No Booze On LIRR, Metro North For St. Patrick’s Day, MTA Says

NEW YORK, NY — The Metropolitan Transportation Authority will attempt the impossible and try to prevent railroad passengers from getting wasted on the way into New York City for the St. Patrick's Day parade.

The MTA police have been directed to confiscate any alcoholic beverages found on the Long Island Railroad and Metro-North Railroad starting Friday and continuing until 5 a.m. on Saturday, according to a press release.

In addition to being the killjoys of the year the MTA will implement several service changes in order to shuttle in massive numbers of (totally 100 percent sober) Long Islanders and New York suburbanites into the city by the 11 a.m. start time of the St. Patrick's Day parade.

Here's Patch's guide on everything you need to know for NYC's St. Patrick's Day parade.

Six extra westbound trains from Long Island — on the Babylon Branch, Port Jefferson Branch and Ronkonkoma Branch — will arrive in Penn Station between 9:27-11:19 a.m., according to the MTA. In order to get revelers back to Long Island 10 extra eastbound trains will be departing Penn Station between 1:50-3:49 p.m, according to a press release.

The Metro-North Railroad will also implement service changes — in the form of one express train — to expedite St. Patrick's Day partiers' venture into the city. The train will leave from Poughkeepsie at 7:52 a.m., stop at New Hamburg at 8:02 a.m. and at Beacon at 8:10 a.m. and then go straight to Harlem-125th Street. The train will arrive at Grand Central Terminal at 9:32 a.m., according to the MTA.

Photo by Simon Carr via Flickr/Creative Commons