Conn. (WTNH) — This week in Connecticut history — the end of a commuting nightmare.

APRIL 18, 1983

Following a six-week long strike, Metro North trains finally started rolling again.

After a month and a half of driving, taking the bus, or shelling out more for Amtrak, a lot of irritated commuters didn’t even know how the train service was back.       

More than 600 conductors on Metro North and the Harlem lines walked off the job over crew sizes.

I didn’t think it would go this long, I figured a week, maybe two weeks, and that would be about it,” one conductor said.

“How can we back out of it now?” another questioned. “It think we are stuck in on it, its like rolling the dice.

The fight went to arbitration and trains finally started rolling again — when grumpy passengers were thrown a small bone.

There was one small consolation in all of this: After six weeks of spending more time on the highways and more money on Amtrak, today’s ride was free.

Eventually, most of those 90,000 commuters got back on the train.