Archive for the ‘railfanning’ Category

South Ferry Terminal Archeology Exhibit Opens the Renovated Transit Museum Gallery Annex

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

A cool new exhibit will open along with the renovated New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex at Grand Central Terminal. See the press release and some photos below.

Where New York Began:
Archeology at the South Ferry Terminal

New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex
Grand Central Terminal
March 18-July 5, 2010

Construction in New York City is always complex, but it raises particular concerns when it cuts through the most archeologically rich section of town.  In February 2009 a new South Ferry subway station opened on the southernmost tip of Manhattan, a place where environmental, historical, and commercial interests collide.  In order to build the station, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) was required to conduct an archeological review and excavation.  This provided an extraordinary glimpse into the very place that the modern city has its roots, and the basis of an exciting new exhibit at the New York Transit MuseumWhere New York Began: Archeology at the South Ferry Terminal will be on view at the New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex and Store from March 18-July 5, 2010.

In addition to unearthing portions of the city’s early infrastructure, excavations yielded over 65,000 artifacts, including ceramic sherds, shells, coins, tobacco pipes, and architectural materials.  These pieces document 400 years of city life and embody the cycle of building, razing, and rebuilding that is a hallmark of New York City.  Over 100 of these objects will be on view along with historic maps and photographs, and field images and video of the archeologists at work.

Canton Motif plate c. 1785 -1850

Lid c. 1795 - 1830

pipe 1880 - 1840

New York Transit Museum Grand Central Terminal Store Reopens

Friday, March 5th, 2010

Snazzy renovated Transit Museum Store at GCT

The New York Transit Museum store at Grand Central Terminal has reopened after its renovation. But the Gallery Annex is still closed (it is scheduled to reopen to the general public on or before March 18, 2010).

Attention Railfans: Photographing the DC Metro just got easier

Friday, March 5th, 2010

WMATA is replacing the 2.5 inch tall car number stickers on the subway car sides with new 5 inch tall car number stickers (as seen in the photo above). This will make identifying the car numbers of the subway cars you photograph much easier. Click HERE to see a photo of the old, small numbers below the operator’s cab window.

What more can you ask for? How about car number stickers ON THE FRONT OF THE CARS!?! The LIRR does it right (see below).

LIRR #7772 wears its number proudly - UP FRONT, where it belongs!

Article and video tour of abandoned subway tunnels and stations in Boston

Monday, February 15th, 2010

Very interesting stuff. Though I’d really like to see a map of all the places mentioned. The graphic on the site only shows two of them.

Transit archeology: Tour of abandoned subway network offers a glimpse of how the T was built

Vintage Lo-V subway cars running to Yankee Stadium for World Series

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

MTA New York City Transit will be running a set of 1917 Lo-V subway cars to Yankee Stadium this Wednesday evening in honor of the Yankees being in the World Series. For both the ALDS and ALCS this year, the Lo-V cars ran along the (4) subway line from Grand Central-42 St to 161 St-Yankee Stadium.

Ride the subway to Yankee Stadium for the World Series

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

As I have for both the ALDS and ALCS, now that the Yankees are in the World Series, I’m once again reminding you that MTA New York City Transit would like you to ride the subway to get to Yankee Stadium. I took their advice and ended up riding a set of vintage Lo-V subway cars from 1917 on the day of the first game of the ALDS. I wasn’t able to get up to the Stadium on the day of the first game of the ALCS, but if I had, I also would have ridden the Lo-V subway cars. So you can be sure that I’m planning on riding up to Yankee Stadium tomorrow evening, which is when the first game of the World Series will be taking place.

NYCT Yankees World Series Service Advisory Poster

NYCT Yankees World Series Service Advisory Poster

NYCT releases photos of 181 Street station work on official service changes twitter account

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

Photo of 181 St station on Twitpic

The shock here is not that NYCT uses twitter – they’ve been using it for a long time – but rather that they are actually releasing photos of the interior of the station, from right after the ceiling collapse to current views of the repair efforts. Check these out before someone at NYCT or the MTA catches wind of this and makes the photos disappear!

