Hamptons Subway Newsletter: Week of January 24–30, 2020
Week of January 24–30, 2020
Riders this past week: 44,833
Rider miles this past week: 123,444
DOWN IN THE TUBE
Rabbi Schneier of Westhampton Beach was seen riding the Hamptons Subway from Quiogue to Westhampton, but before Friday evening’s sunset. Jerry Seinfeld was seen riding the subway carrying a baseball mitt from Amagansett to East Hampton.
APOLOGY
Dozens of careful readers of the Hamptons Subway newsletter have called in to tell us the number of riders we reported using the subway last week was exactly the same, 41,922, as the number reported the week before. The same was true for the rider miles, which both weeks we reported as 111,119. We apologize for the error. The number of riders using the subway last week was actually 41,923, not 41,922, while the number of rider miles was correct for both weeks. The intern who entered that one number wrong has been sacked.
ANOTHER APOLOGY
Large crowds of straphangers were riding one particular subway train around on the system all Friday afternoon. Subway authorities soon learned that pranksters had replaced the regular audio recording on that train which announces, “please be careful of the closing doors and watch out for the gap between the platform and the train,” with another that played a sizzling x-rated encounter between a man and woman on a beach behind a waterfall in Maui. This second recording was seized and destroyed by our alert Hamptons Subway police at 8 p.m. We are investigating the matter.
NEW SUBWAY TRAIN PROBLEM
Three brand new subway trains built in Canada arrived by barge at the Montauk dock on Fort Pond Bay Thursday and were driven carefully to the Montauk Yards where all trains undergo maintenance every night. There, Hamptons Mayor McKracken and Hamptons Subway Commissioner Bill Aspinall, with the media present, each made a speech and broke a champagne bottle on each cowcatcher to welcome the new arrivals, which replace three tired 20-year-old subway trains.
Afterwards, all boarded one of the new trains that roared off on the straightaway toward Amagansett to “show what she can do,” which with its huge half million dollar engine, turned out to be a breathless 84 miles an hour. After returning to Montauk Yards, all declared it an amazing experience until one reporter noted that the three new trains replaced the three oldest trains on the system, but the remaining five trains with engines that only cost $83,000 are only a year old and only have a top speed of 47 miles an hour, which is just 3 miles an hour faster than the top cruising speed allowed on the system.
“These new trains can’t go faster than 44 miles an hour without crashing into the train in front,” an eager young reporter noted. “Why spend $1.5 million for more powerful engines that consume so much more diesel per mile than the old when they can’t be allowed to go more than 44 miles an hour?”
As Commissioner Aspinall said he hadn’t thought of that, the reporters all immediately rushed to the pay phones to call in this story about the waste of taxpayer money. The story ran front page on every paper the following morning. Commissioner Aspinall’s later explanation, which was that there was some reason for it, but he’d forgotten what it was, did not go over well either. We await more news.
COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE
We want to hear from riders about how much they love Hamptons Subway, and so, at the end of February, we will announce the best 100 letters we receive during that month, post them and send each entrant one certificate good for one free subway ride—which must be used before March 31.
Vetted Hamptons Resources
