Talk:New Haven Line

Northeast Corridor Box?
Why is this box on the Metro North New Haven Line page? Jd2718 03:51, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Service vs Trackage
The lead of this article is written about New Haven Line trackage. Is there a reason to believe that readers will come here looking for trackage info, and not service info? Otherwise, "The New Haven Line runs from New Haven, Connecticut, southwest to Grand Central Terminal." Jd2718 03:55, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Two towns without stations
The user who deleted the line about West Haven and Orange being the only two towns Metro-North runs through without stations acknowledged that it is factually true, but said there are only a few hundred yards running through Orange. I don't see that as particularly relevant; service is not based on how long the track is, but on how convenient it is to the nearby residents. The station would be near a major north-south road serving Orange. Since they are planning to build an Orange station, someone must think it's justified. Therefore I see no reason to delete this sentence. InkQuill 19:03, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The New Haven Line passes through town center after town center, traversing Connecticut's shoreline towns. It passes, though, nowhere near Orange's center. Orange is a residential town, and this is the extreme southeast corner, separated from the rest of the town by I-95. The station is not near one of Orange's major north-south roads (Racebrook, Orange Center, or Grassy Hill). The sentence implies that Orange gets a station because every town gets a station. This seems quite unlikely, and without a source is just trivia. If there is a source that says this, provide it and restore the sentence. Jd2718 23:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Two of these assertions are simply not true. First, the station would be not near a major north-south road, but on one. Marsh Hill Road is a continuation of Lambert Road and is a major north-south route from Route 34 (a heavily traveled route to the northwest and to New Haven) to Route 1 (the major commercial strip in an otherwise suburban/rural town) and south to Interstate 95, a major movie theater and the Bayer plant, then on to Milford and West Haven. In fact, it is the only north-south road in Orange with an entrance on I-95. It is not a state road but otherwise is one of the most traveled roads in Orange. Second, not all Metro-North stations are in the center of town: West Haven's wouldn't be, New Haven's isn't, and neither is Branford's. The study cited said an Orange station could actually draw more passengers than West Haven, though this was later discounted and would be affected by the loss of Bayer. I don't see the sentence as implying anything about why towns get stations. The cited report shows why both towns believe they deserve stations. Why is this such a big deal unless there is a bias involved? It's a simple statement of fact, nothing more. Perhaps we should submit this to arbitration. InkQuill
 * You are claiming that Marsh Hill Road is a major north south road serving Orange. That will certainly depend on your definition. Certainly twon residents would name the three I did (all state roads) before Marsh Hill, and likely not think of Marsh Hill at all. That Lambert 'lines up' with Marsh Hill does not make it the same road. It certainly does not have the same geometry, same usage patterns, etc.
 * You claim that not all New Haven Line stations are in the center of their respective Connecticut towns. You cited Branford (not New Haven Line), West Haven (does not exist) and New Haven (untrue).
 * Look, I'll save us the trouble of haggling over the detail. I will remove the section. If construction begins, we should put it back. Jd2718 04:28, 25 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for saving us the trouble by removing the section, but I don't accept that. How you can say the only road that Orange residents can use to get to I-95 is not a major road is beyond me. I'll figure out what the appeals process is and follow that route.InkQuill 16:48, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Please be careful not to misquote. Marsh Hill Road is not a major north south road serving Orange. That is not the same as saying Marsh Hill Road is not a major road. Jd2718 14:09, 27 January 2007 (UTC)


 * This discussion has moved to our talk pages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jd2718#Orange_train_station and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:InkQuill. I would appreciate if someone else would weigh in! InkQuill 03:55, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't see anything in backing up the assertion that West Haven and Orange had sought stations or that they were being planned there because those towns lack stations. --NE2 14:28, 27 January 2007 (UTC)


