Author: subwayblogger

Subway Nearly Mows Down Multiple Track Workers in Astoria

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 Subway Tripper

Well it’s official now. If you are a subway track worker, it’s time to take out a little extra life insurance. By the look of things, it is a complete miracle every time you guys make it out of there alive.

You’ve basically got 4 different fault points at any given time where you could die on the tracks. They are: You’re own mistakes, Your supervisor not doing their job, the train drivers not obeying signals, or a technology failure.

Two workers in Queens were nearly mowed down by a train that failed to stop at red signal on September 6th. The Daily News just found out about this open investigation.

Apparently, the men were working as per usual. The supervisor was working along side them, which seems like a nice thing to do, but he should have been SUPERVISING. Why? Because a train decided to blow through a red signal just down the tracks from where they were working.

You’ve probably seen a tripper before and didn’t even know it. It looks like a little arm that lifts up just after a train leaves the station (pictured above).  It’s usually covered in black soot except for the top which is painted yellow. Then after the train gets far enough down the tracks, it lowers. If there were to be a runaway train, the tripper would hit the emergency brakes of the train as it rolls by.

That’s what saved the supervisor’s life. The other track workers said he completely froze as the train approached. He just stood there. The tripper hit the emergency brakes, and the train stopped 75 feet away!

“The supervisor was not supervising. He was working and not in tune with keeping us safe,” the second worker wrote in his report of the incident. [Daily News]

So really, what chance could you really stand?

[Photo via Flickr]

NY1 Does Poll to Determine the Obvious

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I think there’s a fundamental truth to subway riding that we can all agree upon:  The trains are cleaner than they were in the 80’s, but in general, the commute has not changed in 30 years.

Well, NY1 took the time to make it official…exclusively.

“The trains are cleaner, there’s no more graffiti on them,” said a straphanger at Brooklyn’s Dekalb Avenue station. “But I think the basic commute is not really any significant change.”

Sorry Bobby if you’re reading, but I just don’t get it.

Also, many (if not most) believe that things have actually gotten worse.  I guess there are just about as many trains, but they are clearly over crowded.  So yay for fancy polling.

Central Park South Horse Carriage Crash

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I seem to be walking right into breaking news lately.

This afternoon I was walking across Central Park South towards Columbus Circle. In front of Mickey Mantle’s, there was quite a scene.  Two horses went bizerk and caused a car accident.

By the time I got there, it had already happened, and they were removing one of the horses.  Here’s the story I heard from a guy who witnessed the whole thing.

There was a guy walking down the sidewalk banging on a drum.  He ended up spooking a stopped horse.  If you’ve ever walked along CPS, you know that is where the horses stop to rest and eat.  The hansoms usually “park” them on a 45 degree angle.  So the drum spooked the horse.  As a result, the horse reared up and bolted up on to the sidewalk.

However, it didn’t get far at all because it’s harness got stuck on a light-post.  So the horse stepped back and got its foot stuck in the carriage wheel, and broke it’s leg.

All that insanity spooked the horse in front of it.  The second horse just bolted straight across the street 90 degrees into traffic.  It ended up on the hood of a small Mercedes.  It really crunched it up pretty bad.  The light, bumper, and hood were all bent up.

Meanwhile, there was some guy sitting across the street eating in Mickey Mantle’s.  He just so happened to be some sort of horse expert.  He ran across the street and took the second horse off the hood of the car, unhooked it from its carriage, walked it over to a light pole, and tied it up.  He then worked on calming the horse down, which he did.  He then went to attend to the first, injured horse.

The first horse ended up being put down right there on the scene.  However, it took over 40 minutes for emergency officials to respond!  Other than some mounted police, no one with animal control showed in time to save the animal.  Some cops told passers by that the horse was just tranquilized.  However, others told reporters that it had in fact been euthanized.

All of this on the way to the subway.  Quite the afternoon!

110th Street (Columbia University area) Multiple Stabbing

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 110th Street

I was up at Columbia this afternoon, and heading to the train on my way home.  I happened to be closer to the 110th Street station, so I headed in that direction (versus the 116th stop).

Quickly, realized that was a bad idea.  The place was crawling with NYPD and rescue.  From the look of it, I thought for sure there was a jumper or something.  People standing around said there was a fight.  Looked like there was way too many cops and EMT’s for a simple fight.

So I went back to 116th thinking that the train would at least roll by 110th where I could get a better look. Well it did roll by…without stopping.  The police had closed the stop.

So I went home not really knowing much more than that.

Just moments ago, I found out the real story thanks to Newsday.  It turns out that there was a multiple stabbing that involved three teens.

The kids started fighting at 59th Street/Columbus Circle.  The fight eventually spilled out onto the street at 110th.  Two of them ended up stabbed or slashed.  The other was beaten with a cane.  (Are kids carrying whipping canes these days?)

