Hamptons Subway Newsletter: Week of September 7–13, 2017

Week of September 7–13, 2017
Riders this past week: 71,231
Rider miles this past week: 241, 823.

DOWN IN THE TUBE
Donna Karan was seen riding with Eileen Fisher between Montauk and Amagansett last Thursday afternoon. They were talking fabrics. Justin Bieber was sitting alone nodding to his iPod music last Friday night heading from Water Mill to Bridgehampton.

NEW SLOGAN FOR HAMPTONS SUBWAY
Our new marketing director Charlie Applewight has come up with it. It’s “Hamptons Subway. Never Late. There’s always a next one.” Pretty catchy, huh?

HUDDLERS
The above-ground Hamptons was so busy this Labor Day weekend that many people, both locals and summer people, came down to our platforms, went through the turnstiles and then just huddled off in a corner not going anywhere. Hamptons Subway employees interviewed some of them who said they were just happy to be in a place where everything was safe and predictable. Trains come in. People get off. People get on. Trains go out. One man said a subway employee gave him a valium. All this is well and good for the Subway’s bottom line, but we’d like to remind these huddlers that the whole idea is to go somewhere and come on back and that Commissioner Aspinall frowns on this behavior.

ROBOT MOTORMAN
Hamptons Subway last Monday morning became the first subway system in the nation to use robots as motormen. They were designed, constructed and provided by the Brookhaven National Laboratory.

At 6:30 a.m., the robot handled the first subway of the day out of the Montauk yards through Amagansett, East Hampton and Bridgehampton just fine, but heading into Water Mill, the robot encountered its first delay. The train ahead had slowed to five miles an hour and the robot went berserk. After breaking windows, throwing things and pounding on the walls, passengers finally subdued it and force fed it a valium. Horace, as it calls itself, was rounded up by Brookhaven scientists at noon, three of them threw him into the back of their truck and drove off. Back to the drawing board.

SHUTTING DOWN
The day after Labor Day, the Georgica Station shut down for the winter as it always does. Harry O’Brien, the elderly Irish valet at the station who ushers people on and off the trains and offers them canapés, Champagne and Perrier from a silver tray said that he was sad the season has ended, but he and the other employees would find other work somewhere, somehow, perhaps as mates on commercial fishing boats out of Montauk for the busy fall fishing season. “We’ll do something, to be sure. Not to worry. See ya in the spring. Top o’ the mornin’ to ya.”

DID YOU LOSE ANYTHING?
Next Tuesday is Lost and Found Day on all the platforms. Regular riders will hardly notice it. The sliding doors on the last cars of each train will remain open for an entire minute instead of the usual 30 seconds that day, so those who lost things will have enough time to hop on board, rummage through everything, and reclaim what’s theirs. Remember to stand at the edge of the platform off to the side where this last car will stop at every station.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE
It was a great summer. Only 35% more delays than last summer. We are very proud.

READ MORE HAMPTONS SUBWAY