 * It's not there. Inkquill has left it out of the article, but is searching for a source (I think). In the meantime I am quite nervous about including transportation "plans" without source saying they are actually going to be built. I can't find what the $$ allocation was for. Jd2718 15:33, 27 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The text now is probably ok. Stating that new stations will be built in West Haven and Orange because those are the only towns without them is definitely reading too much into the plan. My guess is that the site was chosen because there is a large stretch without stations there. In any case, listing the plan itself should be ok since the construction of these specific stations have already been enacted into the General Statutes in 2006 and funding for their construction has been allocated in the Transportation Bill. Getting to this stage is already a big deal in terms of Connecticut transportation infrastructure building. --Polaron | Talk 15:55, 27 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Does one of our sources say the bit about the General Statutes? Then I think we are fine. (Actually, npov aside, that's great. That stretch was just too long, and an intermediate station should have been in the works years ago. And I would personally benefit (maybe 2-3 rides a year) from the Marsh Hill station.)
 * I searched for the relvant law authorizing the construction of the station. The final bill that was signed into law (P.A. 06-136) does not specifically mention West Haven or Orange. Instead it says
 * "...shall implement the following strategic transportation projects and initiatives: (4) Developing a new commuter rail station between New Haven and Milford"
 * Further down it says
 * "...shall evaluate and plan the implementation of the following projects: (5) Developing a second rail passenger station between New Haven and Milford
 * I take this to mean "build one and maybe see if we can also build the other one". The original proposed bill had the station names listed but it seems they made it more vague in the final version. There is a new proposed bill that is in the Transportation Committee (07-6456) that specifically amends the General Statutes to provide for the construction of the West Haven station. --Polaron | Talk 03:51, 28 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Do we have a source saying the Second Avenue Subway will be built? :) Yes, that's comparing apples to crabapples. There's a cite to a newspaper article on the Orange and West Haven stations though, so it's not just a back-room "hey, it might be cool if we did this!" We should cover any former plans too; Wikipedia should not be biased towards the present. It's probably best to just list places that stations have been planned with a source, and not provide more than that until it gets beyond planning. --NE2 15:59, 27 January 2007 (UTC)


 * That's a problem. Transportation, in general, has lots and lots of associated planning agency, which generate many proposals. It is the professionals themselves who play "hey it might be cool" knowing that most ideas will never get funded. We shouldn't be biased towards the present, but we should be conservative in relation to transportation proposals. Jd2718 16:09, 27 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Just to be clear, I never intended to imply cause and effect between the towns being the only ones without stations and the plans for building them. I'll see if I can come up with a way to answer all concerns later. InkQuill 16:14, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

New Fairfield Station?
Could we have a source? Jd2718 02:54, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Metro-North taking over Shore Line East
The idea that Metro-North is going to take over Shore Line East is at best speculative. Neither the governor's budget proposal nor press reports of legislators' press conference Feb. 8 make any mention of such a proposal. If you have information beyond this, please cite sources. InkQuill 03:49, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * The Conneticut Department of Transportation oversees ALL SLE and New Haven Line (in Connecticut) operations. Metro-North operates the New Haven Line between Greenwich and New Haven, and Amtrak operates SLE between New Haven and New London.  ConDot owns all SLE equipment and roughly 64% of the New Haven Line fleet, and the trains run in pool service.  For example, SLE equipment can often be seen doing the midday shuttle on the Waterbury Branch. All M2/M4/M6's are kept west of New Haven because they cannot make the voltage change just east of New Haven, and all of SLE's equipment runs east of Stamford only because they do not have third rail capabilities to enter the Park Avenue Tunnels.  This is done because of mechanical constraints, not because they are owned by two separate agencies. M8's will begin testing in the summer of 2012 on SLE for possible through service from Old Sadybrook to Grand Central TerminalCluefinder42 (talk) 00:48, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Connecticut Rail Commuter Council
Why isn't a line about this within the scope of this article? The council is specifically concerned with the New Haven Line of Metro-North. I find this explanation for deletion inadequate. InkQuill 03:56, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The article is about the line itself. Governance falls to Metro North and the State of Connecticut, the entities with which the Council would interact. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jd2718 (talk • contribs) 04:28, 18 March 2007 (UTC).