I love this quote from a witness:

“This is a grassroots problem,” said Shira Dicker, 45, of Morningside Heights. “Anybody who rides the rails knows that the kids are a real menace.”

The AP reports that non-caned were slashed in the face.  Sweet, at least that will build future “street cred.”

However, there were no arrests made, which seems a little odd.  Perhaps there’s more people involved that didn’t get catch the business end of a blade…or cane.

(Editor’s note:  I know 110th isn’t technically Columbia.  However, if you are familiar with the area, then you know that from 110th – North is definitely college territory.)

Surf the Web — Not the Train

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Words of wisdom from the MTA that escaped some dude recently.

AMNY Tracker reports that today’s morning Q train snafu was due to a subway surfer.  No, not some idiot riding inside the train pretending to surf down the middle of the isle.  No, instead it is usually a rider on top of (as in the outside) the train or clinging to the side.

This practice is discouraged, hence the MTA Subchat campaign pictured above.

Who in the hell would actually do something like that?  Well, just last month, SUBWAYblogger posted a video clip of an entire train’s worth of idiots riding on the outside of the train.  Of course, that was a different country, but you get he point.

It took 45 minutes to get the guy off the top of the Q train which stopped between stations.  If I were stuck on that train, it wouldn’t have mattered if the guy got off alive because I would absolutely killed him anyway.  He would have had a better shot at surviving the trip on the roof.

“It’s happened before and usually when it happens, the person gets killed,” said Transit spokesman Charles Seaton.

Uhhh…yeah.  No shock there.

For that matter, do kids that live in New York have any right to complain about being bored?  I mean are these kids that bored out of their minds that they have to train surf for entertainment?  You essentially live at the center of the modern universe, yet you cant find anything better to do with you time than this kind of crap?

Pre World War II Train Hits the Rails for a Spin

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To celebrate the 75th Birthday of the A line, the first line owned by the City, the MTA strung together a train of old pre-WWII train cars, and took them for a spin.

atrain.jpgYou could have been riding a train like this one pictured on the left (click for full image / NY Times). Yes, that’s right. Those are seat cushions and ceiling fans. I do believe that trains in 1932 were waaaaay more comfortable looking than our current models. However, ours now have air conditioning. The old cars did not, hence the ceiling fans. Still, a padded seat looks nice.

Also, these cars are museum quality now, so they are meticulously maintained. In the real world, they might not have been quite as nice.

Anyway, the vintage A train took a spin down the entire length of the original line, down and back. What was funny is that it made all the stops just like a regular train! Many passengers didn’t know what the hell was going on.

The old cars are dark green, and very tank like. Obviously, the interiors are way different too, complete with old advertisements…including cigarettes! So many passengers were rightfully suspicious. It reportedly did not take them long to find out why they were riding a living time machine. Word spread fast though the train at each stop.

MTA Boss Man, Elliot Sander, and crew were also on board. Rumor has it they were handing out free MetroCards!!

The joy of camera phones means that many people took pictures. I found this photo stream on Flickr containing many pics of the old train in action. Very cool.

The NY Times article published today also has a great account of the voyage. Only wish I could have been there too!

Friendly Fire in Subway Cop Shooting

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So it seems that the NYPD needs to spend a little more time on the firing range working on aim.   Ok, just kidding.

However, it turns out that at least one of the shots Officer Annmarie Marchiondo took the other night came from the gun of another police officer.  The wound her foot was determined to be friendly fire.  It is still unclear if the other two shots came from officers or the suspect they were attempting to take into custody.

Marchiondo was still in the hospital today.

Newsday reports:

After the officers took [Juan] Calves off the train at the 176th Street station and began searching him, he grabbed Marchiondo in a head lock and pulled out a stolen 9mm gun, police said. When she broke free, he opened fire on the other officers; they returned fire and killed him.

Hey, one less crazy, repeat felon on the streets.

And the MTA Said, “Let the subway have doors.”

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platform_doors.jpg

This just in, the 7 line extension will have platform doors!

NY1 has learned exclusively (wtf?  Is it a secret?) that the 7 line extension will have doors on it’s subway platforms.

What the hell those?  Platform doors are sliding glass doors at the edge of the subway platforms.  They create a floor to ceiling barrier between the platform and the open tracks.

What for?  They not only provide a safe barrier from people ending up on the tracks, but they also save cooling energy.  By keeping the platforms sealed off from the tunnels when trains are not in the station, hot air cannot fill up the platforms.  Therefore, the stations are kept cooler, and energy is saved.  See what they could look like HERE.

The platform doors are estimated to cost $2 million per station.  However, the cost is made up in energy savings.

Perhaps the 7 line extension will clear the way for doors on the 2nd Avenue line to have the doors as well.