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Weekly Column by Brian Codagnone

November 15, 2011

TAKE THE A TRAIN, IF YOU CAN FIND IT

I feel sorry for people who live in cities that don't have subways (or "The T" as we say in Boston, the "El" as they say in Chicago or "There's a subway?" in Los Angeles). There's nothing like being able to get on a train and ride in comfort while those poor saps in their cars are stuck in traffic. Fools! you sneer, as you read your paper, or book, or Kindle, or, last week, what appeared to be the entrails of a chicken that some guy was using to figure out his scratch ticket choices. Scratch tickets are VERY popular with subway riders; if they win they can afford to buy a car.

Compared to New York, Boston's subway system is a manageable size with only four main lines; Red, Blue, Green and Orange. Have you ever looked at a map of the New York subway system? It's like a schematic drawing of the main computer on the Space Shuttle, although it's a lot less safe mode of transportation. The also have locals, expresses, every letter of the alphabet lines, lines marked with a skull and crossbones like Black Diamond trails at a particularly challenging ski resort (say, one in Bosnia), etc. It's so extensive that parts of it are as yet unexplored, so there are large areas, in the Bronx I think, that simply say "Here be Dragons".

Dragons would be an improvement over some of the life forms one sees on the New York subway. It's this drama that's made it an essential part of so many movies; "The French Connection", "The Taking of Pelham 123", "Money Train", "Hellboy", "Bambi"... Okay, "Bambi" wasn't filmed there, but there have been reports of rats the size of Bambi's mother, who I'm sure would be sorely missed by her offspring if the Number 4 to Flatbush took her out.

No, Boston's subway is much more manageable. Of course, it's beset by all the problems one sees in any public transportation, most notably the riders. Where else can you travel with exotic people from all over the world, including the post-apocalyptic war zone from Mad Max? I was riding to work one hot summer day (note: the trains are usually air conditioned but the stations, most of which were built during the reign of Charlemagne, are not) when a perfectly average looking passenger (that is to say dressed in a bulky trenchcoat, dark glasses, bucket hat, a thick beard and a large clock around his neck) looked around the train and loudly announced "I'm glad I don't know anyone on this train!". Who needs Islamic terrorists when a perfectly normal rider can get your heart racing? And it's always a safe policy to never make eye contact; that just invites them to strike up a conversation about The Lord, death, politics or whatever.

Another problem, of course, is when they have to take a train "out of service". It's not like a delay, for which they apologize profusely, (usually because of "traffic ahead", even though the last train came through weeks earlier) where you can sit and read and try to ignore the guy screaming that the CIA is beaming messages into his brain (hint: the extra money you pay for Reynolds Wrap is well worth it), or the person next to you on the cell phone yammering in Spanish like Ricky cursing out Lucy for 20 straight minutes. When a train is taken out of service all the passengers are unceremoniously dumped at some station to wait for a "replacement train". And it's never for a legitimate reason, such as the driver of an earlier train ran into a troop of Girl Scouts who were delivering Candygrams to the homeless and wandered onto the track. It's always some mysterious cause, like "signal problems", whatever that means. And, it never happens in the nice weather, a crisp fall day when you can stand on the platform listening to the soft staccato of automatic weapons fire from the nearby housing projects. It always seems to happen when it's hotter than the Great Nafud Desert in the off season or so cold you could make good money renting out space in a gutted Ton-Ton to your fellow riders. But never fear, that replacement train will come to take you on your way. So sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. And remember, don't make eye contact.

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