A Metro-North Railroad train at the Fleetwood station in Mount Vernon, N.Y. - June 12, 2013 (credit: Paul Murnane / WCBS 880)
A Metro-North Railroad train at the Fleetwood station in Mount Vernon, N.Y. - June 12, 2013 (credit: Paul Murnane / WCBS 880)
MOUNT VERNON, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) – Metro-North Railroad’s Harlem and New Haven Lines will have fewer trains during rush hour this summer as the MTA takes care of some needed repairs, WCBS 880’s Paul Murnane reported Wednesday.
Metro-North says work on its problem area below Woodlawn, where the tracks often sit in a filthy soup of water and mud, will cancel just two trains during the a.m. rush. That’s out of over 250. Two others will be combined in the morning.
There will be no p.m. rush cancellations.
Other trains will have their schedules stretched by five or six minutes.
“It’s like trying to change the fan belt on a running automobile. How do you do repairs to tracks and still keep service going?” he told WCBS 880 reporter Paul Murnane. “You can’t expect the railroad to keep running at 100 percent when repairs have to be done.”
“I would say to commuters, ‘Suck it up. You’re gonna have to wait and we want to have a safe ride more than anything else,'” he added.
Rail workers told Newsday there will be speed restrictions, but problems with crumbling concrete ties do not present a safety issue.
Work is set to start in early July and least at least nine weeks.
