Metro Norths beloved Quiet Car is gone for good and NYC commuters are melting down over it

Some things end not with a bang but with a whimper, as TS Eliot once wrote.And so it sadly goes with the Metro-North Quiet Car program, a popular feature that began in 2011 and was suspended during the pandemic.  Now, it looks like commuters will never enjoy that blissful silence again.“Hey @MetroNorth how about bringing back the ‘quiet car’ — there are many frequent riders who do not want to be in everyone’s Zoom or conference call #quietcar #courtesy #bringitback,” Christopher Vollmer, the Managing Director at MediaLink, tweeted last month.The official Metro-North account response was polite but devastating: “I’m sorry, but we do not have plans on restoring the Quiet Car program at this time.

Thank you.” The end of the Quiet Car makes me want to scream — or at least loudly sigh — into the void. It departs at a time when it’s never been needed more.In the last few years, the noise level seems to have shot up on my rides from Grand Central to Tarrytown and back, with passengers regularly FaceTiming, making loud business calls and watching videos on the train — all without headphones.Telemedicine call with your doctor about a strange rash you’re experiencing? Let’s put that on speakerphone.Watching a zany YouTube video of cats fighting each other in the street? Definitely turn up the volume! And if you’re on a zoom call talking about your Quarter Four deliverables, make sure to raise your voice so that the people in the other car can hear too. To add insult to injury, New Jersey Transit’s Quiet Car program is still going strong, and the LIRR still maintains its Quiet Car.

But apparently Dobbs Ferry and Stamford — two of the many towns served by the commuter rail — can’t have nice things. In its heyday, the Quiet Car was never really loudly advertised.It was simply understood by regular passengers that, during peak commuting hours, the last train car (heading into NYC) or the first (leaving NYC) was the designated c...