Tales from the commuter front

Right now I am on a train.  The train should have arrived in Penn Station about 20 minutes ago.  It won’t arrive  for another 15 minutes or so.  A broken rail has wreaked havoc on my morning commute.

Last week it was the subway.  I take an express from Penn Station to Wall Street. I was waiting on the express platform.  I coud see trains arriving on the local platform.  A local came and went; no express train.  Another local...and another...and another.  Finally an express train came in, but it was totally empty and not accepting passengers.   Totally empty and out of service = the train broke down, the passengers had to get off, and the tracks were blocked while the crew tried to get the train moving again.  Another train showed up a few minutes later. 

There are buskers everywhere these days:  on the street, in the subway, in Penn Station.   You can hear a string quartet playing classical music in Penn Station, and five minutes later in the subway you’ll be entertained by the Caribbean beat of steel drums, and later in the day you may find a singer with a kareoke machine.  They all pass the hat, of course, but some of them also accept Venmo.  Welcome to the 21st century.

One of more interesting performers I’ve seen is a sax player.  He was in the subway last week, and I wish I had the time to stop and listen.  He’s an African-American gentleman,  and he was dressed in a pink suit and red fedora.  He had a cardboard poster set up, all sorts of photos.  One photo said something along the lines of “Bill Clinton and me.”  His choice of music was unexpected:  Israeli folk dances.  Yes, e was entertaining the crowd it’s songs like “Heveinu Shalom Alechem” and “Oseh Shalom”.  Made me want to dance the hora.

The homeless and the pseudo-homeless have come inside.  By “pseudo-homeless” I mean the well-dressed folks who give you a sob story and ask you for money.

The true homeless ones just want to get out of the cold; you see them sleeping on the floor in Penn Station or in a subway station, in tattered clothes, surrounded by an assortment of boxes and bags that contain everything they own.  Most of them have some sort of physical or mental disability.  When you see them, you hope that the social workers show up soon to help them.

I’ve seen and experienced some pretty rude behavior on the trains lately.  Last week at Penn Station, for example.  During the evening rush hour,  trains leaving Penn for various stations on Long Island tend to be, as you’d expect, very crowded.    And right now Penn is undergoing renovations, and with Track 17 out of service, many departing trains are not on their usual tracks.  It’s a bit chaotic.  

One night last week I was waiting for a train that usually leaves from Track 19.  A crowd of commuters were standing by the stairway near Track 19, waiting to board.  The announcement come:  “Please do not descend to track level until your train has been posted and announced.”

So we waited.  And waited.  And waited.

And finally, just five minutes before we were scheduled to leave Penn, our train was announced.

For Track 15.  And two cars short.

So we moved en masse to the other track, where everyone tried to board the train at once.  I was fortunate to find a seat.  (With My Stupid Knee, I have trouble standing on a train.  I can manage a short subway ride, but a longer ride on the commuter rails ...not going to happen.)

Most of the LIRR seats face forward, but occasionally you’ll find groups of seats that face each other.  Young woman plopped herself down in a group of four seats (two facing two), put her bag on the seat beside her, and her feet on the opposite seats, and told everyone who asked her to move that she’s saving  those seats for her friends.  Apparently she got separated from them in the crowd.  My guess is that she pushed her way to the front of the crowd.   So people who got on the train before her friends did wound up standing.

Well, it looks like we are headed into the tunnel that leads to Penn.  Finally.  I just “love” my commute.