Hampton Subway Newsletter May 31 – June 5, 2013

Riders this past week:16,812

Rider miles this past week:143,312

DOWN IN THE TUBE

Gwyneth Paltrow was seen heading for Sag Harbor from East Hampton on Thursday afternoon. David Rattiner and his fiancée, Monika, were seen on the subway heading from Bridgehampton to Sag Harbor, probably to Monika’s Monika Olko Art Gallery there. Steven Spielberg was seen getting off the subway at the Georgica stop.

RECORD RIDERSHIP

Last week’s ridership was the largest in the history of Hamptons Subway. The system strained under the load, and on many routes there was standing room only. But we got through. Some say the crowds were largely because of the increased number of people who came out here in busses for the weekend instead of going to the Jersey Shore, because there is no more Jersey Shore. But then why didn’t the busses take them from place to place? We think the crowd did not look Jersey-ish. It was just our sparkling service.

PUSHER STRIKE COLLAPSES

The 17 interns who were trained to help push people into the subway cars this summer are back on the job. The strike broke when first one, and then another intern, seeing the crowds as they demonstrated at the Southampton station on Friday, dropped their signs and went in to help the beleaguered straphangers. When other demonstrators saw that, they did the same thing. Pretty soon they were all back to work. The pushers wear helmets and protective vests and boxing gloves. We’re glad they’re back. But we can’t let crimes go unpunished. Since we don’t pay interns, we are requiring that they give all of their beach parking stickers for the month of July to Hamptons Subway to be handed out to other employees. If they have no beach stickers, then a favorite piece of jewelry will do.

SUPER CAR ARRIVES

The new subway car that our Commissioner dubbed “the Supercar” arrived at our Montauk Yards last week to undergo testing and fitting out. Supercar has plush seats, a much stronger engine that can take it to 60 miles an hour in 11 seconds, seatbelts, a brighter laser light in the front, fancier chrome and a much louder horn. It had been hoped that Supercar could have been here for Memorial Day but as it turned out, it was not to be. We hope to have it on the line by July 4th. In service, it will not cost any more than a regular car to board, but will just appear on one of our six trains every once in a while at random for you as a special treat.

ESCALATORS BACKWARDS

Our sterling repair department can usually fix whatever’s wrong during the four hours that the subway system is closed for maintenance between 2 and 6 a.m. every night. But even they can make mistakes. Riders should be alert about a minor problem at the Amagansett Station. Since Monday, the locations of the up and down escalators to the platform have been reversed. The left escalator goes down, the right escalator goes up. Before Monday, the right escalator went down and the left went up. Please be careful when using the escalators until we get this fixed. A part is coming in from China.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE

The new Supercar, just arrived, was built special to my specifications. I hope all of you will be able to enjoy it soon. The team out in Montauk just has to shake it out and test it before putting it into service, hopefully by July 4th. It has turbo overdrive. Hang onto your hats.