But on the stone-cold Pelham platform, jammed train after jammed train whizzed by and, after three hours, Mr. Thayer gave up.

The noise of the wheels rose up at me and you could see a blur of gravel and a flash of sleepers as the train whizzed over them.

You get the opportunity to interact with the villages you pass along the way, and you also get the opportunity to take some good photographs because the train is not whizzing past the landscape.

The train officially goes into service on Sunday, but in an inaugural run today for dignitaries and journalists, the train whizzed smoothly and quietly through hayfields and cornfields at 300 kilometers, or 186 miles, an hour.

The rushing roar ended as the train whizzed out of the tunnel and the baggage man felt relieved.

In the meantime, Metro-North passengers have had to put up with crowded cars, canceled trains and platforms of people left hanging as fully occupied trains whizzed past.

Two years ago the Environmental Protection Department found that when the No. 3 trains whizzed along the el over Livonia Avenue, mustard-colored lead-based paint chips from the tracks scattered over three playgrounds in East New York.

UNDER NEW YORK By Linda Oatman High Pictures by Robert Rayevsky Holiday House ($16.95, hardcover) Under New York, below taxicabs and tour buses and carriage horses, there are railroad tracks and trains whizzing past, clattering fast, bringing visitors to the city and taking them home again.