Hamptons Subway Welcomes Santa at Annual Parade

SCENE ON THE HAMPTON SUBWAY (UPCOMING)

SANTA CLAUS IS COMING!

Plans are underway for Santa’s holiday parade on the subway system, as he does every year.

Santa will be coming in by helicopter to the Montauk Subway yards early on Sunday morning, Dec. 12. He arrives just before dawn at 5:45 a.m., so if you want your kids to see him hop out of the cockpit, you have to be out there early to enjoy the occasion. The best viewing spot is up on Fort Hill in front of the Montauk Manor, looking down at Fort Pond. Use cameras with nighttime lenses.

Santa boards the special parade train, squeezing into the little motorman’s booth with the motorman, at 6 a.m. and leaves Montauk at 6:30. This is an extra train. It does not interfere with the regularly scheduled subway trains. Fully decorated with bells, garlands, tiny red and green lights, silver and gold balls, and Christmas tree holly, it will go at half speed along the entire route, the full 62 miles, without stopping and then, arriving back at Montauk, it will do it again and again. Take your kid down to any platform. At hour-and-a-half intervals, the special train will pass; you will recognize it by its stuffed reindeer display in the front, its big Christmas star on the forehead of the lead car, the Christmas music and sleigh bells jingling and Santa and the motorman, waving and smiling as it goes along at half speed. Behind them will be eight cars, four filled with elves and four filled with Christmas presents. And that’s it.

As we said, the train will not stop. Don’t try to make it do that either. Instead, you and your kids will get a tantalizing glimpse of Santa as he is driven around. And in the end, if you go down to the Westhampton Beach station, you will find that the 10th time through, around 5 p.m., the Santa parade train will stop at that station and there will be – no Santa! Instead, squeezing out of the motorman’s booth will be just motorman Ronnie Blake and his good friend Jeff, who lives in the area. Jeff will be carrying a big white sack which he says will be filled with baked goods that he is delivering to the Holly Bake Shop in that town. He does that every year. Santa, however, will have been gathered up by the real reindeer between Quiogue and Quogue and flown away.

MOTORMAN RONNIE BLAKE SELECTED

As we do every year, we select the skinniest motorman to be the driver of the Santa train. Weight doesn’t matter – it’s the ratio between height and width. This year’s winner is Ronnie Blake, who is 6 foot 2 inches tall, but really, really skinny. He finished second in the competition last year. Way to go, Ronnie.

NO DELAYS

The subway ran without incident this past week. There was a moment when a motorman driving a car between Bridgehampton and Sag Harbor saw a mouse on the tracks up ahead but as he was about to apply the brakes, the mouse ran off and so there was no delay.

HEADQUARTERS REPORT

The only news at our headquarters building in Hampton Bays was that the repair on the freezer in the cafeteria has held so far. Last Wednesday, our handyman had to be called in because the AC cord had frayed to the point that one of the servers thought they smelled smoke and pulled the cord out of the wall. He wrapped it in electrical tape and plugged it back in and it was thought if there were a further problem we would have to call in an appliance repair person, but it has not proved necessary.

MAINTENANCE REPORT

The subway system is cleaned every night between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. and this week there was very little that had to be cleaned up that that department could find.

STRIKE AVERTED, SO FAR

A planned flagmen’s strike that was scheduled to begin last Monday was cancelled at the last moment. The subway system cannot operate without the flagmen down in the tunnels with the red and green flags. We don’t know why it was cancelled, but according to the union, it will take place on Dec. 19 for 24 hours. But perhaps it will be delayed again.

ALL ESCALATORS OPERATIONAL

This past week, there were no breakdowns on any of the 44 escalators that take people up and down safely to and from our 22 platforms.

METRO CARDS ARRIVE

The new order of magnetized metro cards arrived at our Hampton Bays office from the printer as expected last Wednesday. They will be kept, as they always are, under lock and key in Basement Storeroom M, with the key being held by office manager Agnes Bartleberry. These will serve as a backup supply for the metro cards that people buy at the token booths everywhere.  Supplies had been running low. It is good that they arrived on time.

COMMISSIONER ASPINALL’S MESSAGE

I was greatly relieved to come back from my well-needed vacation in Barbados to find out that everything is A-OK here at subway headquarters. Usually while aboard airplanes for long periods of time I worry about what is going on back at the subway, but on this particular trip I arrived to find that all is well.

Also, before I left, it appeared to me that my secretary Jane Halitosis was beginning to get a cold, but on my return I find she is just fine.