Dan's Papers - October 10, 2008 - The Hampton Subway Newsletter

Week of October 7 - 13, 2008
Riders this week: 22,768
Rider miles this week: 126,749

Delays: The Southampton to Shinnecock line will be shut down on Sunday, October 8 from 2 to 5 p.m. so animal rights veterinarians can try again to coax a 55-pound raccoon out of an airduct near Shinnecock Lane.

Many movie stars have been seen recently down on the subway platforms, apparently to get ready for the upcoming Hampton International Film Festival next week. They included Natalie Portman at the Amagansett platform with her dog. (Yes, dogs are permitted on the subway, as long as they are on leashes.) Woody Allen was seen in Southampton, Michael Caine and Michelle Pfeiffer in Sag Harbor and Kim Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker in Quogue.

Preliminary boxing bouts are taking place every evening in the company cafeteria in Hampton Bays as the 22 young people who worked all summer as "pushers" to get subway riders on the trains continue along with their tournament.

The affairs are three rounds long and the pushers get to wear the same padding, helmets and boxing gloves they wore when they were employed between Memorial Day and Labor Day last summer. A standout in the tournament so far is "Wild Bill" Katrasokovski of Noyac, who at 6-foot-4 and 255 pounds has so far won all three of his heavyweight preliminaries. He was the pusher, you might recall, who got the most complaints over the summer and who we had to get to go a bit more gently at it. Two of his wins have been by knockout.

The biggest surprise, however, is Emily "Wildcat" Parsons, who gave up her job as the librarian in Water Mill to be a pusher for the summer. Now back at the library, she has, after work, fought as a middleweight and has knocked all three of her opponents out with one punch in the first round - all of whom are men. Only four of the 22 pushers hired were women. And some people complained about that imbalance. Emily appears to be taking matters into her own hands.

This past Sunday morning, riders of the subway got to watch six subway drivers - motormen - compete in a 200-mile race with six different empty subway trains, four times around the subway system, passing each station at speeds up to 90 miles an hour as they went. Train Two, driven by Alex Bratomski, and Train Four, driven by Harry Randolph, came across the finish line at the Southampton Station in a dead heat for first place.

The event was held between 3 and 5 a.m. because that is when the subway system closes every night for maintenance. We had hoped that on this particular night, huge crowds would come down at that hour to sit on the temporary stands we set up at each station and watch as the trains came barreling through, but that didn't happen. Apparently, the lateness of the hour and the pouring rainstorm that was raging topside kept everybody home in their beds.

Two trains actually sideswiped each other while negotiating the turn up at Trout Pond in Noyac and will be out of service for several weeks while they get repaired. The time between trains will therefore be 22 minutes instead of the usual 15. Sorry about that.

The Hampton Subway is now in possession of massive amounts of hot dogs and crackerjacks and cold soda and beer, left over from the Firecracker 200. We also have lots of pennants, flags and balloons that had been put up on the various platforms, due to the overestimation of the success of the Firecracker 200.

It was a nice effort on behalf of Todd Greenfield, our recently hired public relations and marketing director, and we know the outcome of this was not his fault. We also wish him well in his new job, which, we are told, is at FEMA headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, painting trailers.

In any case, I had a lot of fun firing the cannon that started the race.

And we'd particularly like to thank the high school bands of Pierson, East Hampton, Bridgehampton, Hampton Bays, Southampton and Westhampton Beach for playing on their own hometown platforms. It was a great effort, and it was just too bad nobody was there.