A TRANSPORTATION CENTENNIAL

In the history of American transportation, there is one crucial intersection between the railroads and civil rights:  the formation, exactly 100 years ago this week in August 1925, of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car porters by A. Phillip Randolph.  This was the first predominantly African-American labor union in the US.

A Philip Randolph

PULLMAN CARS

It was in 1862 that George Pullman launched the first deluxe railroad sleeping cars bearing his name.  They were an instant hit, offering middle and upper-class passengers the comforts of home while on the rails.

All of the Pullman Car conductors were white but the porters (who tended to the passengers) were black.  Many of them were former slaves.  Pullman theorized they would be used to the subservient roles of lugging baggage, making up the sleeping berths and serving the white passengers’ every whim.

After they retired for the night, passengers could place their shoes in a small compartment accessible from the corridor where the porters would retrieve and shine them while passengers slept.

LONG HOURS, LOW PAY

Pullman’s porters had to be on call 20 hours a day, serving passengers and tending to boardings at intermediate stations

Porters worked 400 hours per month with their time off being uncompensated.  They had to pay for their own uniforms, meals and shoe shine kits.  Between runs, even away from home, they paid for their own lodging. The hours they spent before and after each trip preparing and cleaning the car were also unpaid… much like some present day flight attendants.

In 1926 the average porter earned $72 a month in wages and got about $58 a month in tips.  In contrast, Pullman’s white conductors (who had a union) earned $150 for a 240 hour month, plus benefits and a pension.

Still, Pullman’s black porters made a good income compared to other black workers, allowing many to enter the middle class in railroad hub cities like Chicago and St Louis.

As one historian put it, a Pullman porter had the best job in his community and the worst job on the train.  There was no room for promotion.  Passengers often referred to Pullman porters by demeaning names like “boy”, or “George”, applying the first name of the Pullman cars’ owner.

UNIONIZATION

In 1925 A. Phillip Randolph started organizing The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters under the rallying cry “Fight or be slaves”.  It took a decade of court battles and the threat of a national strike before the union was recognized in 1937, giving porters a big wage hike and a 240 hour per month work schedule.

Randolph and others in the Brotherhood went on to become leaders of the civil rights movement.  One porter, Edgar D. Nixon, helped organize the Montgomery Alabama bus boycott after Rosa Parks’ arrest in 1955.  

Among other famous Pullman porters were future US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, activist Malcolm X and photographer Gordon Parks.

By the 1950’s train service was in decline and in 1959 Pullman closed up its sleeping car business.  Some porters went on to work with the legacy railroads and a few were still around when Amtrak took over.

In 1981 when the Pullman company delivered its last Superliner sleeping car, it was named after George Pullman.  Years later, after Randolph had passed away, another Amtrak sleeping car was named in his honor. 

 

NEXTGEN ACELA - WORTH THE WAIT?

 

Amtrak’s oldest new trains are arriving shortly: the NextGen Acela (finally) starts running between Washington and Boston on August 28^th.

Ordered in 2016 for $1.8 billion, the first trains arrived from the Alstom assembly facility in Hornell NY in 2020.  That meant jobs there for 1300 workers and business for 180 suppliers across 29 states.  These new trains are 95% “made in the USA”.

Like any new trains, the new Acelas required extensive testing, especially for crash worthiness and compatibility with the aging tracks and wires in the Northeast Corridor.  That’s when the problems started.

Even before field testing, it took Amtrak 14 attempts to finally pass computer simulations.  In road testing, windows shattered, there was water corrosion and leaks in the hydraulic tilting system.  Road testing also found issues with the trains’ wheels’ traction on our old tracks. And the pantographs (drawing electric power from the overhead catenary wires) kept losing contact at high speed.  Some 129 field modifications were ordered. 

That’s why these sleek new trains are about three or four years “late”.  But was it worth the wait?

Twenty-eight train sets are on order but only five will be in service to start, the rest going into service by 2027.  They’ll replace the first-gen Acelas which have been running for up to 27 years, accumulating millions of miles of travel.

Despite constant maintenance and repairs, the older Acelas have been showing their age.  Reports indicate that some train sets have been stored, cannibalized for spare parts to keep the other aging trains running.    Eventually the old trains will all be scrapped. 

Is the NextGen Acela ready for prime time?  We shall see. But beware of the PR hype coming your way from Amtrak, proclaiming NextGen Acela as the savior of American passenger rail.

