Hamptons Subway Workers Name Individual Cars

DOWN IN THE TUBE

Actor Brad Pitt was spotted on the subway going from Bridgehampton to Southampton with Conan O’Brian and former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg last Saturday. Apparently they had played 18 at the Atlantic by the looks of them.

GEORGICA ASSOCIATION STOP PROTESTS

There’s been a whole lot of grumbling from the regular passengers about the new subway stop at the Georgica Association between the regular Georgica stop and Wainscott. Two weeks ago, a group of wealthy Association members had stopped a train down on the tracks at gunpoint, demanding that a station be built there. They had come down illegally, using an emergency exit in reverse  to a storeroom then to the tracks for their little caper, and they followed it up with hefty pressure on the Village of East Hampton and the regulating body that controls the permits allowing the Subway to exist.  The result is, as of ten days ago, a full blown subway stop at Georgica Station which so far, according to the regulars, nobody has ever used. The subway just stops there, waits, continues on and that is that. As they say, money talks and nobody walks.

RUNAWAY TRAIN

The Express train, which goes at high speed and makes only four stops on the system, at Montauk, East Hampton, Southampton and Westhampton Beach and then, after the turnaround goes back again, developed problems last Wednesday afternoon at 4 pm. It made no stops at all, just went down the system from one end to the other, turned around, came back, and did it over and over. All the passengers had the daylights scared out of them. Motorman Ed Friendly was scared too once he found he could do nothing about it. The episode went on for an hour and forty five minutes. Finally, a cowboy came down to the Southampton platform on horseback, took off eastbound down the tracks when the runaway came through and lassoed it, bringing it to a halt just before Water Mill. It was quite a day.

BAND CONCERT HALTED

The West Point Marching Band &  Baton Twirlers performed on the East Hampton platform last Friday, but after subway customers stopped to listen and then did not move on, ultimately the whole platform was packed with cheering people with parrot hats on their heads and the whole thing had to be brought to a halt since nobody could get either on or off the trains.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HENRY GLADYSHEISER

Our Assistant Comptroller Henry Gladysheiser was 54 years old last Monday. He celebrated by going to Hawaii with his wife for a week. Checks to the employees were late, but we wished him well anyway.

SUBWAY CARS BEING GIVEN NAMES

The signage people in the Montauk Yards, where the 36 subway cars are kept during the night guarded by German Shepherds and barbed wire (to prevent graffiti from being sprayed on) have begun writing the names of the cars on the sides over the sliding doors. The Board of Directors of the Hamptons Subway two weeks ago approved doing this at the conclusion of a contest where the public named the cars.

When the contest ended, however, the basket containing all the new names was lost while being taken out to the Montauk Yards from subway headquarters in Hampton Bays. A subway car window had been left open.   And the entries got scattered all over the tracks. Then, late at night when the system closed down for maintenance, workmen went out there to gather up  the entries only to find that mice had eaten them. All that was left on the tracks was mouse poop.

And so, the workmen have taken it upon themselves to name the cars.   Four have the signs already on them. One is called Harriet and William Dexter Aspinall, named after our beloved commissioner and his wife. Another is the Hindenberg, named after a beloved German Kaiser from years gone by, a third is simply Subway Car, which was thought up by one of the workmen there who says “Dude” a lot. And the final one is named Too Big to Fail, even though it is no bigger than any of the other cars. More cars will be mustered out tonight with the new names on them.

UMBRELLA STANDS

After last week’s rainy weekend, it was decided, at the urging of new Marketing Director Leticia James-Lefkowitz, that umbrella stands be placed on all the platforms so riders could store their umbrellas without getting water all over themselves and everybody else on the packed subway cars. It was an easy thing to do and the stands were in place by Tuesday morning. But so far, even though there has been more rain, no one has used them.

A reporter for a local radio station asked a straphanger, who was carrying an umbrella, about why he didn’t use the new service. “We need our umbrellas when we get to where we are going,” he said.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE

It’s not too early to plan for the annual Hamptons International Film Festival.  It’s just three months away. As the date approaches, the Subway System intends to install video screens in all the cars to keep the passengers entertained as they go this way and to attend the various screenings.  We will be showing films that have a subway scene in them, which HIFF chooses not to show at the festival itself. After the festival ends, we will remove the video screens and return  them to the company that rented them to us. Expect to see them up by September 15, and expect them to remain up for a month, the length of our rental.