LI railroad confuses April Fools' Day with Fourth of July

BY BILL BLEYER | bill.bleyer@...
10:53 PM EDT, July 10, 2009

Long Island Rail Road riders who tried to take one of the five extra trains
added to the Montauk branch schedule July Fourth may have thought it was April
Fools' Day instead.

The railroad told customers Friday that because of "a timetable error," only one
of the five westbound trains actually ran. Bus service was substituted for three
trains while riders for a Montauk train had to wait two hours for the next
regularly scheduled run.

While the phantom trains immediately spurred comment and queries, the railroad
did not respond until Friday, offering a general explanation and an apology on
its Web site.

"We made a mistake," LIRR spokesman Joe Calderone said. "We apologized to our
customers. We put in place protocols to try to guard against this happening in
the future." The railroad believes that fewer than 500 riders were affected.


Calderone said the error was the addition of the trains to the schedule because
the railroad never intended to run them. Instead, it planned to operate on a
normal Saturday schedule, rather than a holiday schedule, which has a greater
number of trains. The rationale was that most people would be traveling east on
Friday and not coming home on Saturday of a holiday weekend.

"In fact, Friday was the heavier day," he said.

Peter Haynes of Bayport, president of the LIRR Commuters Campaign, said: "I've
seen a lot of bizarre things on the Long Island Rail Road and this jumps to the
top of the list. It really boggles the mind."


From:
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/suffolk/ny-limont1112959361jul10,0,4863561.sto\
ry


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