Hamptons Subway Races Commence with Thrills

SCENE ON THE SUBWAY

President Donald Trump or someone who looks just like him was seen aboard the subway between Bridgehampton and Water Mill last Wednesday. We don’t know how far west he was going because our spotter was so awestruck and embarrassed just to be in this man’s presence that she got off at the Water Mill stop.

DOOR JAM DELAY

A jam of commuters squeezed into one of our subway cars at the Southampton station during rush hour, causing a woman on board one of the cars carrying a shopping bag filled with homemade jam jars to be jammed into a sliding door, thus smearing the door with jam and jamming it halfway open. Maintenance came within ten minutes of a call to them to help get the train out of the jam.

NEW PA SYSTEMS ON THE SUBWAY

The new advanced public address systems are now featured in all the cars on our line. So from now on, instead of hearing, as you approach a station “mfkooshaham wazool wakinbeilag” you will hear “Do not leave the subway car until it comes to a complete halt.”

SUBWAY RACES

The motormen on our subway system, to break the boredom, last Monday set up a friendly contest for the middle of the night during the time the system is closed for maintenance. This particular middle of the night there would be no maintenance. There would be a race. The system closed at 2 a.m. Instead of all the subway cars being sent back to the Montauk yards for their nightly hosing, all six of them were parked, by prearrangement, at the following subway platforms: Hampton Bays, Southampton, Amagansett and Montauk stations. At 2:15 a.m., the motormen hopped into their driving booths and waited for the cue, which would come at 2:30 a.m.

The run around the subway system, as you know, makes something of an oval. The contest was, of course, to see which motorman could get around the system and return to his starting platform the fastest. Under normal conditions, this takes about three hours. We thought it might be done in two. Also, there was a fear that the front of a faster car could bump into a slower car just ahead, but with the stations selected 9 miles apart, we thought this would not happen, and in the event, it didn’t. And so it was that at 2:20, the motormen turned off the top-speed governors that prevent the subways from going over 34 miles an hour, revved their engines to as fast as they could go – and then exactly on the dot of 2:30, to the cheers of the crowds of employees, raced out of their stations westbound with their flags flying and all their horns blowing. (Thanks to our upholstery department for making the flags.)

We just wish Commissioner Bill Aspinall could have seen this – he would have loved it – but he was down in Rio at this time. The winner of the contest, who received a six-pack of beer, a laurel wreath crown and four tickets to any Broadway show of their choosing was “Wild” Bill Atkinson, who zipped across the finish line in an astonishing 57 minutes and 14 seconds. Second was Marsha Lopez, who came home at 1:04:10, and third was Henry Battlesman, the former accountant at Hamptons Subway who was convicted of embezzling and demoted to motorman. Congratulations to all. And hats off to our new marketing director, Omar Goldberg, who made all this happen. What a great success!

DELAYS ON TUESDAY

Hamptons Subway ran a limited number of trains on Tuesday. Usually six are on the circuit at any one time. On Tuesday there were just three, so the wait between trains had to be extended to 20 minutes rather than 10 due to maintenance problems. We regret any inconvenience.

SIGNAGE

Hamptons Subway is a member of the Metropolitan Transit Authority in New York. Sometimes we wish we weren’t. Last month, the MTA refused a request for us to add more signs on the platforms and stairs indicating directions to the trains. They said we only have one platform and one train going though at each stop so having more signs was just clutter. Also they saw no need to indicate that the subway was the “A-Line,” since they were all the same trains. We now ask our straphangers to step forward. For $250 you can adopt a sign reading “This Way To The A Line.” There is currently just one sign at each platform. We want to add six more so it looks more like a real subway station. Pick your platform.

ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER HEFTY BANGBUCK’S MESSAGE

I am writing this column because our beloved Commissioner Bill Aspinall is touring South America this week. So here goes. People have been complaining about the fact that there is a 15-minute wait between trains. We are addressing this this week with a new program.

I have ordered the number of cars on each train reduced from eight to seven, but we’ll be adding a new train because we will run them closer together so they take just 13 minutes between them. Consider it our “less cars more often” push. We hope this helps.

COMMISSIONER BILL ASPINALL’S MESSAGE

I have been meeting with Senor Alphonso de Giglio Aspermente, the CEO of the vast Rio de Janero subway system (it’s bigger than New York City’s system) and he thanked me for all the suggestions I made during the last time I was down here.

This was very gratifying. I should be back in Hampton Bays next week.