(The following story by Neil Vigdor appeared on the Greenwich Time website on April 26.)
GREENWICH, Conn. — An equipment failure in Greenwich brought service on Metro-North Railroad’s New Haven Line to a grinding halt for several hours during the morning rush yesterday, stranding thousands and forcing many irate commuters to resort to desperate measures to get to work.
Commuter Ken Hopson tried unsuccessfully to hitch a ride to Greenwich from Cos Cob, where outbound trains from New York City were being diverted once partial power was restored by the railroad.
“I’m pretty upset,” said Hopson, 49, who does the reverse commute to his job at UST Inc. in town twice a week.
Told by conductors that he would be able to get a train back to Greenwich from the opposite platform once he arrived in Cos Cob, Hopson threw his hands up in disgust when the first one rolled by the crowded station. Several others slowly rumbled by the platform as if they would stop before a train finally took passengers.
Meanwhile a black cat crept across the tracks.
Many of Hopson’s fellow commuters said the railroad did not give out adequate information about the delays or its contingency plan.
“Oh, they’re lousy. Come on, just let us know so we can make other plans,” said Jacob Carmona, an accountant for a local hedge fund who commutes from Pelham, N.Y.
Carmona, 44, was waiting for a co-worker to pick him up in Cos Cob because he did not want to rely on getting a train back to Greenwich.
“It was like sardines in there,” Carmona said of the train he got off.
Metro-North officials immediately apologized for the delay, which they blamed on the overhead electric equipment that powers the trains.
At about 5:24 a.m. the metal contact bar on the roof of an express train to New York that is responsible for collecting electric current from the overhead wires caused a snag between Cos Cob and Greenwich.
The wires above three of four tracks became entangled, with the stalled express train blocking the lone operational track. The incident forced the railroad to shut down the entire line and also disrupted service along Amtrak’s northeast corridor, forcing many commuters onto the clogged roadways.
“I think it’s safe to say it was a rotten commute this morning,” said Metro-North spokeswoman Marjorie Anders. “When we have a problem we usually have a doozy, and this was a doozy.”
About 37,000 commuters rely on the New Haven Line to get to Manhattan every day, making it the most heavily traveled of Metro-North’s three lines, according to the railroad. Reverse commuters account for an additional 10,000 to 12,000 daily passengers.
Railroad officials defended their handling of the incident, saying it was difficult to predict when service would resume and on what tracks. Different station layouts — most have two platforms but some have multiple — also complicated the situation.
“We apologize, but we can’t tell people what we don’t know,” Anders said, explaining that the railroad used a variety of means to disseminate information, from platform announcements to going on radio and television.
Bob Sauerberg, who works in publishing in the city and lives in Darien, drove to the Cos Cob station after receiving an e-mail advisory from the railroad on his BlackBerry.
“It just makes you realize how vulnerable everybody is when something like this happens. It’s ridiculous,” said Sauerberg, who said he was at least 21Ú2 hours late.
With trains running an hour to two hours late, commuters scrambled to catch the sporadic few that stopped at the station. Cos Cob resident Amy Olsen muttered to herself after just missing one of the delayed trains to Manhattan, where she works in accounting for Citigroup.
“This stuff happens on a day when you have a lot of stuff to do,” Olsen, 31, said. “It’s Murphy’s Law.”
Jordan Dubnow, a reverse commuter who works for a financial services company in town, described the incident as chaotic.
“They combined three trains into our train,” Dubnow said, adding that his train sat idly for an hour near Harrison while the railroad worked on the tracks.
Metro-North diverted trains past Greenwich to Cos Cob because the track closest to the station’s platform was one of those affected. The railroad restored service to all four tracks at 3:40 p.m.
Despite the apology, railroad officials said they had no plans to offer refunds to passengers, who were charged the normal fares.
“We certainly apologize,” Anders said. “We ask for understanding and a little grace.”