Make no mistake… these are nice new trains.  The train sets will be bigger: nine cars vs.six, carrying up to 386 passengers vs 304.  And the new Acela trains can add three more cars if needed while the old Acela consists were permanently coupled.  And with more train sets, there will hopefully be a greater frequency of service. 

The interior of the new cars looks sweet… comfy seats, fold-down tables, power plugs and more wheelchair spots.  There will be a new Café Car and promised (free) 5G Wi-Fi connectivity.  Seating will be 2 x 2 in Business Class (there is no coach class) and 2 x 1 in First Class with meals there brought to your seat. The windows will be larger and the ride is said to be smoother, even at top speed.

But here’s where the hyperbole hits the tracks.

The NextGen Acelas are being described as offering “160 mph” speeds.  But there are only 32 miles of the 457 mile tracks from DC to Boston that can handle those speeds… four miles in New Jersey and 28 miles in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. 

In Connecticut the new Acelas, like the old ones, will go no faster than Metro-North… maybe up to 90 mph in a few stretches.  You can blame our many bridges and curving tracks for the lower speed limits.

There is no word yet on fares, though they will probably match existing Acela fares.  This is already an expensive ride:  one-way from Stamford to Boston is about $330 in Business class and $573 in First (compared to $134 and $227 on the slower, 50+ year old Amfleet Northeast Regional trains).  Running time on Acela, about three hours.  On the older trains, three and a half hours.

Are those fares worth the promised speed and comfort?  Maybe if you’re on an expense account.  But I’ll take it for a spin (on my own dime) and will let you know.

WOODSTOCK ON THE TAPPAN ZEE

 

Continuing our summer reprise of some older columns, here’s an update on memories of years past…

This week marks the 56th anniversary of the grand-daddy of all rock festivals… Woodstock. I was in my teens the summer of 1969, but couldn’t get off from my job to join the swarms of rock fans. But I did see most of them.

That summer I was as a “temp seasonal” toll collector on the Tappan Zee Bridge, joining Westchester and Rockland counties across the mighty Hudson River.

Toll Booth 1954

Most days life as a toll collector on the Tappan Zee was a delight, as I was usually assigned to the far outside lane, also known as “the country club” because of its green vistas and views of the mighty Hudson River.

There were two things I learned in that job: how to roll quarters and how to listen to the radio. The tiny toll booths lacked air conditioning, but I could bring a fan or a radio. My portable FM entertained me eight hours a day as I listened to both the music and the FM DJ’s… a job I eventually earned at Long Island’s WLIR after college graduation.

New York’s FM stations were buzzing about Woodstock for weeks, and that Friday and much of Saturday, it seemed that every kid in the tri-state area was heading for Yasgur’s Farm. Most weekends were pretty crazy in my toll collecting job, because in those days tolls were collected in both directions… fifty cents north-bound and fifty cents coming home. (Today the toll is $6.75 roundtrip, if you have an E-ZPass).

Busy as it was on summer weekends on that bridge, nobody expected a half-million people would show up heading to Woodstock, especially not the folks at the NY Thruway Authority. But after the rock fest was well underway, the Thruway brass realized the mobs would eventually be heading home, clogging the bridge. Because the music was expected to end late on Sunday, many of us temp-collectors worked overtime into the wee hours of Monday morning.

Late into the night we had five toll lanes open southbound, most of us enjoying some handsome overtime. However, traffic was so light, they sent us home by about 1 am.  But I was due back in the booth five hours later.

Of course, the music didn’t end until early that Monday morning, meaning that the usual morning rush hour carried as many burned-out hippies as it did regular business commuters. I remember one station wagon that pulled in to my toll lane, caked in mud up to the windows and stuffed with a dozen zonked-out kids.

“Hey man,” said the driver with bloodshot eyes that struggled to focus. “We don’t have any money” (to pay the 50 cent toll). “How about these instead?” That day, his Tappan Zee toll was an orange and a warm Coke.

Later that summer, after being reassigned to the New Rochelle toll barrier on the New England Thruway, I learned about the “exact change” lanes.  As folks threw their change into the basket, the coins went into a machine with rotating discs and holes the size of nickels, dimes and quarters. As the coins fell though the holes, their value was totaled and the driver could pull away.