Ugly Layout problem
The infobox has forced the first section to the below its bottom. I mistook the cause of the problem, but reversion is no solution to ugliness. DCDuring 20:21, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

It isn't perfect, but it's better, IMHO. DCDuring 20:24, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

The problem appeared to be with the image not being in the lead AND defaulting or being forced right, but I'm still not 100% sure. Recommended style WP:MOS has images alternating right and left. You are right about infoboxes, though. I don't think they CAN be positioned left. DCDuring 20:30, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Picture of Train in Stamford
The picture which identifies the New Haven Line at Stamford is incorrect. That station is New Haven, and the train is the Shoreline East. It should be removed. Yaletiger (talk) 14:41, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Hate to say this, but you're wrong. Shore Line East has never used a P32AC-DM in New Haven colors. And the coach shown is from the Metro-North pool, Shore Line East uses the unique Mafersa coaches these days. And though fuzzy, at full size one can see that the sign on the platform reads "Stamford". Most importantly, though, the uploader himself states he was at Stamford when the picture was taken. I would think he knew where he was. oknazevad (talk) 16:16, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

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A Suggested URL for Adding Citation (Particularly for Control Points, Track Layout Details, etc)
Here's a 2015 AutoCAD-made Metro North Track and Structures Dept book of Track Charts, Interlocking Diagrams and Yard Diagrams - http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2647944-Operations-Metro-North-Railroad-Track-Charts.html As you can see there is a direct link to the PDF as well if that works better. Hope it's of use. I'm not very good at adding citations, nor did I write any of the article as of yet. 2601:19A:4400:218C:120B:A9FF:FE61:EFBC (talk) 14:14, 28 October 2018 (UTC) Chris C.
 * I have added it to the article. Thank you for the link; it's very useful. epicgenius (talk) 01:04, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you for adding it, Epicgenius. Glad it is useful. - Chris 2601:19A:4400:218C:E0BC:6FC8:46B7:B7E5 (talk) 18:36, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

September 2013 electric failure
The following text has been added by, but its inclusion is disputed:

On September 25, 2013, a 138 kV main feeder cable from Con Edison that provided electricity to an AC catenary-powered 8 mi segment of the New Haven Line failed, causing electric train service over the line to halt between Mount Vernon and Harrison, New York. It was so impactful that Senator Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut held a hearing on October 28, 2013 and among others, a representative from the ASCE spoke. The other feeder cable that supplied power to that segment was out-of-service due to a planned electric equipment upgrade at the Metro-North station. There was no formal contingency plan in place between Con Edison and Metro-North in case of the failure. An attempt to draw power from a Connecticut substation in Cos Cob failed to provide enough power to supply full service on the line, and was instead used to rescue stranded trains. Metro-North used diesel locomotives and alternative bus service to carry passengers until full service was restored after 12 days of disruption. Con Edison initially provided this short-notice power by modifying available electric transformers and other equipment to Metro-North's unique needs in an adjacent temporary location. The outage was caused by liquid nitrogen, which was being used to control dielectric fluid flow in the out-of-service feeder, freezing the dielectric fluid in the adjacent live feeder supplying the sole power to the station. Con Edison had performed this type of freeze operation around 18 times a year, and had never experienced this type of failure before. The executive summary of a state report was released in November of 2014 detailing findings. The Cos Cob link is now able to provide full service power if needed. The monitoring of the use of liquid nitrogen in underground transmission feeders has been modified. There was a short term interest in examining n-1-1 power supply contingencies to various municipal power consumers following the incident.

It looks like too much detail for a minor incident, and most of it shouldn't be placed in this article, as per Neutral point of view. This may also be related to WP:TOOMUCH (about too much detail). Most readers don't really want to know about the details of a single incident if they are specificially looking about information on the New Haven Line. epicgenius (talk) 01:10, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree this this is way too much detail for this article. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:29, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

