Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Could It Be??? For Real and For True???

It's hard to accurately capture the suckiness of commuting to New York City these days. There are fewer trains, fewer seats, grumpier people and more schmutz on the seats than ever. I saw a guy literally just sit there as the ceiling dripped on his head - there was nowhere to go and he may have lost the will to live. AND THEN the New York Times reported today...and I can barely bring myself to say this for fear of the jinx...that the very first of the sparkling new M-8 commuter trains left the Stamford station today at 10:30am.

Ok so they are two years late and s l o w l y filling up the tracks, but (allegedly) there will be 80 new cars making up 10 trains by the end of 2011 with 380 sometime-er-other after that - no later than late 2013.

The Times' description seems too good to be true. There will be light, space, electrical outlets for all, comfortable seats and a "pleasant, clean odor" - you don't say??!! Colors and shapes are modern. Windows are bigger. And if that's not enough to make you swoon, bathrooms are free of stink cooties! It's a magical, magical time, citizens.

1 comment:

Streets of Stamford said...

When the LIRR finally upgraded its rolling stock, the difference was like night and day. Gone were the freezing, pee-smelling trains with torn seats and scratched-out windows. The new double-decker spaceship cars were amazing. Not only could you clearly hear the automated messages, they even had LED signs announcing the next station.

I can't wait to ride on a new M-8. It just sucks that Connecticut waited so long to start replacing its aging fleet. It sucks even more for the long-suffering commuters who have had to pay increasingly higher fares for increasingly bad service.