Hamptons Subway Celebrates the New Year

SCENE ON THE SUBWAY

Gwyneth Paltrow was spotted riding the subway heading from Amagansett to Montauk for some reason.

SANTA TRAIN

Kids of all ages enjoyed a trip on the “Santa Train” going to the North Pole beginning last Friday and ending on Christmas Eve. We took one subway train out of regular service, festooned it with twinkly lights, shiny metal balls, blinking stars and wreaths and had it be the “Santa Train,” going from station to station tooting its horn which had been reconfigured to play the first three notes of “Jingle Bells” while picking up kiddies and parents along the way. On board, the cars were loaded with gift-wrapped boxes filled with, well, nothing, because we had to eliminate gifts from the project for budgetary reasons. But the kids were welcome to take the empty gift-wrapped boxes home for souvenirs as there were lots more where that came from. The Santa Train made a complete circuit of our 62-mile subway system every two hours so kids stayed on the train until it came back to the station where they got on. It didn’t really go to the North Pole.

Taking this one train out of service to be the Santa Train increased the time between trains for the regular riders by 11 minutes, but that was a small price to pay for doing our part in making a good time with Santa Claus for the kiddies. Santa drove the train, by the way, but though the motorman’s door was locked from the inside so the adoring kids couldn’t bother him while he was trying to drive, he was visible from the platforms as the train approached and kids and adults jumped up and down and waved to him. He tooted “Jingle Bells” in reply. The train had a nanny car on each train so if you wanted to just dump your kids in there and talk to your friends in another car for these two hours, you could.

Anyway, if you didn’t go on it, well, you missed it.

ARREST

The people who tried to steal 5000 pounds of old subway tokens from the basement of our headquarters building during our annual Christmas party last week have been arrested. The perpetrators were Joe Calahan and Ed Levy, two subway motormen who have up til now had clean criminal records. The two stole the old subway tokens by putting them in giant burlap sacks and sneaking them out through basement windows into the woods, where they abandoned them because the sacks were too heavy to be dragged any further and the men were drunk at the time.  Both men are in prison awaiting trial and could serve up to 12 years in jail. Their sentence might be reduced because the tokens have long since been replaced by swipe cards and have little value except to collectors. What is wrong with these people?

SUBWAY NEW YEAR’S EVE BASH

Invitations went out to every current and former employee of Hamptons Subway – 213 of them — inviting them to attend the wonderful New Year’s Eve bash at Commissioner Bill Aspinall’s mansion on Meadow Lane in Southampton beginning at 10 p.m.

It was a super idea but now it’s been cancelled. In its place will be a private affair at the commissioner’s oceanfront Meadow Lane mansion with President-elect Donald Trump and his 14 soon-to-be cabinet members and their wives, husbands or significant others, which include the commissioner himself, whom Trump has named Secretary for the Underground Illegal Immigrant Roundup.

Given Trump’s brushes with shooters in recent months, 100 United States Secret Service agents toting AK-47s will be present during those 24 hours on all of Meadow Lane, which now must be fully evacuated except for the new goings-on at the commissioner’s house. The evacuation will last the full 24 hours, between 6 p.m. New Year’s Eve and 6 p.m. New Year’s Day. This is a sad day but also a great day. Just don’t be there.

RACK IT AND ROCK IT

It’s been proposed that the front of the lead motorman’s car on every subway train be equipped with a bike rack capable of holding up to four bicycles for a program our new marketing man, Jess Halitosis, has proposed so we can do our part in stopping global warming. He calls it the “Rack It and Rock It” bike program. Get it? Objections include the fact that the bikes might obstruct the motorman’s view of the track up ahead, that there would be great danger of falling onto the third rail while putting the bikes on the racks and there could be expensive lawsuits from bikers whose bikes get smashed up in head-on collisions. Some of these 10-speeds are worth thousands.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LOUISE

Next Tuesday is the birthday of Louise Prendergast, a folksinger that our esteemed Subway Commissioner Bill Aspinall used to listen to on the radio when he was a little boy. Prendergast died in 2006. She would have been 89 had she been alive today to have her birthday celebrated. Aspinall has a complete set of her record albums, which she recorded during the time she was alive.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE

A man who is in the business of conducting safaris along the trails through public parkland in Montauk has proposed that he expand his operation to include walks down some of the unused subway tunnels on the Hamptons Subway that have been abandoned or never completed for one reason or another. Public comment is welcome. Write me at Commissioner Bill Aspinall, Hamptons Subway, Hamptons Subway Building, Ponquogue Avenue, Hampton Bays. I am at the present time vacationing in Hawaii, checking to see if they have a subway system here, which they don’t.