Posted 18 January 2010 - 12:31 AM
And BTW, in doing my post-fest online housekeeping I just realized that we made OTOL history today, as we as a group "aced" Metro North. The Waterbury Branch was the last segment of MNRR track we had not ridden before today. Since the criteria is to ride it in at least one direction, the moment happened at 12:27 PM as we detrained in Waterbury.
That is not to say we will never ride MN again. I realize we have newer and younger faces around now, and we surely can go back and do what we did in years past. From listening to what some of you had to say, many have not yet ridden the Danbury or New Canaan Branches, or you weren't on our trip to Port Jervis. All were done in either January or October of 2003.
As for LIRR, there is still much to do that we haven't done. As I've said before, what's left really needs to be done in the summer when there is daylight and warmer weather. Still left to be conquered following this past weekend are the West Hempstead, Long Beach, and Oyster Bay Branches, as well as the Central Branch and the line in Queens from Long Island City via Hunterspoint Avenue. The latter two can be accomplished say on a weekday evening, and can even be done with a one-seat ride from LIC to Babylon, and then the return would be on an EMU right back to Penn Station. But at least the outbound segment would have to be in the summer. And the newer folks in the group who weren't around in 2003 or 2006 when we went to Montauk and Greenport respectively would surely enjoy those trips, which are all-day excursions.
With more expensive and longer trips elsewhere, I wish I knew when we could squeeze it in money and time wise.
Kevin Korell
OTOL Board Leader
Lakewood, NJ