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This is from a little story I read about the opening of the East River Tunnels for the LIRR to connect to the old Pennsylvania Station just opened in 1910...which also connected via new tunnels to NJ for the Pennsylvania RailRoad...
Seems LIRR riders were a miserable, surly lot even 101 years ago and the LIRR still could screw the pony during rush hour...some things never change...
Exactly one hour after the first LIRR passenger train had departed Penn Station, intimations of opening day trouble surfaced. Three veteran LIRR commuters, men holding monthly tickets, boarded the 4:40 a.m. New York-bound train in Jamaica, settling in as usual in the smoking car. When the LIRR conductor came through to exact the 14-cent day surcharge for the new (nonferry) service, the trio were outraged. One “argued with the conductor a while and finally handed over 15 cents, with the remark: ‘Keep the change—my contribution to the tunnels.’ Another man puffed his cigarette and offered to draw a check on the National City Bank for 14 cents. A third declined to pay anything and asked the conductor to put him off under the river.” Considering that the East River tunnels had just reduced their usual forty-four-minute commute to nineteen minutes, their tight-fisted chagrin must have seemed churlish. At 8:30 a.m., middling disaster struck at Winfield. There had been “imperfect installation of a section of third rail which knocked the shoes off from two electric trains,” explained LIRR president Ralph Peters. “This stalled the trains, and it was necessary to get locomotives to pull them out of the way. The damage was repaired promptly,” but not before causing an hour’s worth of LIRR rush-hour trains to be ten to forty minutes late. All over Long Island on what turned out to be a September day of sunshine and breezes, country towns rejoiced with “tunnel” parades and festivities celebrating their speedier and more convenient connection to Gotham’s wealth and opportunity. But as village bands played, schoolchildren marched, and politicians speechified, chaos was building on the LIRR. Longtime LIRR riders fumed at having to exchange their old commuter tickets for new ones (at the cost of an additional dollar) and again at having to pay new tunnel surcharges. “For some weeks past,” asserted the LIRR the next day, the company had used every endeavor “to inform its patrons of the new tariff…strange to say, very few patrons paid any attention.” But worse yet, commuters discovered all the old familiar schedules had been changed. Infuriated mobs of passengers besieged overwhelmed ticket agents at every station along the various lines, their ire rising yet further as the long waits to exchange or buy tickets caused them to miss trains. Riders of the Far Rockaway Branch learned their trains had disappeared from the schedule altogether. In the LIRR section of Penn Station, police had to quell outbreaks of fisticuffs among rival newspaper hawkers and other assorted thuggish vendors staking out valuable new sales terrain. All told, thirty-five thousand people rode the first LIRR “tunnel” trains, and many were mad as wet hens. The LIRR put the best spin on it they could: “There were no personal injuries to passengers or employes, and that is really the most important thing.”
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ironic huh? Where did you dig that up? It's cool.
The PRR bought the LIRR strictly for the project that was Pennsylvania Station. The LIRR had rights to tunnel under the East River and build a Manhattan station, but no money to do so. The PRR had the money, but no rights.
[ Moderator cut: quoted post removed
I rarely have any interaction with anyone on the train. Headphones on, newspaper or phone to entertain me. On the rare occasion that someone is annoying I somehow deal with it. What is so horrible?
Last edited by nancy thereader; 07-14-2011 at 09:03 PM..
Well there is a degree of truth to the fact that the commuters are the worst aspect. It's the commuters that *** on their phones, take up seats with their bags, leave their trash on the train etc.
When the LIRR hauled freight those trains were quiet and clean. P
Long Island Railroad is too inconvenient for too much money to ride crappy, dirty, broken down trains to undesirable locations. I hate LIRR. Has anyone ever taken a train in Washington DC? so much better.
I would take the train to work but it would only let me out 2 towns from where I need to be and it would cost me more per month than owning my car and gas combined...
if it were cheaper than the gas then I would take it and ride my bike the two towns.
Long Island Railroad is too inconvenient for too much money to ride crappy, dirty, broken down trains to undesirable locations. I hate LIRR. Has anyone ever taken a train in Washington DC? so much better.
I would take the train to work but it would only let me out 2 towns from where I need to be and it would cost me more per month than owning my car and gas combined...
if it were cheaper than the gas then I would take it and ride my bike the two towns.
Thats a subway and not a commuter Rail , its also over capacity and breaks down more then the LIRR. Well LI sprawl is the reason why your not closer to a station then ppl in NJ or Westchester....
Thats a subway and not a commuter Rail , its also over capacity and breaks down more then the LIRR. Well LI sprawl is the reason why your not closer to a station then ppl in NJ or Westchester....
I want results, not excuses... they need to make LIRR more convenient if they want to make more money, they need to have more stops, for less money and keep the trains in better condition. It's ridiculous.
I want results, not excuses... they need to make LIRR more convenient if they want to make more money, they need to have more stops, for less money and keep the trains in better condition. It's ridiculous.
If it didn't run 24/7 maybe it would be cleaner like Metro North or NJT , they have to many stops on some lines although they could add more stops on the LIRR in NYC like they plan on doing on Metro North. If you want better access to the LIRR move closer , only a few new lines are planned unlike NJ and North of the city....and a few new stations... They could probably lower there fares....by 5-8 $ depending on where on the LI u are.
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