I got home late last night due to company softball (you just can’t turn down those rare Central Park games). Little G and Little Miss C were ready for bed and, after 12 hours alone with the kids, The Missus was too.

So I decided to take the later train, the slacker-esque 8:43, and spend an extra 27 minutes with the fam.

That particular train always seems to be early, so I climbed on my bike with time to spare, and patted myself on the back as I hit the overpass stairs at 8:40.

Alas, the train came jugging down the tracks within seconds. I bolted up the stairs and heard multiple voices behind me yelling “hold the train!”, including one Weeble-esque woman who wasn’t going to make it if sprinting was required.

Once again, I thought, the 8:43 is early. As I climbed on board, I saw a ruddy faced conductor sticking his head out the window.

“A couple stragglers behind me,” I said.

I went to hold the door, but a few guys were already doing so. All the stragglers made it, and the train was off.

The five-seater in front of me featured a family of four: Mom, Dad, two little blonde kids. The girl had a front tooth that was hanging on for dear life; a stiff breeze could spell a visit from the Tooth Fairy tonight.  

Moments later, the conductor came to check my ticket. He had a red beard to match his red face.

“Why is this train always early?” I asked. (Hey–someone’s got to speak up for us commuters.) “It’s only 8:41.”

I showed him my watch, which was just turning to 8:42.

His face lit up.

“Actually, with the new schedules, it’s an 8:41!” he said smugly. “The schedule changed. We’re not early, we’re on time!”

He was kind enough to not say the rest: “And you’re not!”

He punched my ticket and sauntered on to encounter the rest of the breathless Hawthorne riders.

How did I miss that, I wondered. I actually read the new Mileposts every month, and the Metro-North press release emails too. They’re about the M-8 cars that never seem to arrive for the beleaguered New Haven lin riders, right? That one escaped me.

I turned to my Blackberry, and then to the Times, and then to the girl with the hanging-on-for-dear-life tooth in front of me.

Would the thing stay attached until North White Plains?

Nefarious Darius

Darius McCollum was arrested again.

Of course, the name does not mean a thing to do. Why would it?

But you’re well familiar with McCollum’s crimes, starting with the one that put him on the (subway) map.

Yes, McCollum was the plucky kid who gave the E train a joyride to the World Trade Center in 1981, when he was 15.

Dangerous actions notwithstanding, people seemed to view the boy as a folk hero at the time, smitten as he was with public transportation.

Alas, McCollum has commited some two dozen transit-related crimes since then, reports the NY Times.

Most recently, he stole a Trailways bus, and was arrested yesterday while sitting at the wheel.

The bus was stolen in Hoboken, and police tracked its GPS to the Bronx. (I’m not sure McCollum had to deal with GPS when he was stealing trains and buses a quarter-century ago.) Police pulled him over as he attempted to enter the Van Wyck in Queens.

McCollum was charged with grand larceny auto and possession of stolen property.

“He has a thing for mass transit,” said Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman.

I’ve written before of “Perishing Square”–the site at 42nd Street and Park where fatal decisions are often made by commuters who need to cross the street immediately and make a train that’s about to leave from Grand Central.

I’ve also written of “Pershing Square-Dancing”–a less serious case in which an anxious commuter nervously jigs in place as he or she waits for the light to turn.

Both acts are commited en route to Grand Central.

Yet today, I did both as I headed away from Grand Central–a first for me after nearly four years of commuting.

What prompted such anxious behavior at 9 a.m. this morning? Well, I spied the first batch of U.S. Open fans in white–white outfits, white skin–walking through Grand Central. They always tend to give me the creeps for reasons I can’t quite explain.

But no big deal.  

I then stepped out of GCT, and saw a pair of street hawkers dressed all in black, giving away some sort of packaged treat from giant bins. I was about to grab one–who doesn’t like free treats?–when I looked down and saw that there was a collie on the packaging.

Kind of an odd marketing ploy–give people dog treats when they’re going somewhere where their dog most definitely is not. Might it make a bit more sense to hit them with the treats on the way home from the city, an hour or so before they’re rolling around with ol’ Rex?

