Hamptons Subway Newsletter: Week of December 20–27, 2013

By Dan Rattiner

4 minute 12/23/2013

Alexa Ray Joel Hamptons Subway — Alexa Ray Joel makes sparkles wherever she goes! Photo: Instagram and Ed Webster

Week of December 20–27, 2013
Riders this past week: 8,432
Rider miles this past week: 91,272

DOWN IN THE TUBE
Alexa Ray Joel was seen on the subway heading from Bridgehampton to Sag Harbor on Monday afternoon. Caroline Doctorow was seen on the subway getting off the train in East Hampton with her guitar. Nathan Lane and Al Roker were talking to each other on the Southampton to Montauk Express on Saturday morning. Jimmy Fallon was fishing for change on the Noyac platform, looking to buy a newspaper at the newsstand there.

CHRISTMAS DEBACLE
Due to the fact that three marketing directors have come and gone from the Hamptons Subway payroll during 2013, the annual “count the cars” contest never happened. In this contest, parents take their children to the top of Fort Hill in front of the Montauk Manor and look down at the subway yards by the railroad station and on a piece of paper count the subway cars. The kid guessing right wins a ride on the subway with Santa Claus. Local residents report that the lawn up there is littered with entries all around the Hamptons Subway metal box set up for the last five prior contests and never taken down. We at Hamptons Subway apologize to all the children of the Hamptons for this. All the entries have been picked up. We will do something for all the entrants on Christmas Day. Be patient.

OVERTIME QUEEN
A local newspaper we will not name says Stella Achison, 43, the token booth clerk at the Southampton station, has logged 2,424 overtime hours during this past year, a fact they have discovered by filing out one of those Freedom of Information requests. Achison makes $34,812 a year, as do all the other token booth clerks, but she has, by working these extra hours at double-time pay, received $94,051 extra, making her one of the most highly paid employees, except for the Commissioner and his wife and daughter and nine other top executives, in the company. To do this, Achison has had to work nonstop 13 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks of the year.

Straphangers have reported she is always there, though sometimes asleep in the glass booth, so they have to bang on the glass to wake her. Hamptons Subway and that other unnamed newspaper also agree she does the work. But just because she has a no-good husband and 13 children in private school is no excuse, and she will be reprimanded.

TRAINS SLOWED
The Christmas lights and decorations were put up on all the platforms and throughout the subway tunnels during the night on December 18, and they will be left up until January 3. During this time, maximum speed for all the trains will be reduced from the regular 41 miles an hour to just 29 miles an hour, so as not to jostle or hit and get tangled in any wreaths or twinkling light strips, so all train service will be delayed during this time, but it’s worth it just to see the great work the night crew did. Just sit back and enjoy it. Or stand there and enjoy it.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE
As my wife and I and our daughter and all our relatives do every Christmas Day, we have a big family dinner at our house to celebrate the good times. Presents are exchanged. We bob for apples. Build fires. See who can throw a Frisbee the farthest. Have a cross-dressing contest. It’s family tradition. We all here at the Aspinall household wish everyone a Merry Christmas.