Hamptons Subway Board Votes to Name Cars

SCENE ON THE SUBWAY

Robert Kraft, owner of NBC and the New England Patriots football team, was seen on the westbound platform at the Southampton station with Vicki Schneps, publisher of Dan’s Papers, discussing fundraising to help those in need because of the West Texas floods.

GEORGICA ASSOCIATION STOP DEMANDED

A group of rich men in ties and jackets stopped the first subway of the morning in the tunnel at gunpoint as it came along the tracks from East Hampton heading for the Sagaponack stop on Tuesday morning. They leaped out from a storage room on the south side of the tracks where the train passes through the Georgica Association on the west side of Georgica Pond and, waving firearms, brought the train to a halt with several warning shots into the ceiling.  Their demands, spoken over a bullhorn, were directed at the motorman, who stood wide-eyed, looking at them from the front of the train. They wanted their own stop at the Georgica Association.  They had come down to the storage room from an emergency exit at the corner of Wainscott Stone Road and Montauk Highway which they said could easily be converted to an entrance.  They weren’t going to let the train pass until their demands were forwarded to subway headquarters in Hampton Bays, which the motorman, Carl Vickman, did by radio phone immediately. Then the Georgica Association Group (GAG) as they have named themselves, let the train pass.

DELAYS DUE TO NEW TRACKAGE

A 20-minute delay took place on the Southampton – East Hampton run on Wednesday morning when new experimental trackage was installed on a stretch between Southampton and Water Mill. The trackage supposedly would get rid of the screeching noise made by the wheels when trains make the sharp turn coming around Mill Pond.  The tracks did get rid of the noise but riders quickly complained of the “budda, budda, budda” noise the trains made instead along with some peculiar shaking for a few seconds. They preferred the old noise so please bring it back, and so the experimental tracks were swapped back out in the afternoon, resulting in another 20-minute delay.  We apologize for all this.

WI-FI BACK UP BUT YOU MAY NEED HELP

The Wi-Fi system on the subway is back up but many people still can’t use it because they don’t know the new password. The old password, which was “neanderthal,” all lower case, was removed and the new password, all upper case – this is case sensitive – is TERADACTYL, but please don’t tell anybody this because it is supposed to be a secret unless you are a rider on the subway.

PROPOSAL TO NAME SUBWAY CARS APPROVED

By a vote of 4 to 3, the board of directors of Hamptons Subway have voted to have all the subway cars named in small white letters on their sides. It’s felt that giving the subway cars names might help riders feel more soft and fuzzy about using the subway.   It doesn’t change anything on the front of the subway. So the big letter “A” on the subway train still stands above the motorman’s window indicating that the train is the A train, which of course all trains are. There is only one line, after all.

There are 39 subway cars in all, stored at the Montauk Yards every night behind barbed wire to keep them graffiti free.  We invite employees and friends and readers of this newsletter to submit names.  Just send them to subway@danspapers.com. So far, we’ve had two suggestions. One, for our oldest car, a 1934 Third Reich Manufacturing Company Saloon model from Germany, was submitted as “the old gray mare.” A new model made by Toronto Subway Manufacturing Company, in Canada has received the suggestion of “Phantom Flyer.” You don’t need to know the manufacturers of the other cars to enter.

LOOK OUT FOR COUNTERFEIT CARDS

Counterfeit subway swipe cards are in circulation in the system. They look exactly like the proper ones, and they work going through the turnstiles just like the real ones do. The only difference is that they do not expire and when the money in them runs down, it automatically renews itself with “new” money although in fact, none has been added. These cards will last forever and that’s not right, so if you come across any please just drop them off at any token booth where the token booth operator will reward you with a new card with ten free rides.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CARLOS

Carlos Cohen, our fearless accountant, celebrates his big five-oh this Thursday in the office in Hampton Bays. We invite everybody who knows and loves him to be there at 3 p.m. when we will have the cutting of the cake.

COMMISSIONER BILL ASPINALL’S MESSAGE

Hamptons Subway is for getting from point A to point B. That, however, was apparently not the case last Friday night between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. when a group of male revelers, apparently having a bachelor party for a groom prior to a wedding the next day, commandeered one car on one train and transformed it into a night’s revelry that included pole dancing and strippers and a naked girl jumping out of a big cake as they went around and around the subway system for those three hours, drinking and carrying on. After regular riders in adjacent cars complained, we sent out our security police in another train which overtook this lascivious bacchanal train, pulled it over, boarded it, and put a stop to what was going on. There may have been a wedding the next day, but the groom was in jail. Too bad for him.