While You Wage Slaves Scarf To-Go Chicken On The 9:07 To New Haven, The Slackers Of The World Laugh . . . Ha

The Times reports on how the expanding workday is forcing commuter train lines to adjust their rush-hour schedules:

The first train of the day pulls out of the Croton-Harmon station at 4:56 a.m., almost a full hour before sunrise, but it is not early enough for Ben Hoyer.

Mr. Hoyer, like a fast-growing cohort of commuters, wants to get to Grand Central Terminal even earlier than is now possible. By 6 a.m., Mr. Hoyer said, the demands of his job as the head stock trader for an investment firm have already piled up. He is looking forward to next week when the train will start its run 11 minutes sooner and deposit him in Manhattan at 5:45 a.m.

“Work is fast-paced, and I need every minute I can get,” said Mr. Hoyer, 36, who lives with his wife and two children in Briarcliff Manor, about 30 miles north of the city.

For people like Mr. Hoyer, the limits of the workday have been redefined. Forget 9 to 5, some New Yorkers are pulling 6-to-5 shifts, while others are working 9 to 9. To fit them in, some transit systems that were conceived in a less-flexible era are revamping their service and rewriting their schedules.

In April, the Metro-North Railroad will embark on the biggest addition to its service in 20 years, with the express goal of giving each of its customers the chance to reach Manhattan before 6 a.m. For those burning the candle at the other end, the railroad plans to run more trains back to the suburbs after 7:30 p.m.

And if you thought you were paid poorly, rest assured that the people who have to use these trains are chumps:

With more passengers working through supper, the late-evening trains often resemble chuck wagons, with some passengers balancing whole meals on their knees while others grumble about the smell and the mess.

On the 9:07 p.m. train to New Haven one night last week, Kendra Johnson was huddled over a chicken dinner with a side of pasta salad, a position she finds herself in three nights a week, she said.

“By the time I get home, I am just so exhausted that I don’t want to make anything for dinner, and it is easier to pick things up and eat on the train,” said Ms. Johnson, 27, who lives in Stamford, Conn., and works as an assistant to an executive at a large company in downtown Manhattan.

Judy Klem, an investment banker from Milford, Conn., tries to cram some sleep into her four-hour round trip, which requires setting her alarm for 5 a.m. and leaves her eating dinner at 10 p.m. She resists carrying food onto the trains because she finds the habits of other passengers unappetizing.

“It’s astonishing,” Ms. Klem said. “People get really messy stuff. In the morning, people eat bananas and then drop the peels on the ground, so then the peels are on the train floor like in a cartoon.”