The Death Train



LIRR train from Google Images

 It's pretty amazing to work in Manhattan.  You get to see the latest fashions on the street and spot the trends, occasionally see a celebrity but always see tons of power players, get together with your friends after work for dinner or a concert or a show...  Plus, it feels like every street you walk on has been featured in some movie or tv show.  It's neat.

The commute into Manhattan is a totally different story.  It's a sort of repetitive sentence in hell.  Every.  Single.  Day.  This is where the Long Island Railroad (LIRR) comes in.  I refer to it as 'The Death Train' and also my nemesis.

First of all, my monthly LIRR ticket was over $300.  For that, I got to park in a totally sketch parking lot frequented by drug dealers and prostitutes.  I'd wait on the platform for my train and hopefully get a narrow, middle seat next to a very overweight man or sit next to a pissy, bitchy woman who didn't like removing her purse from a seat for me to sit on.  Then, I'd listen to music and read a book for the next hour and fifteen minutes.  That was the good part.  Got in lots of reading!

The commute home was always interesting.  Masses of people would gather around the large wall track sign to see which track our train would be arriving on.  One millisecond after the track number would appear on the screen, an entire mass of people would RUN (yes, grown men in suits running) for the track.  Now keep in mind that in most cases the train wasn't even in the station yet.  The commuters would stand in the basement of Penn Station, which is one of the filthiest places you'll ever see, in the approximate location of where they think the train doors would open.  Then, when the train arrived and the doors opened, the pushing and jostling for a prime seat would begin.  That's how it was every day.

The screen the people run from (Google Images)

Why the 'death train' title?  Well, that's because about once every other week somewhere out on Long Island a person would commit suicide by walking in front of a moving LIRR train.  Not only is this totally depressing and macabre, but you actually felt yourself growing angry at the victim.  "How dare that selfish person delay my already long ride home by several hours?"  It made everyone on the train feel like a jerk.  But, you felt that way anyway. 

In those cases, occasionally you would show up to Penn Station and see that all the trains on your line were cancelled due to "an unauthorized person on the tracks" and you'd just have to wait it out for a couple of hours.  Other times you'd be on a train home already and your train would have to sit and wait at a station for a couple of hours until the all clear signal was given.  Once, I was actually on a train that hit someone.  It was a Friday summer evening and our train came to a screeching halt and had to empty out the front car doors since we were close enough to a station to detrain.  I could see crowds of teenagers running towards the scene like it was the circus come to town.  It was disgusting.  And depressing.  And frustrating.  That day was the only time I called for help.  I asked my big sis to come rescue me and she did, thank goodness.  I always wonder how awful it must be for the train engineers who sit in front to witness all of this and not be able to prevent it from happening.

The LIRR suffers from some of the worst communication between management and staff I've ever seen.  It's very common for the train and station staff to not have info from the main office during an emergency.  I was once stuck out in the rain at an abandoned train station in the middle of the night with a hundred other passengers because of a power outage/storm.  It took me four hours to get home.  Even though the LIRR has diesel trains that don't need electricity to operate and the station e-signs listed arriving trains, the diesel locomotives would zip by and not stop.  No one would answer the phones at the LIRR helpline and when a train finally did stop at our station, no train employee would come out of hiding to talk to the people on the platform for fear of being emotionally abused by all the scared, wet, tired commuters.  It was a disaster area.  I was so angry by the time I got home that I emailed a Newsday reporter and was quoted in the paper that following Monday.  Not that the LIRR cares much for customer service.

My dad commuted into Manhattan for decades and he said that one year the customer service was so bad that passengers at Jamaica station started pushing on a parked train and began rocking it back and forth and shouting.  It was a near riot, he said and the few cops that were in the area saw what was going on and didn't intervene.  My dad was there that day and he couldn't believe what he was seeing.  LIRR riders revolting against poor treatment.  He said that incident led to changes within the LIRR system where conductors were given training on how to be more respectful to passengers.  I guess it was different in the 1960's.  People fought back more for their rights.

My commute to work now is by car and it takes me 20 minutes.  What a relief!

Unhappy LIRR passengers (Google Images)