This past Saturday, 6 June, my daughter and I had our latest train adventure. Our destination: Waterbury, Connecticut, the northern terminus of Metro-North’s Waterbury Branch, the longest and easternmost of three branches off the New Haven Line.

We boarded the New Haven Line train that leaves Grand Central at 10.02. After a brief stop at Harlem-125 St, this train runs express to Stamford, Connecticut, after which it runs local to New Haven. Normally the connection between New Haven mainline trains and the shuttle to Waterbury is at Bridgeport. However, “[t]o accommodate the final phase of a $5.8 million priority-repair project on Devon Bridge,” the MTA explains, “a new, temporary transfer point—Devon Transfer—has been built where the Waterbury Branch and New Haven Line meet.” This is what it looks like:

Two wooden platforms have been built: a straight one along the New Haven mainline tracks, which connects to a curved platform where customers…