16 posts tagged “new york”
It is not hard to come to the conclusion that flying domestic in the US is a pretty plain vanilla affair and there isn't much to choose from among the airlines. Yet, when you fly frequently, you begin to discern differences as the laws of probablity kick in and events such as cancellations, aircraft changes, bad weather etc. occur. I have been flying between New York (Mostly from Newark) to Minneapolis on work for the last 12 weeks or so. I mostly fly Continental but have taken a few flights on Northwest/Delta.
When I started, Continental was using Boeing 737s on the early morning (from EWR) and late evening (from MSP) flights but they then abruptly switched to the Embraer 145 - a much smaller aircraft. With 2-1 seating and a very tiny overhead bin, this aircraft invariably requires me to check in my cabin bag at the gate - and reclaim at the gate on arrival. This adds about 10 minutes before you can be on your way, which matters when you fly every week. It is also a single class configuration, so there's no question of upgrades. Being "Elite" doesn't confer any significant advantange on this type of aircraft.
A bigger issue is that Continental seems to cancel flights at the drop of a hat when there are weather induced delays at Newark. They often cancel the originating flight, which means the return flight from Minneapolis is cancelled too. It is infuriating to see Northwest/Delta flights take off (albeit with delays) to the 3 New York area airports while Continental seemingly refuses to even try. This has happened twice in the recent past (will write another post on this and how Delta rescued me when Continental abdicated). NWA uses an Embraer 190 on the sector - which is more comfortable, can accommodate larger cabin bags and has a two class configuration.
The good thing about Continental is they actually supply some meaningful food complimentary. Cereal on the morning flight and a snack box with cheese, crackers, chocolates etc. on the evening one.
So there it is - it isn't all plain vanilla. The "coffee, tea or me" days are long gone, but there is scope for differentiation still.
Jersey City, NJ offers, unquestionably, some of the best Manhattan views.
And it has a semblance of a skyline itself. The Goldman Sachs building (see below) is undoubtedly the crowning glory of the JC skyline. The Colgate clock next to it provides an interesting contrast. Seen from the riverfront next to the Hyatt (which kind of juts into the Hudson), you also see the Verrazano bridge all lit up.
Here's another of my experiments with HDR. The liberty marina is just opposite where I live. I took this a few days back - a day on which there was a very deep orange glow in the sky.
Also, see another HDR photo of midtown Manhattan
BTW, HDR is a technique of taking photos with different exposures and merging them. So this one was taken with 4 different exposure and merged using photomatix (you see their watermark because this is a trial version. I still cannot bring myself to buy it for $99 - at least not yet!)
The new R160 trainsets on the "E" continue to delight - the experience somewhat marred by a few glitches which I will proceed to describe. I am hoping these have more to do with operators' learning curve rather than actual defects. Time will tell. Each car has 3 route maps and 2 variable display message boards (which typically tell the time, the next stop and anything the pre-recorded voice announces).
1) The "V" wannabee
On an R160, the variable message board said it was a "E"to 2 Av. The "E" of course, actually went to WTC.
2) The Confused "E"
The variable display said E to Jamaica center while the route map correctly showed WTC as the destination. It's a little hard to get a readable snap of the variable message board and the route map - but here it is
3) The frozen variable message
I have seen the variable message boards freezing up more than once. I got into an E before 8 am and I thought I saw 7.47 am on the variable message board. That lulled me into a false sense of complancency as I though I had plenty of time for my 8.30 meeting. The time was actually 7.58 or so and the display was frozen at 1:47 AM"! I had mistaken the 1 for the 7. Didn't take a pic of that. On the same day, I got into another R160 which had a problem with one of the doors - only one door would open. This was on car #9339.
Though the route maps on the R160s are somewhat flexible, I wonder what the limits are. Last morning, there was a problem at Queen's plaza that led to trains piling up behind it. We were at Penn station when the dispatchers decided that the E would run on the A line to 168th St! Can the train operator dynamically change the route and set the displays accordingly? (He didn't or couldn't - he chose to let the automated annoncement happen and then came online to correct it)
The sound of a train running has been music to many ears - including those of yours truly. The source of the 'music' has usually been the clickety clack or the hooters/horns or, mostly in the case of diesel or steam locomotion, the sound of the engine itself. Subways/metros (usually consisting of electric multiple units) have been seen as dull in this regard (no engine, often underground, too noisy & crowded, often run down etc.) - but not anymore if you read this article in NYtimes. It appears that there is music in the electronic whine as some of the trains leave. I can attest to the whine though I had not made the correlation with a specific piece of music mentioned.
Users of some of the numbered subways (4,5,6,2,3...) and now some of the lettered ones (E, W, J....) have been getting used to new subway cars (The so called R140, R142, R160 etc. named after the MTA contract number) which have the characteristic whine (The NY Times article has a audio snippet of this). I am a regular user of the 'E' line which has a few of these new R160 trainsets running. I think there are at least 3 such trainsets on the E (see some of my previous posts on this).
These trainsets, of course, have features other than the musical whine for their users. They also have brighter lights, automated announcements that are crystal clear, better temperature control and user friendly station displays. An automated female voice gives you information about the next step ("The next stop is &th Av/53rd Street") and a male automated voice asks you to "stand clear of the closing doors" or to "please be patient as there is train traffic ahead". This is apparently based on research which suggests that people react better to information from women but instructions from men!
Finally, for those interested in knowing more about NYC subways, the MTA forum on railroad.net is an excellent resource.
The Tribute to Light is a particularly interesting way to remember 9/11. For those of us who were in New York on that fateful day, the skyline will forever feel incomplete. Though the twin towers of light do not go up where the twin towers stood, it is still a reminder of what the skyline once was.
