[MNR] Yankees - East 153rd Street, Meadowlands and holiday schedules

[John Larsen]

So after thinking about this and looking at the way our schedules are
posted, I came up with the following list of Yankees schedules that we
publish to GTFS

Monday 1:05 PM
Monday 7:05 PM
Tuesday - Thursday 1:05 PM
Tuesday - Thursday 7:05 PM
Friday 1:05 PM
Friday 7:05 PM
Saturday 1:05 PM
Saturday 4:05 PM and 4:10 PM
Saturday 8:05 PM
Sunday 1:05 PM
Sunday 4:05 PM and 4:10 PM
Sunday 8:05 PM

We can use the same logic that was used to consolidate our base
schedules for the GTFS format into the following

Monday - Friday 1:05 PM
Monday - Friday 7:05 PM
Saturday - Sunday 1:05 PM
Saturday - 4:05 PM and 4:10 PM
Saturday - Sunday 8:05 PM

Then comes football season which complicates it further when there are
Giants and Jets games on the same weekend as the Yankees. With the
lock out, I don't expect the schedules to be released in April as
hoped so we just have to wait for that. A worst case would look like
the following

Monday - Friday 1:05 PM
Monday - Friday 7:05 PM
Saturday - Sunday 1:05 PM
Saturday - Sunday 1:05 PM + Football
Saturday - 4:05 PM and 4:10 PM
Saturday - 4:05 PM and 4:10 PM + Football
Saturday - Sunday 8:05 PM
Saturday - Sunday 8:05 PM + Football

Here is the issue, adding just those trains that are extra and/or
different for a particular day. If there were a way to turn off a trip
for a particular day, I think it is possible but the GTFS does not
support that.

I cannot just add the trains to a regular schedule like

1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,04012011,06302011
2577,0,1,1,1,0,0,0,04012011,06302011

because they don't run on the regular schedule hence why they are all
zeros.

I also can't just add the additional service for those games into one
schedule and leave out the regularly scheduled service because of the
Hudson line express trains making an added stop for game day only or
any other slight changes in times. I can only do the combine of like
schedules like we did for the base schedules.

I am still going to build something to see what the differences will
be between schedules, but I don't see how to make this work to reduce
the duplication from a normal Saturday train and a train that runs
exactly the same on a one day schedule without including it.

Also, be glad the Yanks are away on Memorial Day and Fourth of July
this year >.< They are at home for Labor Day so expect a different
schedule that mixes the holiday and the game day schedule.

So at worst through baseball and football season you will have 8
service IDs plus holidays (3 schedules per holiday, Friday getaway,
Sunday and Monday holiday) for a total of 11 active service IDs in the
GTFS if we update them after the holidays or 17 if we are lazy and
leave them in. This is in addition to the 5 or 6 service IDs for an
overall total of 16 - 23 service IDs. This is not including the
November and December holiday schedules either.

Complicated to say the least

[Sunny]

The Meadowlands extras become regular NJT trains to Trenton/Long
Branch, so there will need to be some form of interagency GTFS.