To RoySmith and his associates Epicgenius and pi....:The word "tedious" is subjective, as is the word "reasonable". I am displaying the findings of the executive summary of a public state investigation of a unique outage event that disturbed the most popular rail road line (with 125,000 daily riders) on the east coast for at least 12 days. Please see http://documents.dps.ny.gov/public/Common/ViewDoc.aspx?DocRefId={5B2369A6-97FC-4613-AD8B-91E23D41AC05} or NYSPSC Case no. 13-E-0529. It was so impactful that U.S. Senator Blumenthal decided to hold a hearing shortly after the incident occurred. That would indicate that some level of technical explanation for the cause of the event is appropriate, beyond how unique and interesting (and publicly available) it is. Additionally, your complaints about adding technical details are comical in that you and your associate were the ones that began removing technical details from this page as soon as I added the findings about the event.Smellyshirt5 (talk) 12:36, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
 * We're not disputing that this is an important event, or that Senator Blumenthal held the hearing. We are disputing the inclusion of technical details. We're asking, why does the average reader care about the technical details? It's publicly available, and it's probably interesting to you (or other people with similar interests), but take a step back and think about whether other people might find it interesting. You have to remember that Wikipedia is targeted toward the layman, so such a technical report wouldn't be appropriate for an overview article like this. epicgenius (talk) 12:41, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

I made a separate page for it. Thanks for all your concern for the layman.Smellyshirt5 (talk) 13:10, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Stations
What is the point on the list of including stations that haven't existed in decades? For example, the Norwalk station I removed today has not existed since 1936. It was not replaced by another station in the same location. Today it's a tattoo parlor. If we're going to keep this sort of trivia, are we next to include this as a prior tenant of Grand Central Terminal? My point is that "historic stations" should be a subsection (3.3?) but causes confusion in the main list. Markvs88 (talk) 01:01, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Personally, I think that if a former station is on the same site as, and immediately precedes, an existing station, it should be on the list. (For instance, Grand Central Station and Grand Central Depot, but maybe not Norwalk & South Norwalk). In addition, the table indicates former stations with no current successor in gray. This is consistent with pretty much every other article on US commuter rail lines on Wikipedia, e.g. Harlem Line, Main Line (Long Island Rail Road). The currently-operating stations are indicated in white or some other light color, and because of the gray color scheme, it's easy to distinguish closed stations from current stations.This should keep in mind that the article is also about the history and the physical line, and not just the current service pattern. As inconvenient as it might be to have former stations on the station list, it will be even more confusing to maintain two separate lists of stations. The current list shows where the former stations are located in relation to the current stations. Separating the lists will create no such distinction.And, now that I think about it, we already have subsections for the branches, so the historic stations would be sub-sub-sections of the main list. I think the current alternative is probably less confusing given the circumstances. since the closed stations are clearly indicated. epicgenius (talk) 13:14, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I could see keeping a prior name if the change was a recent one, but after a few years or a decade it really should be removed IMO. Most people think of anacrhonisms as being useless or just plain weird. Imagine someone talking about the Baltimore Colts or Hartford Whalers as if they were still playing. I just don't see the value-add of having the list include former stations, since the wide majority of the population wasn't even born when most of them existed. Such information could be in a sub-section, and most certainly belongs in their own pages and/or town pages of course. No one is listing John F. Kennedy International Airport as Idlewild Airport on flight destinations. Likewise, the list still lacks the Norwalk Wall Street station, so why have one and not the other... ? IMO this makes the list unweildly. Best, Markvs88 (talk) 15:51, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
 * This article is about the physical infrastructure of the New Haven Line, which includes historic stations and not just about the current route patterns. The former stations are already listed in their respective town articles, but they need to be listed here as well. Having it in the main list is better, for consistency and because it is easier to read one list than two. I do agree on removing former names, though.As for the Norwalk Wall Street station - it is listed in the Danbury Branch article. The three branches all have their own station lists; this is only for the main line. epicgenius (talk) 17:37, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I have added the three branches' station listings to the article.As a side note, lists of closed transport stations and lists of all other closed/defunct objects, buildings, properties, etc. aren't directly comparable. For the lists of stations on a given train, bus, subway, etc. route, the closed stations are part of a physical station succession. For instance, Wall Street was physically located between Norwalk/South Norwalk and what is now Merritt 7. It isn't possible to do the same for other entities such as sports teams, or even skyscrapers. They can have a time-based succession based on whether a sports team or building existed beforehand/afterward, but you can't say "The next building on XXX street is YYY". However, it may be useful to consider minimizing historic details in the station lists, and include only station name and years of operation. epicgenius (talk) 18:35, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Meadowlands
The Meadowlands service was discontinued. It suggests: "Upon arrival at Grand Central Terminal, take the subway (purchase a MetroCard separately), or walk (about 20 minutes) to Penn Station, located at 7th Avenue and West 34th Street. The most direct subway route is 42nd Street Shuttle to Times Square, then the downtown  one stop to 34 St. Penn Station."--Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 21:26, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks. I was going off the recent addition by (which is wrong, now that I've seen the text you're referring to). I can't find a reliable source for its end date, however. epicgenius (talk) 22:06, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Mount Vernon?
The first sentence says, "... runs from New Haven, Connecticut, southwest to Mount Vernon, New York. There it joins the Harlem Line..." I'm not sure that's correct. As far as I can tell, the point where the two lines actually join is in The Bronx, although little bits and pieces of the junction might be in Yonkers. The borders between Mt. Vernon, Yonkers, and The Bronx is crazy convoluted, but the junction is definitely not in Mt. Vernon. -- RoySmith (talk) 03:54, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Page rating
I'm a bit confused by your revert of my assessment of this article as B class. While not perfect (someday I'll enlist your help to get it to GA), it seems to me that it generally meets the B class standards at Content assessment. Certainly, at 4,500 words and 90 citations, it's more than start class. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 16:44, 26 August 2021 (UTC)