What I didn’t know was the people threw more than coins into those baskets.

One day, while inside the booth removing change buckets, I heard a car stop in the lane outside followed by an ominous thump. Not the clinking of change, but a thump.

Imagine my horror as I watched an entire orange work its way down the change chute, hitting the rotating discs like a food processor, spewing orange juice and peel everywhere over the machinery, the buckets of coins and me.

Oh, for those days back in “the country club lane” back on the Tappan Zee!

NEW TICKET RULES ON METRO-NORTH

 

As predicted, fares are going up on Metro-North by 5% starting September 1^st with another 5% hike coming next July. 

The final approval came days ago from the MTA, parent of Metro-North, which rubber-stamped CDOT’s fare hike decision.  At least one MTA Board member called the hikes “scary” and another exclaimed that he was “actually kind of offended”.  But, hey… there is nobody on the MTA Board representing Connecticut riders so they both voted to approve the hike as did the entire MTA Board.  After all, it’s not their money.

Mind you, the MTA is also shortly expected to approve a 4.4% fare hike for New York’s Metro-North riders as well as a twenty-five cent increase for NYC subways and buses, so put that in your pipe of moral indignation and smoke it.

As I explained a few weeks ago, the Connecticut fare increase can be blamed on the Governor and legislature, which knowingly under-cut the CDOT budget, pretty much telling the agency to raise fares to make up the difference.  After all, they seem to assume that everyone who rides Metro-North along Connecticut’s “gold coast” is a millionaire. 

But a 10% increase in one year?  On top of a 4.5% hike just two years ago?  That adds up to a compounded 15.2% increase since 2023… way more than inflation.  Remember, Metro-North has a captive audience and can do anything it wants.

And adding insult to injury, there are new ticket rules coming!

With more and more commuters buying one-way e-tickets (57%) instead of monthly passes (36%), those tickets will automatically be activated on purchase, not when you get on the train and activate them yourself.  Why?  Because, the railroad says, 55% of ticket holders don’t activate their tickets until they see the conductor coming around. 

But isn’t it the conductor’s job to collect those fares and put seat checks on each row?

According to MTA Deputy Chief Jessica Lazarus “Conductors are spending more than 20,000 hours each year reminding customers to activate one-way mobile tickets”.  Really?  How did they come up with that metric?

Requiring activation of the ticket at time of purchase, she says, will “recapture those hours that can be better put to use for fare collection and train safety operations.”  Like enforcing the “no radios rule” and “no feet on seats”?

If you’re doing a same-day roundtrip you won’t buy two one-way tickets but, instead, a new Day Pass.  Good for unlimited travel until 4 am the next day, day-trippers using the pass will get a 10% fare discount compared to buying two one-way peak tickets.

For hybrid commuters, after buying ten one-way tickets within two weeks the eleventh will be free.  For Seniors, the disabled and those on Medicare the new reduced fare ticket will be valid at all times, even in the morning peak.

Make no mistake:  fare evasion is a serious problem for MTA which estimates they lose $700 million each year, most of it on buses ($315 M) and subways ($285 M).  Metro-North losses are estimated at $44 M.  Given that train fares are much more expensive than bus and subway, that’s not a lot of commuter scofflaws; just 6% of riders compared to 15% of subways riders and 37% of bus passengers.

Of course, bus riders can easily board by the rear door and subway riders can jump over turnstiles.  On Metro-North we have conductors.  It’s an hour-long ride from Stamford to GCT, plenty of time to look at everyone’s ticket… which they will still have to do even under the new rules.

But what about the Dashing Dan running to make his train, grabbing a seat and then trying to buy an e-ticket in a cellphone dead spot, nervously watching the conductor moving down the aisle?  No ticket to show?  You’ll get whacked with a $2 surcharge.

Here are the optics:  CT lawmakers short-change the CDOT budget, basically saying “let the commuters pick up the tab”.  Now MTA makes commuting less convenient with new ticket rules.

We all end up paying more and getting no improvement.  The trains are no faster or reliable… and maybe less attractive as a transportation choice.

THE DANBURY BRANCH REBUILD

How would you feel if your usual means of commuting went on a summer vacation? 

Riding the ancient Danbury branch of Metro-North is hard enough, but now it’s going to be shut down for two weeks, the trains replaced by buses from August 1 through the 17^th.