I pulled my iPod earbud (iPod earbud…try saying that several times fast) out as I handed the doggie snack back.

The woman handing them about was about 25, a little plump, brown skin, non-descript. Except her voice.

“FREEEE Science Diet Dog TREEEEETS!” she yelled in just about the shrillest voice imaginable, a car alarm, a 4 a.m. wakeup call and an agitated Rosie Perez all rolled into one sound.

I was stuck at the light at Pershing Square, praying for a green, her voice bouncing around my skull.

“FREEEE Science Diet Dog TREEEEETS!” she yelled in exactly the same anxiety-inducing tone.

I replaced my earbud in my ear and prayed for the light to change. Was it broken? I searched for a break in traffic and thought about making a mad dash.

“FREEEE Science Diet Dog TREEEEETS!”

I shot her a look, but she didn’t notice. I stepped off the curb, moving a few feet away. Others had done the same.

“FREEEE Science Diet Dog TREEEEETS!”

At long last the light changed and I bolted across 42nd. I got as far as 41st before “FREEEE Science Diet Dog TREEEEETS!” finally blended in to the urban cacaphony–buses, car horns, sirens–around me.  

Back in the saddle after a ten-day break, a spell enhanced by our furloughed Fridays here at the salt mine.

The break featured our annual summer block party, during which I chatted with a man who recently moved into the neighborhood with his wife and two small children. The man and I discussed walking to the train–he’s really the only other one I know of that walks from beyond the immediate vicinity of the station each day. We discussed our mutual surprise that no one else walks, and we both seemed to be pleased to hear that another human in Hawthorne eschewed the auto for the trip to the train.

The break also featured six days in Cape Cod, half of which featured a driving, sideways rain. During the wet first half of the week, me and Little G found a brief window of rain respite for a trip to the beach, where we encountered a woman and two small boys–one who, coincidentally, was also named Little G.

We lamented the lack of foul weather activities on the Cape (the kid museum, the acquarium that no one seemed to realize was closed Mondays), and she mentioned the trolley that runs from Falmouth to Woods Hole and back. A trolley sounded fun, but the details took the fun away: It’s a bus decorated like a trolley, it sits in the same miserable summer traffic on Rte. 28 as everyone else, and, while the back opens up to the air, it’s zipped up in the foul weather. Nothing doing there.

During the break, I also missed what sounded like a truly horrific LIRR disaster. Midweek, an editor at the freebie Metro paper hit me with an email, wondering if the esteemed steward of this very blog could turn around a quick story on the horrors of being a train commuter into NYC. Alas, I was far from a computer and turned down a freelance assigment for the first time in, oh, forever.

The legs were seemingly still on vacation, creaking as I pedaled the bike over the humpback Chelsea bridge.

The train station looked resplendent (OK, less crappy) with new windows all around. Before I’d departed, I’d seen a man and a van; both were there to install the new windows. The man wore a t-shirt that said STREAKER and had a naked stick figure running. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed “streaker” was some window-guy humor. (Ya, know, streaks on the windows and all.)

Town Supervisor Maybury said it would be late August or early September when the town board decided what is going in to the old Hawthorne station spot. No word on it yet…

My mindset was glum as I stepped onto the 8:16, but I caught a break when I saw a beloved 1-3/4 seater, partially obscured by a swinging EMERGENCY EXIT conductor booth door, wide open and unlocked. Got it.

Almost an hour later, I learned that my breakfast deli is, presumably, now serving Guinness with breakfast. The Guinness brought me back to vacation, a pint and some pub grub at Liam McGuire’s on the Cape, sunburned, sandy, relaxed, smile for a nice family foto.

Alas, a hazelnut coffee would have to suffice.

Trainjotting is on vacation. Please visit our rich trove of past posts, and we’ll see you next week.

Talk about Soul Sister–we are happy to feature a guest post from TJ’s sister herself, reviewing a concert featuring the San Francisco band Train at Tropicana Field in Tampa last weekend. (Er, “Rays of Jupiter,” anyone?)

Writing about a band called Train…train jotting…get it?

