Metro-North’s first woman president approaches the end of the line

“It’s been the job of a lifetime,” says Catherine Rinaldi, Metro-North’s first female president, who is set to retire at the end of the month. “It’s been just such an honor and a privilege to be able to lead this amazing organization … these heroes who performed the daily miracle [of running 700 trains] every day.” 

Miracle? Hardly. But with such an aging infrastructure and so many moving parts,  I’ve got to give Metro-North (and Rinaldi) credit for a job well done.

Rinaldi came to the railroad in 2003 as a lawyer and helped run Metro-North (and the Long Island Railroad for a while) through the dark days of COVID when more than 100  MTA workers died, as they kept service going while 90 percent of riders hunkered down in quarantine.

“The agency really rose to the occasion and continued to carry essential workers and continued to do what we needed to do to keep the region moving even during that very difficult, scary time,” she said.

Asked what she thought were her greatest accomplishments during her tenure, she pointed to the railroad’s record high on-time performance and improved customer service ratings.

She did not mention the railroad’s huge improvements in communications … the TrainTime app, email and text notifications and vastly improved website. Nor did she cite the Penn Station Access plan, the opening of Grand Central Madison, additional stations coming to the Bronx, infrastructure and accessibility improvements and new dual-mode locomotives on order.

But she did mention Metro-North’s finally installing PTC, Positive Train Control, hopefully eliminating human error tied to such incidents as the 2013 derailment at Spuyten Duyvil in the Bronx when four passengers died and 61 were injured. Despite this safety tech, our trains still run slower than decades ago, extending commute times.

She said the railroad is working with the Federal Railroad Administration to improve speeds, calling it a “continuing dialogue.”  And she did plug the railroad’s three “super-express” early morning rush-hour trains from New Haven which make the run to Grant Central in 99 minutes… not quite the 60-minute trip time Governor Ned Lamont called for in 2019.

I also asked Rinaldi “what went wrong with the Quiet Car concept.”  She said she knew this was a longtime issue in my advocacy for passengers, but said with ridership coming back strong (now 81 percent of pre-COVID on weekdays) she needs to make every seat in every car available to all.

Launched in 2012, the Quiet Car concept mimicked Amtrak and other railroads but was never properly enforced by conductors (just like the railroad’s COVID mask mandate) and was dropped during the pandemic (just like the masks).

“The quiet car [idea] is not something that I was looking to bring back,” she said. 

Neither is she optimistic about the railroad ever introducing Wi-Fi on trains, instead encouraging cell providers to fill coverage gaps along their routes.

First proposed in 2006, the Wi-Fi idea was endorsed by Governor Lamont and kickstarted in Connecticut with our legislature’s $23 million special appropriation to the Connecticut Department of Transportation, money which seems to have disappeared. That leaves Metro-North as one of the only commuter lines in the U.S. lacking this passenger-attracting amenity.

Public records show Rinaldi’s 2022 salary was $372,639, but in the private sector her many years of experience could bring her much more. She demurred when I asked if she’d become a consultant like many of her predecessors. Though she’s probably eligible for a nice pension, don’t expect to see her sitting on some beach. 

“I don’t think I’m ready to be like retired retired,” she said with a chuckle.

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