Western Half of Hamptons Subway Shuts Down for 6 Days

SCENE ON THE SUBWAY

Delays: There are going to be huge delays for the next two weeks. In fact, the entire western half of the subway system will be completely shut down for six days, as explained below.

Jay-Z was seen at the Quogue Station singing a tune. New York Mayor Eric Adams, Governor Kathy Hochul and Britney Spears were chatting together on the Westhampton Beach platform on Friday about something. Kim Cattrall was seen looking at her watch at the Maidstone Park station.

WEALTHY HOMEOWNERS FILE LAWSUIT

When the subway was built back in 1927, overhead fans were put in place to blow the dusty platform and tunnel air up through tubes and out into the Hamptons through gratings that were installed along the route. Since back then the Hamptons was sparsely populated, the gratings were largely in open fields or woods throughout the area. Today, most of these fields and woods have become front or back lawns of privately owned mansions.

Most people understand the importance and necessity of having these gratings on their lawns. They also realize the gratings were there first.

But now, 27 homeowners — nearly all with grand estates — have filed a lawsuit against the subway system demanding that these gratings be removed. They also demand $70 million for having to put up with the pain and suffering of hearing these loud clattering noises the subway makes as its trains roll past between 6 a.m. and 2 a.m.

We care about the health of our riders and intend to fight this selfish lawsuit vigorously.

NEW SUBWAY CARS DAMAGE TUNNELS, GET WEDGED AT NOYAC CURVE

The first 10 of what was expected to be 22 beautiful new double-decker subway cars went into service last Sunday afternoon in advance of the big Thanksgiving Day weekend. They had been fully tested in Sweden where they were made, and their heights carefully measured during that process by Biff Aspinall, the beloved brother of Commissioner Bill Aspinall, to make sure they would fit through our tunnel system. They didn’t.

The problem became immediately apparent after a train of 10 cars left Southampton station with a large number of dignitaries onboard to take the nonstop service (because of the dignitaries’ busy schedules) around one full loop of the system, so they could be shown how wonderful these new cars were. Upon leaving the station, the outside roof of the cars began to make terrible noises, which later turned out to be because they had begun to rapidly tear down all the lighting in the tunnel. This lighting is not recessed.

Although the dignitaries, fleeing from the upper deck to the lower deck, tried to alert the motorman to stop the train, he continued along, passing Shinnecock, Hampton Bays, East Quogue, Quogue, Westhampton Beach, Speonk and Eastport, tearing down all the light fixtures as he went. He later said he hadn’t heard all the commotion because he had put the train on autopilot so he could continue watching TikTok cat and dog reels on his phone.

Indeed, oblivious to these concerns, he turned north with all the onboard celebrities, went up past the Hampton Bays North/Indian Casino stop, past the County Road 39 stop, continuing to tear down lighting fixtures, and then on through North Sea and finally Noyac, where, with a grinding sound, the train got completely wedged where it makes a sharp turn going under and around Trout Pond.

Apparently, for some reason, the height of that tunnel, which was built in 1933, was slightly lower there. Finally, coming to a complete stop amid sparks and smoke, the motorman turned off TikTok, shut the engine down and went out onto the tracks to see what the trouble was. There he heard the shouts of the passengers and went up to talk to them.

It’s a huge mess. All the overhead subway lights are out from Southampton, Noyac and North Sea and all the way to Eastport, with the fixtures either smushed into the tops of the new passenger cars or littered as broken glass trash along the tracks.

The motorman said he heard all the banging on his locked door, thought it was to congratulate him on the job he was doing, and felt it was best to leave that alone until the job was finished going the whole way around. He said he regretted that he was unable to do that as ordered.

Firemen from 17 fire departments rescued all the dignitaries and put out the few electrical fires that had begun behind the train. Later in the day, the commissioner held a press conference. Here are excerpts of what he had to say.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE

I regret to announce that the new Swedish-made double-decker passenger cars have not worked out. We are holding Sweden fully responsible for this debacle, and at the present time are finding officials there to try to explain to us, in English, why these improperly built subway cars got made the way they did. Needless to say, we are canceling the order for the remaining 12 cars and are impounding the 10 that were so severely damaged in our car impound area.

I am pleased to announce that all 123 dignitaries on the train are well and accounted for, though a few of them lost their hats and most lost those clear plastic polyurethane statuettes we gave them to commemorate their being the first riders.

My greatest sorrow about this, of course, is to think of our riders. We were headed for another record week of customers until this happened. The three cars wedged underground at the turn in Noyac should be extricated before next Thursday, I am told.

And with our employees working diligently to clean up the mess in the tunnels, we expect to be out of service for six days, but on the seventh day we will be open, using lanterns to light the tunnels.

Although our underground service will remain open from Water Mill to Montauk, riders will have to use the buses and trains we will put into service on an emergency basis until we can reopen the western half of our subway route, which our public relations director, Hal Barnes, has asked me to call our new “romantic route.”

God bless you all.