Sister Kate takes it from here.

I guess in an effort to sell tickets, the Tampa Bay Rays have a summer concert series on Saturday nights where you get a concert after the game.  Pretty good deal.  Initially I went cheap on the tickets and got the $18 seats in the 300 rows.  After I ordered them a trusted colleague of mine told me she had just sat in that section the week prior and the seats are so high and on such a pitch that she was sort of dizzy and nauseus. 

Well, that was all I had to hear and this motion sickness family member was on with Ticketmaster within minutes. [EDITOR’S NOTE: The whole family suffers from various degrees of motion sickness.]

I upgraded to $35 tickets and they were great –  in right field, prime foul ball territory.  For the concert they were ok b/c we had a side view of the stage but my daughters were just happy to be at their first rock concert. 

Train was very good, they played several songs that anyone who occasionally listens to the radio would be able to sing along to.  I was a little alarmed when singer Pat took his shirt off and my 5 year old started chanting “keep it off!”,  but other than that it was a blast. 

The game started at 4:10 and lasted almost 3 hours and the Rays beat the Orioles and there was even a grand slam in there somewhere.

Tried to see the stingray tank but was too late, it’s only open for the first two hours of a game.

The stage was set up in centerfield in less than 30 minutes and the concert went from 8-9, totally manageable with kids. 

People were wasted, though, on the way out, as you could imagine after drinking through a game and concert. 

Also worth mentioning, the Trop lets you bring in food and drinks as long as it’s not glass, so thats a $$ saver.  Who doesn’t like to have a banana at a ballgame? 

Rays fans rowdy but nice.  Only saw three people get trampled when they opened up the field to those who had special field tickets for the concert. 

Overall two families of 4 thoroughly enjoyed a day in Tampa Bay to see the second beast of the east win  and the memory of  seeing the kids’ faces while singing along to “Soul Sister.”

PREVIOUSLY FEATURING SISTER KATE: ”The Car Train Gets Two Thumbs Up“; and “Amtrak Auto-Train Not Really That Bad.”

I generally try not to say nice things about the Yankees, but as the Mets were fighting with their closer after K-Rod’s season finished prematurely after a fight with his kids’ grandfather, Joe Girardi, Joba Chamberlain and Tino Martinez, among others, were schlepping on New Jersey Transit and the subway to accompany a blind Yankee fan and her guide dog to the Stadium for last night’s contest against Detroit.

It’s part of HOPE Week (Helping Others Persevere and Excel) for the Yankees, when the guys do nice things for people in need. (The Mets, meanwhile are conducting the less wholesome BUYFIL Week (Beat Up Your Father-in-Law.)

The pinstriped posse picked up the blind woman, Jane Lang, at her Morris Plains home, then took New Jersey Transit to Penn Station, and switched to the D train to get up to the Stadium.

You can view the slide show here.

Kudos to them for making the woman’s day–and for taking public transportation.

Trainjotting virtually ventures to the Far East today for a gallery of rogues on the Japanese railways, and the most intriguing public transportation photo you’ll see all day from out of China. (Please, no Orient Express jokes, thank you.)

Japan’s Metropolis offers an entertaining slide show of the nation’s most offensive train archetypes, called “Varieties of Train Creeps.” (Yes, it’s in English.) The creeps include the Door Hog, the Non-Handicapped Sleeper, and, of course, the Gaijin Avoider. (Gaijin is, of course, a foreigner.)

One commenter writes:

The leaners are my favorite! I love to shift whenever the train hits a bump so I can let gravity take its course. Nothing like a good ol’ “manvalanche” to brighten your day.

Speaking of Japanese train systems, one simply cannot get enough of the clip of the platform stewards jamming–and I mean jamming–riders onto the train.

Then, the NY Times shows a rendering of a bus that holds 1,200 people–and straddles the highway, meaning cars can drive beneath it. They’re considering the straddling bus for China, where traffic is apparently a bit of an issue.

Fascinating. This should hold us until they finally invite the commuter jet-pack.

