Dan's Papers - October 3, 2008 - The Hampton Subway Newsletter

Week of October 1-6, 2008
Riders this week: 19,421
Rider miles this week: 106,888

Happy Birthday to Marsha Gladhouse, our Credit Manager. She will be 44. (Sorry for mentioning that, Marsha.)

Dina Merrill and Ted Hartley were seen at the East Hampton platform, headed for the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center to take in the performance of K.D. Lang scheduled for Saturday. Nicole Miller and Isaac Mizrahi were in deep discussion on the Southampton E train local between East Hampton and Bridgehampton, according to our spotters. Katie Lee Joel was doing pie-tastings for her friends on the Sag Harbor platform, with permission from the subway commissioner, of course.

As you may have heard, the 22 young people hired as "pushers" on the subway platforms during the summer to get straphangers securely on the trains are planning a boxing tournament. Their pusher days are at an end until next year, of course, but apparently they have not taken off their headgear, chest pads and boxing gloves just yet. Preliminary bouts will take place in a ring set up in the cafeteria of our Hampton Bays headquarters in the evenings during the next six weeks. Locations for the championship bouts have not yet been set.

Get out the beer and pretzels, put on your old jeans and cowboy hats and come enjoy the subway's version of a NASCAR race at 3 a.m. on Sunday, October 5 at the subway platform of your choice, where, for the price of a subway swipe, you can watch the first annual Hampton Subway Firecracker 200.

This unique event, the first of its kind ever, will pit 12 experienced motormen driving 12 subway trains at speeds up to 80 miles an hour, around and around our subway system for the honor of winning the golden wreath and silver cup, the first prize for this competition.

For the occasion, temporary wooden stands will be set up on each of our 15 platforms. Flags and pennants will be festooned everywhere, and, to be fair, each of these 12 motormen will drive trains exactly six cars long.

The double track, which allows trains going both ways to pass, will now run only one way (counterclockwise) for this entire two-hour event. Watch the trains come roaring through the stations with their horns blaring. Watch one try to pass another on the inside or outside. Cheer on your favorites.

The starting cannon will be fired at 3 a.m., one hour after the subway system closes for the night. And the event will conclude with an awards ceremony at 5:30 a.m., a half-hour before the subway trains begin their routes for the new day, giving you plenty of time to walk home and sober up during the soft light of early morning. See you there!

Inspectors monitoring the oil seepage into the halted subway tunnel project between Sag Harbor and Foxwoods say that the amount of seepage has doubled this week. The tunnel is built 40 feet under the seabed of Long Island Sound. The seepage is coming from the seabed and into the tunnel from a spot nine miles offshore of Mattituck. Waterproof barriers are being constructed to try to contain it.

I have postponed my return to the Hamptons from Foxwoods because my talks here with the authorities about the trouble with our subway tunnel to that place continues. Also, I have now won nearly $7,000 from my initial investment of just $2,340, and I want to see how high I can get that number to go.

Whatever happens, I will be back by Friday night so that on Saturday morning I can fire the starting cannon for the Hampton Subway Firecracker 200. I hope to see you there for this new project dreamed up by our new marketing manager, Todd Greenfield. Hang onto those subway straps.