 * I agree. I'm not an expert on the quality rating system, but this is clearly not "start class".  I've reverted the most recent change. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:51, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
 * It may be long, but it is of very poor quality. The history section is nearly completely non-existent, the section on operations is basically all uncited, the rolling stock section likely doesn't even belong in the article, and is biased towards recent rolling stock procurements, and the expansion section is too large, and includes many dead projects. I can see an argument for C class, but not B class, but then again, I rate my own works very harshly.--Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 18:26, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I won't quibble about B vs C. And, yes, I agree that this suffers from the common flaw of adding lots of trivia only of interest to enthusiasts instead of building a coherent story which will of more interest and value to the general readership.  But it's clearly not start class ("developing but still quite incomplete. It may or may not cite adequate reliable sources"). -- RoySmith (talk) 19:17, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Road to GA?
With reference to the above thread about the page rating, getting this to GA seems more important than arguing about where it is now. If we wanted to make a push to get it there, where would we start? Is there some standard outline for what a GA railroad article should look like? Based on List of United States commuter rail systems by ridership, if the New Haven Line were broken out by itself, it would be the 6th largest commuter railroad in the country. So it seems like it should have a better quality article. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:37, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Kew Gardens' work on Harlem Line is a good reference point - except for a couple unreferenced tables at the end and a lack of images, it's GA quality (and near FA quality) already. For this article, we definitely need longer history, and to focus in on the commuter rail history. Discussing long-distance services operating over the line is important, but the vast majority of traffic has been local for a long time, so the long-distance info can primarily be on the NYNH&H article. More focus on mainline service, less on branches (they have their own articles) and special services. General cleanup of the rolling stock and expansions sections. I can help with much of that over time, but I don't have the NYC-area historical knowledge that Kew Gardens and Epicgenius have. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 21:15, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

74 miles long?
The distance from New Haven Union Station to State Street station is only about half a mile, not 1.7 miles. The total length of the line would therefore be about 72.7 miles, as indicated in the station listing section. Not sure why, in the lead and the drop down map in the infobox, the line is said to be 74 miles long, and the distances to NH Union and State are listed as 72.3 and 74.0 respectively. Mirza Ahmed (talk) 21:55, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Some old photos
See page 16 of https://archive.org/details/OhioBrassCoCatalogueNo141914/page/n21/mode/2up RoySmith (talk) 00:12, 25 March 2024 (UTC)