Hamptons Subway Newsletter: Week of January 16–22, 2015

Week of January 16–22, 2015
Riders this past week: 8,488
Rider miles this past week: 81,422

DOWN IN THE TUBE
Reese Witherspoon was seen on the Hampton Subway heading for Sag Harbor from Bridgehampton late on Sunday night. She wore a backpack, carried a walking stick and continuously walked from the front car to the back car and back to the front car. Brian Williams, deep in thought, was seen heading for Montauk from Napeague on Tuesday morning.

DERAILMENT
Hamptons Subway apologizes to all straphangers for the lengthy 16-hour delay on the system Wednesday beginning at 4:22 p.m. A Hamptons Subway train derailed rounding the sharp turn at Trout Pond in Noyac. This is the first derailment ever on our system, and though there were 142 people on board, it was only a derailment of the first car, because the train slows to 5 miles an hour to make that sharp turn, so only 33 people were upset as that lead car tipped sideways a bit. Everyone was safely evacuated down the narrow path along the south side of the train, away from the third rail, exiting through a storeroom door to the outside and some waiting busses.

The system was shut till 8 a.m. Late that night, a crane from the PSEG power company arrived and re-tracked the car that was derailed. It was off the tracks only eight inches. It was not damaged.

The cause of the derailment has been determined. Just behind the train, which had slowed in a shower of sparks for 250 feet before stopping, we found a flattened penny on the tracks, put there as a fully formed penny, we suspect, by one of the local kids just before the derailment. This is a very dangerous thing to do, jumping down onto the tracks, with the third rail and all, to put it there. We have contacted the local school and asked them to talk to the parents of their kids about this.

As a precaution, to prevent future derailments, we have purchased a penny-squasher booth from the Little Apple Circus of Omaha, where you put in a penny and you watch through a window as the machine squashes it, which we found available online offered up on eBay. Bidding it up to get it cost a pretty penny, as you might imagine. When it arrives, it will be placed for all kids to enjoy—for a penny—on the platform at the Sag Harbor Station, not far from the Trout Pond turn.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KEN BARON
Mr. Baron turns 52 this Wednesday and we will have a birthday party for him in the company cafeteria on the fourth floor of the Hampton Subway building in Hampton Bays at 3 p.m. Mr. Baron is our personnel manager, and comes to us from his prior job as a cell block guard at the Riverhead County Jail, personally selected with that résumé by our Commissioner Bill Aspinall. He’s been here two months, so nobody really has gotten to know him, but so far there have been no problems.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE
Three weeks ago, the Board of Directors of Hamptons Subway decided to listen to the entreaties of the North Fork and go ahead with a plan to build a spur of our subway system there. If any 5 of the 11 villages up there would pony up $5 million for a station, we’d follow up with the tunnel. So far we’ve received one bid. We need four more. And no, we will not be changing the name to “North Fork & Hamptons Subway.”

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