Commuters on the Hudson Line were treated to the usual St. Patrick’s Day Pogue Mahone fun–crowd-surfing, boozing, puking–on their morning train March 17.

Sorry we missed it.

Thanks to Conductor Bobby for this link.

Of course, Cablevision’s News 12–not available on phone company TV–has the scoop.

Besides elicting one of the most bizarre obit second paragraphs as I’ve seen in some time, the passing of famous writer Dominick Dunne earlier this week prompted an entertaining yard from Conductor Bobby, the New Haven Line staffer with a knack for spying–and approaching–celebs on board.

He writes:

I’ve seen the author Dominick Dunne on my train several times over the years. He is always very impeccably dressed and looks as if he is headed to a polo match or some swanky country club. I recognized him from his eyeglasses, which are horn-rimmed and round. They make him look oh so much like a senior member of the Harry Potter fan club.The first time I met Mr. Dunne was on the eve of the two-year anniversary of the Nicole Brown Simpson slayings. He had a garment bag slung over his shoulder when he got on the train in New Haven, which is about a 40 minute ride from his home in Old Lyme.

The two struck up a conversation about the O.J. trial, and Conductor Bobby apparently made enough of an impression on Dunne to worm his way into the roman a clef Dunne wrote about the trial.

The novel was Dunne’s thinly veiled memoir about his experiences at the O. J. trial and how he, somewhere along the way, lost the objectivity of a reporter and became emotionally involved in the case. The novel’s protagonist’s name is Gus Bailey.In the last chapter of the book, page 343 to be exact, gossip columnist Liz Smith asks Gus if he ever gets sick of discussing O. J.:

“I talk about him to Deb at the gas station when she puts gas in my car.

I talk about him to the train conductor on Metro North.”

The year 2000.

The towers stood tall, Mike Piazza hit mammoth home runs, and Ashleigh Banfield was all over MSNBC. Conductor to the Stars Bobby has an Ashleigh sighting on Metro-North (she lives in Connecticut), along with a topless woman who sounds like a lost participant in some Boardy Barn Sunday fun.

It’s all on Derailed.

Bobby writes:

I was boarding the train in Grand Central, when a woman who looked exactly like former MSNBC reporter Ashleigh Banfield ran past me. A few years back, the bespectacled Banfield was the hot rising celebrity journalist, and her reports were all over the cable news channels. But then she criticized NBC and ticked off the studio brass. They fired her, and now she works for Court TV (Tru TV).

When I collected the woman’s ticket, I thought that I was mistaken. Now, up close, this woman looked too young and blond to be Asleigh..

“For a minute there, I thought you were Ashleigh Banfield.” I said.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’ve heard that before.”

“But you’re much younger.”

“Bless you.” She said.

The woman’s husband was sitting next to her, he looked up, laughed and said, “You’re kidding…right? This is Ashleigh.”

“Wow. You’re younger than you look on TV.”

“Well,” she said. “I like to tell people that I’m 50 ( she’s 41), then they think I look great for my age.”

Conductor Bobby thinks he deserves a cold one with the president after a racial flare-up with a black Metro-North rider some time ago.

He writes:

I was collecting tickets on an early morning train when I came upon a bench/row where all three seats were occupied by passengers. Being observant, I noticed that I had previously placed two seat checks in front of two of the passengers here. This meant that there was a recent arrival and someone owed me a ticket. I used logic and assumed that the gentleman sitting on the aisle was the last to enter the row…therefore, he was the one who owed me the fare.

“Let me ask you something conductor…There’s three of us sitting here.” He pointed to his two seatmates, a white woman sandwiched next to him, and a white man whose face was crammed against the window. “And yet… you only ask ME for a ticket.”

The rest of the yarn is on his Derailed blog.

Since we’re on the topic of trains getting jammed up in tornadoes today, here’s a peak at what it looks like when it actually happens.

Thanks to Conductor Bobby for the link.

Conductor Bobby has a fascinating account of his new assignment as a Metro-North conductor–working on the Waterbury Branch, which appears to be full of homeless, fare-evaders, and “quick-turners”–the guys riding Bridgeport to score dope, then hopping back on the train to Waterbury.

That region of Connecticut used to be a bustling manufacturing base. Now it sounds like it’s beyond despondent.

Bobby writes:

A distraught woman boards the train in Seymour wreaking of booze. Her skin is pale white but her eyes are vibrant red and bloodshot. She tells me that her boyfriend just threw her out of the house and she needs to get to her sister’s place in Naugatuck. I say “no problem” and tell her that I can bill her for the fare. I hand her the billing pad book and she sits down. She begins sobbing uncontrollably, so much so, she can’t fill the billing form out. I take the pad from her shaking hands and I begin filling the form out. I ask for her name and address, but instead she gives me her life story.

It appears Late Show host Craig Ferguson can only make out a single stop’s name when he rides Metro-North to “Albany.”

Here’s the link, cheeky wee monkeys.

Thanks to Conductor Bobby for sending it along. Perhaps Bobby and his ilk can learn from it and polish their diction.

Whether it’s brawlin’ late-night riders or hemorraging day-hoppers, Conductor Bobby’s posts always seem to have a fair bit of blood in them.

His latest:

“Sorry dude!” Said the passenger, now showing me his thumb which was dripping with blood. “I sliced it at work today and it won’t stop bleeding.” I looked down at the ticket he’d just handed me, still not comprehending his apology. There, between my index finger and thumb, lay a crimson colored piece of paper. It was the size and shape of a powder blue Metro North ticket, but streaks of plasma had left it unrecognizable.

But it’s not just blood. It’s snot. It’s sweat. It’s phlegm.

I frequently catch passengers holding tickets in their mouths. Sometimes they’ll go as far as using them as dental floss, spending the better part of the ride mining molars for forgotten bits of a $200 business lunch and then handing me a ticket covered in spit and shreds of steak tartar.

I got nothin’ today, but fortunately Conductor Bobby’s got some great tales from the rails, including the “proud member of the Greenwich Country Club” who took a giant dump on one of his trains.

In other words, welcome back to work.

While walking down the platform I run into Paul, a fellow conductor who yards my equipment. Paul seems annoyed with me. He is from Queens and he peppers his language with colorful expletives.

Me: Oooohhh!!!

BIPOLAR EXPRESS /BY poh ler ecks PRESS/ noun:  A train filled with mentally unstable passengers. 

Usage: The conductor on the 6:12 to Westport was overheard saying, “There must have been a full moon last night, my train was a Bipolar Express.”

[contributed by Conductor Bobby]