Opinion
When Metro-North Let Riders Get Beaten by the Heat
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As summer arrives I’m reminded of one of Metro-North’s greatest “fails” of all time, recounted in this column I wrote days after it happened …
Friday July 22, 2011 was the hottest day I can ever remember. The pavement in Manhattan was 147 degrees, and I could tell that my commute home was going to be awful. Luckily, I wasn’t on the 1:34 p.m. train to New Haven. Three cars on that train lacked good air conditioning, so the remaining cars were standing room only. Just past the Westport station, an aging pantograph snared the overhead catenary (power) line, sagging in the heat, and the train lost power.