Metro-North is probably the only one of the country’s approximately 25 commuter railroads to have its own tailor, and Joseph Cirillo is the only tailor Metro-North has ever had.

So it was understandable that rumors of his retirement – Mr. Cirillo is 66, after all – were received with some trepidation by the conductors who rush to Mr. Cirillo’s windowless fifth-floor office inside Grand Central Terminal when they need an emergency hem in their pants or a quick mending of a tear. Mr. Cirillo would like to clear the air. “It’s a false rumor,” he said the other day. “I may retire, but not anytime soon.” Some railroads, such as Amtrak, hire a tailor when conductors are fitted for uniforms. Others, such as the Long Island Rail Road, send employees directly to the manufacturer to be fitted. The uniforms can then be sent to the LIRR conductors’ homes – but fixing any tear or broken seam thereafter is the employee’s responsibility.

Even in an apparel industry that has become increasingly outsourced and automated, however, Metro-North, a subsidiary of the fiscally challenged Metropolitan Transportation Authority, employs Mr. Cirillo full-time to fine-tune the uniforms of its conductors and customer-service agents. The outfits are manufactured from cotton, wool, and polyester blends by a New York company, Seventh Avenue Trade Apparel.

“I think it’s good for morale,” the founder and co-president of Seventh Avenue Trade Apparel, Karen Gerson, said of Metro-North’s in-house tailor.

A Metro-North conductor, Doug Mullen, said appreciatively: “Here they tailor it to you.” Mr. Mullen, who also wore a uniform in a previous job as a doorman on Park Avenue, said: “There, you’d go in and say, ‘I’m a 44 regular,’ and they’d just take it off the rack.”

Until Consolidated Rail Corporation transferred its assets to the MTA, which created Metro-North in 1983, the conductors were given stipends meant to cover such costs as hemming pants and mending tears. Back then, conductors with short layovers at Grand Central did not have to go far to find a tailor to mend a rip.

“It was easier to find a tailor then,” Mr. Cirillo said. “But the clothes were not taken care of as well, because the conductors did not want to spend their own money. Now they have no excuse if they don’t have a pair of pants.”

Mr. Cirillo came to New York in 1955 from Calabria in southern Italy, where from age 13 he had apprenticed at his uncle’s tailor shop. He worked for a garment shop at 27th Street and Seventh Avenue for 35 years, he said. In 1990, he was hired by Seventh Avenue Trade Apparel and worked exclusively, in the railroad’s Uniform Store in Grand Central, for Metro-North, which paid Ms. Gerson’s firm for his services.

“I’ve been a tailor since I was born,” Mr. Cirillo said, in an accent that bespoke his origins.

Mr. Cirillo was hired by Metro-North in 1995.

“They wanted our tailor, so they got him,” Ms. Gerson said.

That same year, the railroad and Seventh Avenue Trade Apparel won the Image of the Year competition of the National Association of Uniform Manufacturers and Distributors, in the National Transportation category.

The railroad has about 700 conductors, each with their array of tickets, forms, and hole punches. They need, above all else, pockets.

Five pockets, including the somewhat anachronistic watch pocket, adorn the pants, which can accommodate waists from 26 to 62 inches. Ten pockets cover the blue blazers – sizes 36 to 60, and worn only during the winter. And two pockets outfit the shirt, made for necks from 14 to 22 inches. Conductors also wear leather pouches on their hips.

In 1986, Geselle May entered the mainly all-male conductor work force, when “doing a man’s job” meant wearing clothes designed for men.

“I didn’t really mind that, to tell you the truth,” Ms. May, who after 19 years is still on the job, said.

Nevertheless, the advent of women in the ranks of Metro-North conductors necessitated trousers with narrower waists and wider hips.

One of Metro-North’s more innovative additions in work couture, courtesy of Mr. Cirillo – who usually doesn’t design the clothing line – was his creation of a maternity top for pregnant conductors. The blouse has slits on the side and is worn untucked, and it has two additional pockets at the bottom, to make up for what the pants lose to the mother-to-be’s belly.

As for the rumor that hinted at his retirement, Mr. Cirillo attributes that to “office gossip.” Not all conductors, though, are convinced.

“That’s the funny thing about this place,” one conductor, who gave his name as Mike, said.”People say they’re not leaving, even if they’ve been here 50,000 years.Then suddenly – boom – they’re gone.”