The new schedule's main feature is added weekday express service to and from NYC from Stamford, Bridgeport and New Haven. Also, riders from Stamford and west can now take four new local trains into Manhattan and six new local trains out of Manhattan on Saturdays. Because of these additions, and in apparent preparation for the December start of Amtrak "Acela" service, the departure and arrival times for most trains are adjusted forward or back by at least two minutes.

According to Metro-North, the new trains will save New Haven/Bridgeport commuters traveling to Stamford up to 18 minutes in the morning and 11 minutes in the evening. However, the cost of extra express service has been less service and more transferring for commuters using the line's smaller stops. For example, the previous schedule offered four trains in the evening from Greenwich to Fairfield. In the original new schedule only the two earliest of those trains would have continued to run between the two cities.

The Commuter Council helped riders affected by these cut-backs to lodge complaints with ConnDOT and seems to have produced a quick response. Last Friday, Jim Cameron, president of the Commuter Council, announced that the agency agreed to return some of the missing service to Greenwich and to add a stop on another train at South Norwalk.

The schedule changes were designed with the expectation that 1,000 new parking spaces at the Bridgeport station would draw a few hundred new riders and that additional fast trains between New Haven and Stamford would lure more I-95 rush hour commuters.