The 24-mile-long, mostly single-track railroad from South Norwalk to The Hat City carries about 2000 daily riders at an average speed of 27 mph.  Now those riders will get to enjoy the “bustitutes” which will make the journey faster than the train.

During the train outage crews will improve the tracks and several grade-crossings. What won’t be addressed is long-discussed re-electrification of the line.  Yes, the Danbury line used to be electrified, just like the main line along the Connecticut coast.

It was in 1959 that the last electric locomotive pulled a train on the Danbury branch, “under the wire”.  Why did that change?  Here’s a synopsis of what I wrote a couple of years ago…

An electric loco at Wilton CT

Most rail historians, like former New Haven and Metro-North veteran Jack Swanberg blame one man for the de-electrification:  Patrick B McGuiness, then-President of the New Haven.  “He was not a good railroad man,” said Swanberg, a master of understatement.  In his two years running the mighty, private and once profitable New Haven Railroad, McGuiness made terrible choices we’re still living with today.

At the NH Railroad, predecessor to Metro-North, McGuiness cut maintenance and laid off staff, trying to goose up the stock price.  But it was when General Motors came calling that he made his biggest error.

The New Haven’s real profits came from running passengers and freight on the main line from NYC to Boston.  Because steam and diesel locomotives were not allowed in Grand Central, the New Haven was one of the first railroads to electrify, starting in 1909, but only as far as New Haven.

For trains running north to Boston they needed to waste time and expense changing engines (from electric to steam and later diesel) in New Haven. McGuiness thought he could avoid that when GM introduced its hybrid FL-9 loco, railroad’s Prius of its day: running all electric in third rail territory, then running diesel.

In the 1950’s the New Haven ordered sixty FL-9s from General Motors, replacing their classic but boxy looking EP-2 electrics built by General Electric.  By 1959 that meant no more electric service on the Danbury branch.  In 1965 they finally took down the copper-wire catenary, selling it for scrap like some sort of junkie.

But the FL-9s were not performing well. 

CDOT's Last FL-9 Diesel Locos

While the original EP electrics had 4000 hp, the hybrid FL-9s were less than half that.  And that meant poor acceleration and longer travel time, especially on commuter trains making a lot of stops.  Longer trains that used to have one electric loco now required two or three FL-9s.  And on the steep Danbury line where it’s a 360-ft climb from the coast to The Hat City, keeping traction on slippery tracks is a problem even today in the fall and winter.

The FL-9s were also expensive to maintain and dirty, even before we cared about air pollution.  In cold weather the diesels had to be kept running all night, just idling in the yard (creating noise and air pollution).  Their 25 year life expectancy wasn’t impressive and overhauls were costly.

“It was a mistake to take down the wire (on the Danbury branch),” says Swanberg who has written extensively on the topic.  

Now CDOT seems to have given up on re-wiring the line as we await delivery of shiny new unpowered railcars from Alstom (costing $5.25 million apiece) to be pulled by new hybrid locomotives costing about $15 million each.

Meantime, it’s back on the bus this summer.

SAVING AM RADIO, CUTTING NPR SPENDING

Remember when commuting was fun because you could listen to the radio?

Earlier in my career I may have been the guy you heard, both on WHCN / Hartford and later on NBC.  When I started in radio in 1967, AM Top 40 was king and FM was just getting started.  But in 1961 the FCC decreed that all radios should have both AM and FM bands… and that FM should broadcast in stereo. And no longer could station owners just simulcast their AM programs on their FM stations: FM programming had to be different.

Thus was born “Progressive Album Rock” on FM, usually programmed by long-haired LP fans.  That was me, again.  Within years radio listening went from predominantly AM to majority FM thanks to better audio quality and changing musical tastes.

Today the AM band is filled with syndicated political talk, foreign language shows and sports.  Only a handful of stations have real news departments (think WTIC, WICC here in Connecticut).

Then came the all-electric car.  Because of their wiring Teslas and such could not have AM radios due to interference.  What to do?

Well, Congress is expected to pass a law requiring AM radios in all cars.  The bill has hundreds of co-sponsors, including the entire Connecticut delegation.  No wonder:  pols love being interviewed on AM stations.

“But AM radio is effectively aging out, with less than a 20% market share.  And many news / talk stations have transitioned to FM where there are far more listeners,” (think WINS in NYC) says former station consultant Steve Goldstein of Westport.

