While we certainly do our share of complaining about our commute here at Trainjotting, there’s one big, big plus to Metro-North that we’d like to mention as Labor Day beckons.

It’s a summer Friday, and we’re on, say, the 5:46 from Grand Central. With much of the region clearing out early for the weekend, the train is maybe two-thirds full, and we’ve got our choice of seats–perhaps even the blessed 1-3/4-seater!–on which to enjoy a well-deserved cold one.

Contrast that with the Friday evening commute our Long Island Railroad and New Jersey Transit brethren must contend with as the Beach People attack. Talk about your Enter Sand Man–fueled on Bud Light tallboys and the promise of Beer Pong marathons segueing sloppily into share-house hookups–the weekend warriors clog the trains. (And often clog the drains as well.) Yes, I’ve been on that Friday train to Long Island–the double-decker packed as Sox-Yanks at Fenway in September, the aisles a scary showcase of compressed humanity, the line for the lone bathroom serving, oh, a thousand riders running 10-deep, the endless cellphone calls about meeting at Ditch Plains or Jet East or whatever the east end hotspot du jour happens to be.

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Amateurs abound.

And at least on the LIRR, it’s a good hour or so before the crowd thins around the Fire Island ferry stops. An hour that hasn’t felt as long since church when you were 6.  

It doesn’t necessarily end after the Friday ride either, as the true diehards–chasing that elusive Sunday night hookup, squeezing every last bit of merriment and revelry out of the weekend–drag their hungover, late for work, lamenting poor judgement asses onto the Monday morning train.

But heading to Westchester, where beach culture amounts to watching John Candy in Summer Rental on HBO 12, we can kick our feet up on the seat in front of us and enjoy a beer or a nap.

Amen to that.