Hamptons Subway Newsletter: Week of February 28–March 6, 2020

By Dan Rattiner

5 minute 03/02/2020

Hamptons Subway Golden Spike — Have you seen the Golden Spike? Photo: Brian Weed/123RF

Week of February 28–March 6, 2020
Riders this past week: 38,422
Rider miles this past week: 109,434

DOWN IN THE TUBE
Jon Bon Jovi and his son, Jesse Bongiovi, were seen on the subway Sunday traveling from Amagansett to East Hampton, carrying two unopened bottles of their award-winning rosé. Had they been opened, of course, they would be illegal on the subway. Also seen on the subway were Nicole Kidman, returning from the North Fork crossing the platform to get a local in North Haven Tuesday, and Kelly Ripa, Mark Consuelos and Alan Alda, all riding in the same subway car between Southampton and Water Mill Thursday.

ESCALATOR RACES
As we reported last week, up the down escalator races have been scheduled for Southampton station as part of the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics outreach location program for minor sporting events. Hamptons Subway has already scheduled time trials for local athletes, but now we find this is one of those fake news reports they do on that internet thing, so everybody just stand down. We regret the error.

GOLDEN SPIKE STOLEN
In 1927, a golden spike was pounded into the tracks in Water Mill celebrating the linking up of the subway tracks—one crew building west from Montauk and the other east from Speonk. Now it’s reported stolen [again]. Maintenance discovered this when they examined the trackage at Water Mill after subway motormen reported unexpected swerves as their trains passed over the spot. It turns out the spike there now is fool’s gold, put there by a thief, and it got sheared off between the tracks and railroad ties Monday, causing the swerves. Real gold doesn’t break like that. Fools gold does. That’s why they call it fools gold. Temporarily, our maintenance workers banged in a titanium spike. They also set up 24-hour surveillance cameras to keep watch. Yes, the horse is out of the barn, but still.

MARKETING LAUNCH
Our new and hard-working marketing director, Connor Conway, is now almost ready to launch the huge ad campaign he created that will increase ridership on the subway system. VISIT MTK billboards will be set up at the Westhampton Beach stop entrance. VISIT WHB billboards will be at the entrance to the Montauk stop. TV commercials will ask viewers to DO THE SUB, a new kind of dance. Riders will be given special earphones as they go through the turnstiles on which celebrity Dan Rattiner will offer a narrative of the tourist attractions above as the subway heads through the tunnels below.

I’M A SUBSTER baseball caps will be on sale at each of the Subway Restaurant kiosks located on all our platforms and new hi-drama sirens and blinking red lights have been installed at all tunnel openings. When a train heads along a tunnel and gets to within 30 seconds of emerging into a station, the sirens will blare and the lights will blink to welcome them. Connor—we call him that—is also going to hold a subway-wide competition from Memorial Day to August 1, allowing riders to compete in composing a short new song celebrating each subway station, with one winner announced for each at a ceremony headed up by Commissioner Bill Aspinall at the Hamptons Subway office cafeteria in September. And there will be trophies.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE
Connor Conway is my wife’s brother and we are proud to have him lead Hamptons Subway’s new marketing campaign into the future. His plan to build parking garages under every station platform so riders could drive and park before getting on the trains is still in the works, but wending its way through the various town and village zoning boards.