Westport Fire Chief Andrew Kingsbury, left, talks with Metro-North Railroad passengers at Greens Farms Station on Friday afternoon after they got off a sweltering train that stalled on the tracks for about an hour Photo: Paul Schott / Westport News
In January, when winter weather wreaked havoc on Metro-North service, we asked for reader input and got an overwhelming response: Almost 100 readers left comments detailing their commuting struggles and offering insight into what they’d like to have seen the MTA do differently.
Given the nightmarish day many commuters had on Friday, when 100-degree heat led to mechanical issues and delays of 45 minutes or more, we’re asking again:
Did Friday’s weather derail your commute? Do you have an interesting story or insight into what went wrong?
Leave a comment and let us know. The best comments will be compiled into a blog post detailing the heat-related issues, and some comments may also be featured in the print edition of the Connecticut Post, News-Times, Advocate, Greenwich Time, or one of Hearst Connecticut’s weekly newspapers.
We’ll also include the best comments on our Twitter and Facebook pages, along with feedback gathered from commuters at stations throughout southwestern Connecticut.
well at least someone does have more concern than just pointing their frustration over trains o scale toys.
although i was not on a stranded train, i was on a diesel train which departed stamford at 2:51pm EST last friday. i had to take an early train because i had an event to go to that evening. well, we had been driving very slowly and then stopped in south norwalk for over 45 minutes. the conductors finally told us that wires were down and people were stranded. it seems we had to weave our way thru this mess since we didn’t need the overhead wires to continue (we were a diesel train). we kept going slow, skipped stations altogether, and finally arrived in bridgeport at 4:45pm EST. angy, sweaty, passengers were waiting for our train for over 2 hours! it seems we were the first train out of the mess. i finally got to the milford platform at 5:07pm EST. so much for getting home early.
oh, and the cherry on top… there were delays again this morning for train derailment. when will this ever stop?!?!
Shame on CT. The scene on Friday afternoon’s “express” train to Stamford included: a fire in one car, smoke throughout the train, lack of any air-conditioning in half of the cars, 90 degree temperatures in the “cooled” cars, an infant that needed to be evacuated due to the heat, and a 30 minute delay only a few hundred yards from the platform in Stamford.
I was FAR more uncomfortable and distressed during this travel in the state of CT than at any point during a recent 6 week trip to Sierra Leone (the 10th least developed nation in the world per the United Nations). Maybe the people of CT should stop shouting to the world about their high average income and start cleaning up the mess at home.