Hamptons Subway Newsletter: Week of November 28–December 4

Week of November 28–December 4
Riders this past week: 9,659
Rider miles this past week: 81,478

DOWN IN THE TUBE
Hugh Jackman and Matt Lauer were in different cars on the same subway going from Sag Harbor to Bridgehampton last Thursday afternoon. Alan Alda was spotted heading from the new Mecox Station to Southampton on Friday at 4 p.m. Nancy Atlas was talking to Katie Couric on the train going from East Hampton to Sag Harbor on Wednesday at 2 p.m. Billy Joel was seen carrying 10 copies of the same hardcover book between Water Mill and Southampton on Monday at 4 p.m.

GEORGICA STATION BY RESERVATION ONLY
The lightly used Georgica Station, with its butler, champagne, string quartet and hors d’oeuvres, will be open full-time only on weekends between now and January 1. After January 1, it will be open only by advance reservation until March 1, when it will reopen full-time again for the upcoming season.

If you want to ride during the week until January 1, you can reserve during the week online at hamptonssubway.com. Reservations must be made 24 hours ahead. After January 1, the reservations have to be made seven days ahead.

SCAM ARTIST
We do our best to keep questionable characters off the platforms. For the last 10 days, however, a well-dressed man in a business suit has been selling “remotes” on the various platforms without our permission. He needs a license to sell on the platforms. He doesn’t have one. And he’s not on the up-and-up. His remotes, which resemble TV remotes, will “call” a subway to the station within six minutes from when you press the “signal” button, he says.

He represents himself as being an employee of Uber, the taxi hailing company active in big cities around the country that allows you to use your cellphone to get a cab that is nearby. He is selling these “remotes” for $30 cash. Look out for this man. The remotes are nothing but TV remotes and the subway train comes in within six minutes at any station anyway.

SURFBOARDS CAUSE DELAY
Subway service was held up system-wide for 20 minutes as the result of a problem at our Ditch Plains stop in Montauk last Monday.

At 3:30 p.m., five different surfers with surfboards got tangled up on the down escalator. Apparently the surf was suddenly up. The crush of surfboards caused the escalators to go into emergency shut down, not only at the Ditch Plains station but also in every station in the system as one of our workmen failed to shut down the linkage switch. (The linkage switch at our central control room in Hampton Bays enables maintenance people to test all the escalators everywhere at the same time. It’s supposed to be ON for the test at 2 a.m., then turned OFF when the test is done so an individual escalator gets shut down when an individual problem occurs.) We regret the delay.

A reminder—all surfboards must be brought down on elevators, not on escalators. That’s why we have elevators at the ends of each platform. Bicycles too.

OPEN CALL FOR SANTA CLAUSES
Beginning next Monday, Hamptons Subway will be interviewing Santa Clauses in the Hampton Bays office. We need 14 of them for each of the 14 stops, and applicants must be in good health and able to work daily from December 1 to 24 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. when the shift ends because its most little kids’ bedtime.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE
Next week is the annual vote for Commissioner. Be sure to vote. I am running again.

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