Link: http://twitpic.com/photos/NYCTSubwayScoop

Work progressing to build protective shield over platform and... on Twitpic

Source: SubChat

Real-time departure boards for NJT Secaucus Junction available online

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

DEPARTUREVISION

UPDATE: DepartureVision is actually online and working for possibly all stations in the system. Go here, click on a station, and then add “-mobile” after the “tid” part of the URL. Source: Railroad.net NJ Transit Rail forum

—————————–

New Jersey Transit has announced the trial implementation of real-time train arrival / departure boards available to mobile-internet users for the Secaucus Junction train station. It is being called DepartureVision™.

Using a mobile phone or device with internet capabilities, you can now see the upcoming arrivals / departures for the upper and lower levels (separately) of the Secaucus Junction station, including the scheduled arrival time, track assignment, and train status (on-time, 7 minutes late, etc.). A cool feature is that clicking on a train’s arrival time brings up a list of all the stops that train will be making after Secaucus Junction. Quite importantly, and as noted in the press release:

Customers who use the new Meadowlands Rail Line to travel to and from football games or major events will be able to check their Secaucus connections from Giants Stadium.

Score!

To see a large screen shot of what DepartureVision looks like, click the image below.

DepartureVision for the Upper Level of Secaucus Junction - click to see a higher resolution image

DepartureVision for the Upper Level of Secaucus Junction - click to see a higher resolution image

For much more information about this great new service, read the Customer Notice.

I hope this trial is very successful, and leads to DepartureVision being made available for all train stations in the New Jersey Transit rail system.

LIRR to offer joint ticket to Meadowlands Sports Complex Rail Station

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

lg-lirr-TrainToGame

You can now buy and use a single train ticket to ride from stations on the Long Island Rail Road all the way to the Meadowlands Sports Complex in New Jersey, home of Giants Stadium, a new football stadium to be named later, and the Izod Center (as well as the Meadowlands Racetrack and the unfinished Xanadu).

But be careful – even though New Jersey Transit will be running trains to the Meadowlands for events other than Giants and Jets football games, the LIRR thru-tickets are only “officially” valid for football game days. This may have something to do with the fact that, as the LIRR notes, you must show your rail ticket at the fare gates at Secaucus Junction, instead of feeding it through the turnstile, since the LIRR ticket stock does not have the magnetic stripe like the NJT ticket stock.

Read all about this LIRR/NJT joint ticketing initiative here: http://mta.info/lirr/pubs/TrainToTheGame/. That LIRR web page even features a nifty diagram of part of Penn Station, to help people make the LIRR -> NJT transfer. The other part of the graphic is an extremely simple route diagram of the rail service. You can see them below:

Click to see a bigger version

Click to see a bigger version

Oh, and Metro-North is doing the same thing. Even though they are running direct trains from the New Haven line to Secaucus Junction on the days of Sunday 1 PM games, you can also buy a joint ticket from any Metro-North station that you can use to get all the way to the Meadowlands. You will of course need to get from Grand Central Terminal to Penn Station New York in order to board a New Jersey Transit train to Secaucus. The brochure linked to in my recent post on this topic explains things in much much greater detail.

P.S. And no, you can’t buy an LIRR ticket from Penn Station New York to the Meadowlands. I know, because I tried it this evening. Would have been (pointlessly) cool though, in a railfanning kind of way.

Update: Here’s a good Newsday article on the topic of the joint-ticketing.

Metro-North brochure for Meadowlands Rail Service

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

TakeTrainFootBall_web

Metro-North Railroad has created a new brochure to explain their part of the direct service that they are planning to run with New Jersey Transit this fall. It is admittedly a complicated task to convey all of the options and nuances that they are trying to get across, but I think they did an okay job. The brochure is linked from a new web page Metro-North put up for this service. You can also download the PDF directly from this link: http://www.mta.info/mnr/html/SchedPDF_vWEB_Brochure.pdf

Edit: This brochure, in all its glossy printed glory, is available in the information boxes next to each of the upper level tracks at Grand Central Terminal, as of yesterday, August 19, 2009.