Week of March 23-30, 2012
Riders this week: 1
Rider miles this week: 15
DOWN IN THE TUBE
Except for one person, the subway was unused all week because nobody was willing to spend $23,412 a ride except for this one man whose whole family got him a trip on the subway as a birthday present. He asked that we not use his name, Joe Trappola, so we won’t use it.
FARE NEGOTIATIONS
Last week, after Hampton Subway bought the New York Subway system for $1, we were at first overjoyed. Here we were, the proud owners of a system nearly 1,000 times the size of its parent corporation. It was like Jonah ate the whale. As everybody knows, in order to deal with the payroll of the New York Subway system, we had to increase the cost of a ride on the Hampton Subway from $2 to $23,412 because that is what would be needed on a day-to-day basis to pay for the $800 million annual deficit the New York Subway accumulates, which was now ours, and, as a condition of the purchase, we had to agree not to change anything on the New York Subway system for three months. Mayor Bloomberg drives a hard bargain.
At the present time, the Board of Directors of Hampton Subway is meeting to determine what we should do now that none of the riders on Hampton Subway seem to be able to shoulder the burden of the New York system. It’s expected they will have an answer very soon. Meanwhile, all of us sit expectantly at our posts, hoping and waiting with our fingers crossed. We’re told that smoke will come out of the chimney of the Hampton Subway headquarters building in Hampton Bays when a decision is reached, but so far, nothing.
ROCKET TRAIN
During this quiet interval, the Hampton Subway took possession of two “Rocket Trains” made in Arkansas by the Yakitumi Corporation in Japan to the specifications of the rocket trains that are in use in that country. We’ve had them out on the tracks but we have not been able to get them going. They will either not start—the starter engines eventually wear down the batteries—or if they do start they belch this fluorescent green smoke out the back which has so far resulted in seven subway employees being hospitalized with respiratory problems, one of whom was so sick he died.
When these few kinks are worked out, the “Rocket Train” will be our fast express train, which, at the moment, we do not have. All our current trains have top speeds of 32 miles an hour. The “Rocket Train” will make limited stops but go around the system at a steady 145 miles an hour, passing our old stodgy local trains as they sit in the double track area at the platforms. The “Rocket Train” will stop only at Montauk, East Hampton, Southampton and Westhampton Beach and then back again, the round trip taking only 12 minutes.
TWO TIE THE KNOT
Two employees of the New York City subway system were married on the Southampton platform of Hampton Subway last Thursday at noon. They are Phyllis Doppelganger, a mid-level clerk supervisor in the Service Department and Bob Harvey, an Assistant to an Assistant Vice President in billing. They met at a New York Subway Union 43 Meeting.
They will honeymoon in Paris for two weeks, the whole thing paid for by their Disability Awards.
COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE
I am on a cigarette break from the board meeting of Hampton Subway where we are trying to figure out what to do about the purchase we made of the New York Subway system. One of the things on the table is selling off the Lexington Line to the Toronto Subway System. We’ve contacted them. It’s in the works. More later.