Metro-North Railroad advises customers that from Monday, October 1, through the evening of Friday, October 5, Metro-North crews will make safety upgrades and comprehensive improvements to the Danbury Branch.  Crews will install antenna poles that are required in order to make Positive Train Control operational on the branch.  Positive Train Control   is a technology designed to reduce the potential for human error that can lead to train-involved accidents.  

 

Metro-North crews will take advantage of this outage to perform diesel fleet maintenance, install new railroad ties in Norwalk, remove old insulted joints, weld track and cut brush. 

 

To accommodate this maintenance to the Danbury Branch, buses will substitute for select, off-peak, weekday trains from Monday, October 1, through the evening of Friday, October 5. 

 

Regular southbound train service resumes on Friday, October 5, with the 6:48 p.m. train from Danbury, and regular northbound service resumes on Friday, October 5, with the 5:30 p.m. train from South Norwalk 

 

Service details are below: 

 

Between 9 a.m. and 6:10 p.m., buses will substitute for all trains departing from Danbury to South Norwalk, making all scheduled stops to South Norwalk.  Buses operate up to 15 minutes earlier than normal train times and will connect with regularly scheduled trains at Stamford. 

 

Regular southbound train service resumes on Friday, October 5 with the 6:48 p.m. train from Danbury.

 

Between 7:30 a.m. and 4:10 p.m., buses will substitute for all trains departing from South Norwalk to Danbury, making all station stops to Danbury. Buses will depart at regularly scheduled train times, but customers should allow for later arrival times. 

 

Regular northbound service resumes on Friday, October 5 with the 5:30 p.m. train from South Norwalk.  

 

For exact bus departure times, customers can visit:

http://web.mta.info/mnr/pdf/09-06-18_DanburyBusing_v1.pdf.

 

Information about the planned schedule change noted in this press release, and all planned service changes, is available through Metro-North Railroad’s real-time service information sources:

 

MYmta app – Customers who use the new, comprehensive MYmta app will see real-time travel information for Metro-North and connecting services all in one place, with push notifications when service is not operating normally. As a caution, trains that start out their trips on time may experience delays en route. The Metro-North Train Time app also remains available for customers to access Metro-North train information.

 

MTA.info - The rail tab of the “Service Status” box at new.MTA.info is always the definitive source for the latest status for each line, updated every minute. In addition, customers can visit www.mta.info/mnr to see special service notices in the upper center of the page.

 

Email and text message service updates – Customers are urged to sign up to receive the alerts by visiting MyMTAAlerts.com. To avoid unwanted messages, a user can tailor the messages to the specific branch, and the specific times of day.

 

@MetroNorth on Twitter – Twitter users can follow @MetroNorth to receive updates of a similar nature to the email and text alerts, shortened to fit Twitter’s format.

 

The above communications channels can be accessed while at home or on the go. For customers who are located at stations, Metro-North will post the latest service updates on digital signs at station platforms and will make audio announcements over public address systems, and on-board announcements made by train crews.

 

For those who prefer the telephone, information is available from the Metro-North’s Customer Service Center by calling 511, the New York State Travel Information Line, and saying: “Metro-North Railroad.” For customers calling from Connecticut, the number is: 877-690-5114.  Those who are deaf or hard of hearing can use their preferred service provider for the free 711 relay to reach Metro-North at 511.