Hampton Subway Tunnel Boring Machine Vanished

Steven Spielberg and Kate Winslet were seen chatting together on the subway going from Southampton to Water Mill at 2:32 p.m. last Wednesday.

THE BORING MACHINE

Well-informed straphangers are aware that for the last six months a huge tunnel-boring machine with its 20-foot horizontal drill screw has been parked in an underground alcove just to the west of the Westhampton Beach station platform. Since it was used in an unsuccessful attempt to bore a tunnel between that station and Rogers Memorial Beach last spring for beachgoers, and as it weighs nearly 100 tons, it has not gone anywhere between then and now.  Someday, we will use it elsewhere.

Well, last week, wouldn’t you know, this boring machine was gone! Pffft! Inspectors believe it was removed by Elon Musk, who had used another boring machine to make an undersea tunnel between his New York headquarters at East 59th Street and our Westhampton Beach platform.  Coming through the wall, his workmen snatched our machine, carted it away, and patched up the hole. It seems that Musk intends to make a new offshore high-speed nonstop subway connection between Westhampton Beach and East 59th Street. Good luck with that, we say.

STRANGE OCCURRENCE

If that isn’t odd enough, last Thursday at 2:12 a.m., just after we printed the newsletter, something else very strange happened on the system. About 12 minutes after the subway system closed for its nightly maintenance, but 28 minutes before the workmen begin heading out to the tunnels and platforms to do their work, a strange subway train, silver and white with the words “Coors Light,” completely not one of our trains, shedding snow and ice, came whizzing through the stations at speeds in excess of 80 miles an hour. Nobody appeared to be in it, and it didn’t stop at any stations.

We don’t know what this was. But all 71 workmen on the system saw it during the 20 minutes it took to make a round trip through every station at that speed. Its horn made a continuous, mournful, wailing sound. Then it was gone. A number of workmen refused to go out to do the maintenance after it went through, but others doubled up to get the job done. If you have any information about this, please put a note in one of the wooden suggestion boxes you will find nailed to the wall at every station platform.

ANOTHER ATTEMPT TO FIX TROUT POND TURN

For the third time in four years, our maintenance department is going to be adjusting the tracks where the train makes the sharp turn under Trout Pond in Noyac. The goal is to eliminate or reduce the loud screeching sound the subway makes as it comes through. It has something to do with adjusting the angle of the tracks at the turn.

SUBWAY TRANSFER SYSTEM ENDED

The free subway transfer machines on all subway platforms in the system are to be removed this week. They will be thrown in the dumpster just outside the rear entrance of our Hampton Bays headquarters building on Thursday for anyone who might want one. Most no longer dispense tickets, and most have either broken or been vandalized. The subway transfer machines were originally built for the Toronto Subway in 1954 and we picked them up for $500 each at auction up there last month. However, nobody uses them.

Although pulling the lever gets you a free transfer ticket, there is no purpose to doing so since all you have to do to transfer from one subway to another is get off one and get on a different one. We’ve never charged for these second rides.  So this was just one more mistake by Austin Applebottom, the marketing director who thought free transfers would be a good marketing idea. He was fired yesterday.

REMINDER ABOUT FOOD

Although food kiosks operated by the Subway restaurant chain are on every platform, we would like to remind straphangers that eating footlongs on the subway cars is against the law. We will be suspending the enforcement of the law by our subway police during the month of April, so it’s hoped that everyone can self-police themselves. Eating and drinking on a bouncing subway train can really create quite a mess.

ALL EMPLOYEES

All employees, don’t forget that April 5 is voting day to select the next Subway Commissioner. The voting comes every two years and the two candidates are our present Commissioner Bill Aspinall, who has been doing such a good job, and the newcomer Zeke Jones, who has just replaced old Salvatore Minelli as the company barber in the shop on the third floor of headquarters, and what does he know?

EMPLOYEE OF THE YEAR

Josh Brownell, second assistant to Commissioner Aspinall, has been selected as employee of the year. Congratulations, Josh!

COMPLAINTS

We’ve had numerous complaints that our train #5 has a problem with the left rear wheel on the fourth car from the front. We’ve looked into it and found that this rear wheel is not quite round. It’s more oval, so riders experience that corner of the car going up and down slowly as the train approaches or leaves a station, but then faster as it gets up to full speed between stations. Riders are advised not to stand or sit near the rear wheel when in that car. A replacement wheel is expected in late April.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE

I have been in touch with Elon Musk about our boring machine and he’s told me to take the matter up with President Donald Trump who is the major stockholder in their new Zip Hamptons Scoot Train Company. He’ll set you straight.