Darien Commuter in Good Spirits as He Passes Through Rye

By Liz Giegerich

A large commuter bus pulled up to the Rye train station around 5:20 p.m. to drop off one of the first rounds of rush hour commuters from the White Plains station Thursday. Only a handful of riders stepped off and no one looked hurried or angry, even though the driver had gotten lost on his way there, one rider said.

“On this kind of day you have to bring a little humility and a lot of humor to the situation and its fine,” said Darien resident John Thacher before he climbed the stairs to the platform to wait for the third leg of his trip to start, a train to Stamford.

“People are hard pressed to do that,” Thacher noted.

An electrical outage Wednesday on the Metro North’s New Haven line shut down the regular service on that line from New Haven, Connecticut to Grand Central Station. Commuters have to choose between diesel express trains, if they live near enough to a station where they are offered, driving to the city, working from home or extending their usually train commute by at least about one hour. For the latest bus and diesel train schedules, read the Patch story here.)

The diesel express trains from Stamford to Grand Central Terminal this morning “looked like Tokyo,” Thacher said. “You would need pushers to get everybody in,” he joked.

So the calm Connecticut commuter opted to extend his regular 45-minute commute by another hour and accept the transportation mess for what it is, an inconvenience.

Thacher took an 8 a.m. train out of Stamford to Rye, where an MTA bus picked him up to take him to White Plains where he accidently got on a local, which extended the trip by about another 20 minutes, making the total commute about two full hours. But he got a seat and didn’t have to deal with a Tokyoesque commuter situation.

The Rye Police Department ran extra patrols at the Rye train station to manage the unusual busing situation and MTA officials stood by to ensure all was running smoothly. The afternoon shifts of both the police department and MTA said they had just started around 5 p.m. but heard from the earlier shifts there were no problems and all went as planned.

Are you cool like Thacher or does this power outage really get you angry? Tell us how your day went in the comments.

And, if you have any good photos of the crowded trains, please send them to elizabeth.giegerich@patch.com.