Those double-decker trains you see on the LIRR and NJT (the “Bitanic,” in conductor-speak) may be coming to the Metro-North, reports the NY Times. The railroad’s next purchase of new cars is in 2015, and the split-level trains are being considered for the order.

Riders generally like the trains: lots of seats, and cool views from the Promenade deck. (MNR riders would be able to see Central Park from the second floor, writes Timesman Michael M. Grynbaum.) On the downside, it’s been my experience that there are like two restrooms for the entire double-decker, which is ginormous. If you’re taking that thing out to the Hamptons in the summer–granted, hardly a typical commuter trip–the line is 10-deep with Snookified Hamptons weekend warrior scruff.

Reports the Times:

But a fleet of rolling duplexes would bring the railroad in line with its nearby cousins. Double-decker trains, then called “up and downs,” were commonplace on the Long Island Rail Road from the late 1930s to the late 1960s; a more modern version began operation in 1998. New Jersey Transit has run double-deckers since 2005.

Officials at both commuter railroads say the bilevel trains receive rave reviews from customers, particularly because their interior layouts eliminate the hated middle seat.

“Customers love them for a number of reasons,” said Dan Stessel, a spokesman for New Jersey Transit. “They are quieter, and you have more leg room. It’s been overwhelmingly positive.”

Howard Permut, the president of Metro-North, said he was attracted to the double-decker option because it could help solve a broader challenge facing Metro-North: its ballooning ridership, which has risen 10 percent in the last five years.

The railroad is nearing capacity at Grand Central Terminal, its Midtown hub, and at rush hour it currently runs trains in and out of the Park Avenue tunnel at the fastest rate it can.

Six weeks ago, as June turned to July, I left my July monthly at home, and used the expired pass to get to the city on the first day of July, as is Metro-North’s generous policy.

I’d picked up an $11 one-way for my return trip that eve, and casually showed the expired June monthly for the second time that day in July. What the hell, I figured. Worst case scenario, the conductor tells me it’s expired and I produce my one-way ticket.

Well, the dead monthly worked. (Ah, the benefits of being a 40-something white male!)

I stashed the one-way ticket for a family member’s future ride, and we grabbed it this past weekend to take the kids into the city. Little G used to harrass us to take us to the city to see his favorite skyscrapers; he’s on a first name basis with most of them: the Empire, the Chrysler, the Flatiron, the CitiCorp. Now he wants to go and climb the giant boulders in Central Park, cuz, you know, you can’t find great rocks anywhere but in the middle of New York City.

Little G also used to be fixated on the landscape flying by from the train, but it only held him captivated until White Plains this time. Guess he’s growing up. Little Miss C, meanwhile, was happy to partake in another favorite commuter pastime; zoning out to a personal music device, she and The Missus being biPods as they listened to Music Together.

Kids ride free on the train, of course, so The Missus used the freebie 11-bucker on the way in, and we figured we’d get the return ticket from a machine at GCT.

The conductor came by and didn’t so much as look at The Missus, or her ticket. “Am I invisible?” she wondered aloud.

So, yes, two free rides thus far on our $11 ticket.

Our public transit highlights in the Big City included Little Miss G throwing a giant tantrum on the downtown bus in front of the Plaza, as I had not let Herself, who is 2, climb up the bus steps. She screamed the entire ride from 59th to 42nd, but was good enough to polish the filthy aisle floor by rolling around on it in her pretty blue dress. The driver appreciated that.

As we returned to the great northlands, the conductor was much more attentive. An awkward guy of about 30 with a large nose, he stopped in front of The Missus and clicked her now-pretty-wrinkled ticket.

We cheekily asked him if we would get money back on the ticket, as it was a peak ticket and we were riding off peak. (The nerve, huh?) He shook his head and went into a long explanation about returning the ticket at GCT, getting the difference back, but then paying extra to buy a new ticket on board. We didn’t completely follow, but the message was there–no money back.

Hey, no big deal. Three rides on an $11 ticket. That’s….like not even four bucks a ride. (Too early in the week to do proper math, sorry.) It’s like 1982 all over again–without the smoking cars.

[* The headline almost works, but not quite. Again, too early in the week for a clever headline.]