I should’ve known something was awry when I saw the northbound train chugging along on the southbound track at Hummerville station this morning.
The scheduled arrival time came and went, and still we waited.
An announcement came upon the scratchy PA system, which battled with a frontloader shoveling some sort of stones or soil into a bin at the gravel/soil/whatever-those-guys-do distributor adjacent to the station.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” it said, “We have a track change. The express train to Grand Central will arrive on Track One. Express train stopped at 125th Street and Grand Central, arriving on Track One.”
We probably don’t need such announcements out in Hummerville, where there are only two tracks, with a lone platform between them. But the effort is appreciated.
We shuffled onto the 8:16, which was three minutes tardy, and I set about looking for a prime seat.
As I walked toward the front of the train, it dawned on me that pickin’s were slim–the train was particularly full for this stage of the journey. I cut bait and dropped it in the aisle seat of a six-seater, and hoped my long legs and bony knees would dissuade someone from opting for the seat across from me.
No such luck, as a gel-haired dandy slid in at North White. We worked through the awkward kneegotiations (There! A Word of the Week is born before your very eyes!) and settled in for the rest of the trip.
The would-be 8:16 made its way through southern Westchester and the Bronx much slower than normal. I felt my legs fall asleep, cramped as they were, and found myself reading the guy across from me’s Times as much as I was reading my own.
The train finally docked at Grand Central at 9:13, a full nine minutes after it was supposed to. How rare is such tardiness? The November edition of Mileposts says the Harlem line was “on time” (arriving within 6 minutes of when it was supposed to) 99.7% of the time in the morning that month, so we were treated to the exceedingly rare (point-three percent!) late morning train.
I got caught behind a Giant Lady With a Cane on the platform, which helped me miss the 6 train that was pulling away as I hit the subway platform.
The next train was jammed. It sat on the platform for a few minutes and got more jammed. Two tourist couples from the U.K. pushed their way in like seasoned New Yorkers. We stood cheek by jowl, most of us late.
A man next to me–slim, gray fellow of about 50–wore a ballcap that said Life Is Good, a cheesy smiley-face on the side. The smiley-face stared at me and dared me to smile.
“F-you,” I muttered to the ersatz grinning mug. “F-you.”