Amtrak7

Ran to catch the (late) 18:00 N79 only to find the driver outside talking on his cell phone. He waved his hand and told me to get on the bus. No problem, I thought. Until I realized he was talking to central control and that a truck had hit his right mirror and flipped it around. He didn't say anything to the passengers boarding at Hicksville, until it became clear through the overhearings of the phone conversation. Full bus was offloaded onto the next N79 20min later, which was empty. Driver didn't know when the next bus was, several passengers told him. People thought it was an N78, as it is a short turn. Service truck came faster than I thought, since it usually comes from Hempstead. Should've had my scanner on me!

The M7 does ride horribly, never been on the M8 so I can't compare. The propulsion is OK.

LIRR running 4 minutes EARLY plus N79 running 10 minutes late equals me getting home half an hour earlier than normal! Also this trip (18:00) seems to be a lot busier than the later ones, which connect with more of the peak-of-the-peak trains. And there were several boardings eastbound east of Hicksville, a somewhat rarity. It seems like many more LIB passengers have insufficient fare on their cards than NYCT passengers.

Could be a mechanical difficulty, but I doubt it as the 18:29 trip has been habitually 5-12 minutes late recently.

18:29 N79 showed up right BEHIND the 18:59 N79 (which was on time) today at Hicksville. All passengers forced to transfer. I wonder what caused exactly 30 minutes of delay? I had to wait 50 minutes!

Where does it say they are hiring traffic checkers???

Traffic Checker has the lowest salary in the TWU: http://www.twulocal100.org/sites/twulocal100.org/files/pay_rates_by_title_over_contract_2011.pdf $16.075/hour. Do you have a link to the NOE?

There is a way to make the MTA map editable, but I can't reveal it. Also it's not ideal as all text/numbers become unformatted spaced line-drawings of characters and the file is over 10x bigger.

Spotted 1800 at Mineola Intermodal this morning with a "SUBWAY SHUTTLE" sign.

The N78 was nice today. Pretty good ridership, nice driver, on-time, bus 1751. No automated announcements, though! I guess LIB's problems are really concentrated in a few terrible routes.

A N22 left his radio hanging open from a bit east of 179th St to 165th St Terminal. I could hear the farebox, the driver, the announcements, everything.

IND: Overbuilt flying junctions.

I don't think so, but they were painted wrong at one point: http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=258292

Heard yesterday on the LIB scanner that a bus (don't remember exact number, but 1500 series) was swapped out in Hempstead because apparently somebody puked all over the farebox and front steps. Road ops was surprised! Too bad it's not possible to hear the bus drivers, all of them apparently communicate with dispatch by cell phone. Only heard one bus driver call on the radio before. (and that driver had an 1800 series bus)

I haven't been to many places yet (pass-through/transfer stations are not shown)... New York City (of course) Long Island (not even going to list) Newark, NJ (Newark Penn) Washington, DC Vienna, VA Luray, VA Germantown, MD East Haven, CT (BERA) Cambridge, MA (MIT) Los Angeles, CA Anahiem, CA

Just a friendly reminder...

Sorry, I posted in the wrong thread. This was what I was looking for: