Our Hypereactivity to Service Disruptions, Round 2

At 4:21pm this afternoon the LIRR issued an alert saying that due to a track condition east of the East River Tunnels, passengers should expect delays and/or cancellations during the evening rush.  This "track condition" was presumably a broken rail someplace, as today was the first real day of cold in the New York Area.

But after that first alert was issued at 4:21pm, the LIRR's Customer Advisory System was quiet...  At 5:07pm the LIRR issued an alert saying that service was operating on or close to schedule at that time. 

So nothing really happened.  The broken rail didn't impact train service as no trains had to be anulled or combined and no trains were running ten or more minutes late.

The actual track condition didn't amount to anything.  But what did amount to a lot of something was the news hype over the alleged delays.  "Widespread Systemwide LIRR Delays this evening" were the headlines.  A WNBC reporter even went so far as to declare that there were "big LIRR delays at this hour" after the LIRR's 5:07pm update saying they were operating on or close to schedule systemwide.

At the very height of the supposed chaos there were only two trains late on the whole railroad, and both were only six minutes behind schedule.  Those two trains managed to make it back into the "on time" category at their next stations and there was a decent period of time where there wasn't a single delayed train.  At the time this post went to print, there was some residual bunching in the typical spots, but no train in the entire evening rush up to this point was 10 or more minutes late at any time.

But don't tell the news agencies that..."on or close" isn't good for ratings.