Back to trains. Here's a shot of the A train rolling into the Jay street stion in Brooklyn (New York). This kind of trainset is among the noisiest that MTA operates. The cars are big and roomy but functional and almost ugly - they look like aluminium boxes. They are the mainstay of the "E" and "C" trains.
More often, another kind of a trainset is used. They are a little sleeker and are more widely used - on "V", "F", "D" and there are a few running the "4" route.
The best samosas that I've had in New York are at Whole Foods store at Union Square. That's a little counter-intuitive as you would expect Jackson Heights, 28th St / Lexington Ave or one of the other Indian neighbourhoods to offer the best samosa. Maybe they do and I haven't sampled them yet. But the ones at Whole foods are phenomenal. Not just samosas, the other Indian food on offer at the hot bar is generally of very good quality. Way to go Whole foods!
Whole Foods @ Union Square (I haven't been to any of their other outlets) has managed to do something unusual - put the buzz back in grocery shopping. I have seen no other place that has invested so much on queue management at the cash registers! I have written up a little review of the Whole foods at yelp - a good place to write and read reviews.
So here I am again on Sunday afternoon aboard the wi-fi equipped DC2NY bus - returning to NY. This time the ride is much more comfortable only because the bus is not full. There are at least 20 vacant seats. I have the table of 4 to myself. There is only one table of 4 on this bus - there were two on the other one. So I can stretch out and use the table to rest the laptop and the cup-holder for the complimentary bottle of water. It's a little trickier to use the laptop during the day on the bus because of the sun flashing on and off the screen. It is a remarkably sunny and warm day for Feb. I am on the right side of the bus and I see that the left side is getting less sunlight.
We left Dupont circle at exactly 11.15. Edgar - our driver is friendly and talked at length about the features aboard the bus and used some humor to drive home the point that we should use the trash bags strung to the seat handles and should use the the restroom only if we must and only for "number 1"! He promised a 15 minute rest stop to take care of "other business". That was a smart move . Steve - our driver on the trip to DC - didn't announce the rest stop until we were there, so lots of people used the restroom even when they could have waited. Edgar took a few potshots at the "other companies" and promised to let us vote if we wanted a movie after the rest stop. Apparently they have received feedback to keep the first part of the trip quiet.
So we headed off - quite appropriately - on New York Ave leading to the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. The elegance of downtown DC quickly gave way to run down car washes, seedy motels and self-storages before we hit the parkway. At about 12.15, we crossed the industrial underbelly of Baltimore and over a maze of railroad tracks onto I-95. It's been smooth going so far - it's 12.50 and we're on the Susquehanna river bridge. This is the first time I've seen the river from the vantage point of a bus seat. It's unlikely that my battery will last for much longer, so I promise to return to this post later today.
OK - here's the rest of the trip report. We stopped just after crossing into New Jersey at the first rest stop on NJTP. This was at 13.30 - so we made it to NJTP in just over two hours. Not bad at all. Edgar took a vote and the majority wanted a movie. The next vote was to decide which movie - the choices being "Spiderman 3", "The Italian Job" and another one that I don't recall. "The Italian job" won hands down. Edgar took the trouble of retrieving more water bottles from the hold and handing them out to whoever needed them. We were back on NJTP at 13.50. The movie kept us entertained and before we knew it we were in the Lincoln Tunnel and at 15.35 we pulled in front of KMart on 34th Street - a little before the movie ended! All in all a very pleasant return trip to New York.
Am heading to DC this weekend. Am alone - family is in India - so I figured that public transport would be most appropriate. As usual, Amtrak was ridiculously expensive and I had been hearing good reviews of a so called "upscale" DC2NY bus service (with wi-fi onboard - courtesy of which these words are entering blogsphere). So here I am on NJ turnpike, somewhat cramped but thankful I am not behind the wheel in what has turned out be a very rainy day. I have a compact laptop, so I am just about able to type. A larger, heavier laptop will be a little difficult to manage in a window seat. I see a couple of people sticking their legs out in the aisle and balancing their laptops on - well - their laps.
The bus and the seating are quite standard. Minimal legroom, not much recline. There are a couple of tables at the back with seating around them for 4. So 4 people travel 'backward' if you know what I mean. I happen to be sitting just ahead of that row - so I have no recline at all. But the, this is a bus - and a clean one at that. And a full house - so hopes of having a vacant seat next to me were quickly dashed. But it's a young, yuppie crowd - college goers, tourists, young professionals. Very unlike Greyhound I am told.Good acoustics - could catch every word of what Steve - our "motorcoach operator" - said. And hey, they have wi-fi that works!
Left at 18.05 and were into Lincoln tunnel within 15 minutes. That was good. Traffic hasn't been too bad and we're at the point where the car and bus/truck lanes merge - often a bottleneck but not today. 1hr 15 min to get there on a rainy Fri evening is not bad.
Amtrak 'prime time' tickets cost anywhere upto $200 roundtrip on a non-Acela express. Add $100 at least for Acela. It is unlikely that you can fly for less than $120 or so roundtrip. DC2NY offers a fare of $40 roundtrip on the web. Which makes me wonder
a) What railfares can come down to if there is competition. Cant understand why rail fares have to be this high.
b) Whether there is a market for an 'upper class' bus service - carrying, say, 20 fewer passengers and charging $25-30 more - with refunds, snacks on board, wi-fi, charging points for laptops etc. I am sure there are people thinking about it.
So long for now. We're still hurtling along merrily on NJTP. Will revisit this post and write about the rest of the journey.
OK - my laptop ran out of juice when we got to Delaware. So here's the rest of the story. We got to downtown DC - Dupont Circle - at 22.40. Pretty good going. We had a 15 min rest stop on the way - which was good too. So, all in all, a pleasant enough trip. Not as comfortable as the train - but the next best option at a huge saving.