Goldstein left radio years ten years ago to become a podcasting consultant.  He also teaches at NYU and says not one of his students listens to AM.  Most don’t listen to FM, either, preferring streaming services like Pandora and Spotify or on-demand media like podcasts. “AM radio is going the way of the phone booth and fax machine”, he laments.

So why save AM radio in the car when folks aren’t listening?  And what will be left on FM to tune into?

If your listening habits tend toward the NPR stations at the lower end of the FM band you’re in for disappointment.  Congress has just voted to claw back (“rescind”) $1.1 billion from funds previously allocated to CPB, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting which funds both PBS television and NPR radio stations.

In the case of Connecticut Public Radio (WNPR) we’re talking about a 10+% budget cut.  That will probably mean layoffs and less local programming for shows like “Colin McEnroe”. 

At WSHU they say they’ll need to raise an additional $500,000 to make up for the loss.  Elsewhere in the US it’s estimated that as many as 80 NPR stations will just go dark.

Your mail is already crowded with funding appeals, not just from public broadcasters but from other non-profits also losing federal funding.  With so many hands outstretched, how will donors prioritize their gifts?  Feeding the hungry or keeping the airwaves alive?

So Congress giveth (renewed life to AM radio) and taketh away (cutting PBS & NPR). The media world (and listeners) will adapt. 

Now, if only I could find my old eight-track tape player.

THE INEVITABLE FARE INCREASE

 Sorry.  You’re too late.  You missed your chance: the deadline has passed for offering “public comment” on the upcoming fare hikes on Metro-North.

Not that anything you might have said would have made a difference to the inevitable:  a 5% fare hike on September 1^st of this year and another 5% jump in July of 2026.  But don’t blame the railroad or CDOT.

You should really blame the legislature.  The budget they wrote this year practically required a fare increase as they under-funded the CDOT’s operating budget requests for our trains… Metro-North, Shore Line East and The Hartford Line.

So these recent hearings on a “proposed” fare increase were really for show, required by law, but mostly “political theater” (as I described it 12 years ago).

I’ve been through this charade before, attending and testifying at many, many such hearings over the past 25 years… all with the same outcome:  what was proposed was always what happened. This round, I didn’t even bother.

So why does the agency even go to the time and expense of this exercise when we know the inevitable?

Why do they prepare a 25-page Service Equity Analysis (in two languages) explaining the impact of the increased ticket costs on the poor and minorities?

Why does a team of CDOT managers travel across the state, holding these fare hearings in-person and online, basically signaling to the few people who show up to testify that they’ve wasted their time… that anything they might say can’t stop what’s coming down the track?

That seems like such a waste of the agency’s talents.  These CDOT managers want to run a good railroad but aren’t adequately funded by lawmakers.  The railroad takes the heat but shouldn’t take the blame as they were given no real choice but to raise the fares.

Sure, alternatively, they could cut service, but nobody wants that. 

While the CDOT staff did not share any analysis of the effect of higher fares on ridership, they did remind us that in the last seven years fares have only gone up 14% while inflation has hit us with a 28% jump.

If fares must go up, what riders would really want would be more service and faster trains, maybe even a Quiet Car.  But the CDOT can’t deliver on those dreams.

The problem is that fares don’t even come close to covering the cost of running a railroad.  Pre-pandemic Metro-North boasted a 70+% “farebox return”, meaning that most of the operating costs for the trains were covered by ticket revenue.

But we all know what happened to ridership in the past five years.  And while it is slowly building back up (it’s up 6% in the past six months since congestion pricing began), the farebox return today is only about 38%.  Someone has to make up the difference: us riders.

And those millions of dollars being collected in tolls from drivers in midtown Manhattan?  Those can only be spent on capital improvements, not subsidies for operating costs, i.e. lowering fares.

For NYC-bound commuters, there’s little choice.  They’re a captive audience of 23,000 daily riders dealing with a monopoly that can raise prices without really  losing customers.

Driving isn’t an option, especially with an additional $9 toll now added to your daily drive into Manhattan.  And work from home was great, while it lasted.  But now you have to show up at the office in person at least a few days a week.

The CDOT now will analyze the testimony from the hearings and issue a final recommendation to the Commissioner, who will make the fare hike official.

So when your ticket price jumps, don’t blame the conductor.  Blame your elected officials for under-funding this crucial transportation resource.