My commute from Newark to New York Penn Station was pretty much normal today, but as I was riding on the #7 train an announcement popped up on my cell phone saying there was a big delay in Penn Station. New York Daily News report.
Anyway, the only three things in this world are certain:
There will be train delays, the only thing in question is where and when they will occur. Today, I was lucky and missed it.
I was scheduled for a vacation day today so thankfully I didn’t have to face the nonsense that NJ Transit imposed on its customers today. There was a big snowstorm in the NY/NJ area, but most people stayed home. For today, the “powers that be” at NJ Transit decided to run a modified weekend schedule. This article written by Larry Higgs in NJ.com best describes the misery imposed on customers today.
I will be retiring at the end of 2017. So only 9 1/2 months more of this nonsense.
I guess I was too much of a worry wart as a tentative settlement was reached with two unions of New Jersey Transit. I guess the “catch” is that the rank and file members of the unions must vote on the settlement. If they reject it, then I can worry again,
The best commute is an uneventful one.
Does that headline look familiar? Back in March there was a threat of a strike, but a tentative agreement was reached at the last minute. The unions for the locomotive engineers and conductors defeated the proposal by a narrow margain. Federal officials have asked the two parties to continue a cooling off period until July 16, past the June 30 deadline.
Let’s hope that everyone comes to their senses and comes to a settlement. Everyone is out for the almighty buck.
It seems that no news means good news as I haven’t written a blog entry here in over a month. The one train delay that I encountered was minor, but it came at a bad time. The New Jersey Chemistry Olympics at NJIT was last Thursday May 19. The organizers asked everyone to come in by 8 AM. With that thought in mind I woke up 20 minutes early to guard against possible train delays. The “Murphy’s Law of transit delays” happened as a boarded the 7:27 from NYP to Newark. Door problems delayed the departure for 20 minutes. I arrived at 8:20.
Sometimes it is a matter of luck that one is able to miss a delay on mass transit. Today I had double luck as I missed two delays on NJ Transit as both occurred while I was at work. I receive emails whenever there is a delay as I found out that late in the morning there were up to 2 hour delays on the Northeast corridor caused by Amtrak signal problems. I still say someone should get a Nobel Prize for solving signal problem issues on commuter railroads.
Later in the afternoon there was a big brushfire in Secaucus just off the railroad tracks. My train going back to NYC left Newark at 4:22 and passed by the area that was charred by the fire. Thankfully, I missed two delays today.
I should not feel guilty as another day I can confront horrific delays going to and from work. I am tentatively planning to retire at the end of 2017, when I will finally be relieved of this miserable commute.
