back to Greenport? Same for Montauk?
Seems to me that the “cattle car” remark refers to chronic standees and crowding, narrow (3+2), and closely spaced seats on LIRR trains as compared with Metra. We have it pretty good in Chicago; but that could change.
You got it! The State Police! But only in New Jersey, for ex-Gov. Corzine. You, friend, are still a peon.
Hays