From November 6, 2007

Thanks to Little G, we end up spending a lot of time in Sodor—that is, the mythical island on which Thomas the Tank Engine and his train friends operate. All of the trains in Thomas’ world have unique personalities, whether it’s the narcissistic engine James or the perky young train Percy.  

That got us thinking—if Manhattan was Sodor, and vice versa, where would the Metro-North cast of characters fit in in Thomas’ little technicolor world? 

New Haven Line = Henry

Henry is a long train that “tends to be somewhat highly strung and prone to illness,” according to ThomasandFriends.com. The New Haven Line is highly strung as well–as in those arms extending to the electric catenary wires strung above the tracks. The most susceptible to foul weather of the three lines, New Haven is indeed prone to illness. Just ask any veteran rider of the line. 

The Harlem Line = Peter Sam

Peter Sam is “a happy and kind engine, but is a little vulnerable and often teased by the others.” Like Peter Sam, the Harlem Line suffers from a severe case of Middle Child Syndrome–not quite the doddering doofus that the New Haven Line is, not quite the beacon of efficiency that the Hudson Line is. 

MTA Board Member Mitchell Pally = Lady Hatt

Lady Hatt is Sir Topham Hatt’s wife and “a kind and gentile woman…who will also scold the engines when they act up or behave improperly.” Pally is the schoolmarm who wanted to do away with drinking on the trains.  

Slippery Rail Season = Lead Paint from China Used on Thomas Trains

Both lead paint and oily residue left on Metro North tracks force trains out of commission and leave their users gravely agitated.  

Finally, where, you ask, does our humble narrator, Thomas himself, fit into the equation? Thomas is described as a “cheeky, fussy little engine. He often gets into scrapes…but clouds never last long in Thomas’ world and he’s soon bustling about again.” 

Yes, that’d be you and me—the working stiffs shrugging off the floods and snowstorms and rude riders to turn up at our jobs in Sodor…er, Manhattan…each day.

The Missus and I and assorted other parties actually got out to a restaurant for dinner twice this weekend, thanks to her folks being in town.

Saturday, we opted for one of the few high-end options around us, the consistently good Iron Horse Grill, located in the old Pleasantville train station building. We wanted a special-occasion kind of place to mark National Train Day–not to mention our anniversary. We got Little Miss C down early and actually snuck out early enough to enjoy a drink at the bar.

The restaurant has a subtle train theme paying homage to the building’s origins; the name of course refers to trains, there are old train photos on the walls, and even a little Edward train from the Thomas the Tank Engine set above the bar (or was it Gordon?).

We got put in a small room off to the side which features just a pair of two-tops and a big round table for eight or so. Not the best spot in the place, but it did prompt me and the Missus to wonder what the room used to be–the ticket-taker space? A storage room for luggage?

The food was very good–I got a nice sole dish and The Missus got the duck, which featured a very tasty sauce. Owner Phil McGrath is very visible around the place–he stopped by to chat about the dishes, and was even about to take our order before a server wisely stepped in and saved McGrath the trouble (and likely saved his own job). McGrath does his flitting about in a very low-key way–none of this “I’m, Phil, the owner!” nonsense–we only knew him because of a framed review on the wall with his picture in it.

Speaking of framed reviews, The Missus spotted one in the bathroom with a real anachronistic quality–it was about a decade old, and talked about the depressing (and dodgy) downtown area surrounded Iron Horse, full of nail salons, empty storefronts and a crazy person or two. Priusville has come a long way.

I’d love to say we had a similarly terrific experience at Cabin, the recently rebooted restaurant in the cozy lodge on the Greenburgh/Valhalla border. We’d eaten there before and had a wonderful time–ambitious menu, surprisingly winsome ambience, considering the somewhat rundown exterior, and really good service–actual servers, not high school kids.

We went last night with the Mother In Law (MIL), Father In Law (FIL) and of course Little G and Little Miss C. Much like the night before, we got put in the junior varsity room–a dining space in the bar area, where you can’t help but watch golf and local news on different screens, not to mention the constant parade to the men’s room, while trying to converse with your table mates.

We ordered the fried shrimp (or Fried “Shirmp” on the menu…The Missus and TJ are career editors and no menu typo gets by us) for Little G and asked the server to please bring it with our salads. No problem, she said.

To be fair, it was Mother’s Day. But the restaurant wasn’t really that slammed–I’d say it was 75% full when we got there, and everyone was ordering off a prix-fixe menu, which makes life much easier for the staff.  

Well, our salads came, and no fried shirmp. The salads had lovely toasted goat cheese pucks or croquettes or whatever, but none of the four we ordered had the sugary walnuts the menu promised. No big.

Well, our salads were consumed, and still no fried shirmp for Little G. The kids started getting restless. The Missus walked Little Miss C around and I engaged Little G, compelling him to crayon a picture of the new Roary the Racing Car toy MIL and FIL picked up for him on a recent trip to England. Little Miss C was put back in the high chair, got cranky a little while later, and I took my turn walking her around. Little G joined us in a quick tour of the place.

Still, no fried shirmp. The waitress even came by, saw our long-since picked apart salads, and said, quite rhetorically, “The shrimp hasn’t arrived yet?”

Finally, it showed up, and Little G returned to his seat. I occupied a bench about 20 feet from our table with Little Miss C, midway between the main dining room and the bar area, trying to entertain her as her bedtime approached.

Alas, the fried shrimp was hard as a rock, and Father in Law sent it back.

“This is totally unacceptable,” FIL said politely but sternly. “This is hard as a rock.”

Mind you, we’ve been here about an hour and only now were getting the kids meal, with the grown-up meals still in the works. Some frustration poked through.

The waitress took the inadvertent Rock Shrimp and headed for the kitchen. She stopped to talk to what I suppose was a floor manager, about 10 feet from me and Little Miss C. The waitress did a pretty unflattering imitation of my father in law:

“This is totally unacceptable,” she said in a whiny voice through a sneer. “This is hard as shit.”

OK, now there’s trouble.

I don’t believe I’ve ever heard the father in law curse in the decade I’ve known the guy. I also don’t believe I’ve ever seen him be anything but completely cordial to a server, especially a female one who’s half-decent looking. I felt my blood boil as I watched this hack (and inaccurate) impersonation.

Finally our entrees came about an hour and ten minutes after we first sat. Alas, they brought the wrong thing for Father in Law (he wanted crab cakes, they brought a Cape Cod casserole). He told them not to bother bringing his desired entree–we were hungry, and the kids were absolutely done.

It was one of those meals where the entree becomes an after-thought; you just want to finish and get home. Little G’s reconstituted fried shirmp never showed, and we were finished in 10 minutes.

It didn’t quite end there. The Missus and I asked for our chocolate bread pudding desserts to go, while FIL and MIL asked for them to stay. We got the kids up and got the heck out of there.

Alas (yes, another “alas”), all the desserts came to go, accompanied by the check. Then FIL and MIL had to wait another 10 minutes or so for the check to get picked up; when the waitress never came for it, FIL settled up at the bar.

Fittingly, the desserts were a bust too. Granted, no dessert really holds up in to-go form, but the bread pudding was painfully mediocre (neither the Missus nor MIL ate theirs, and I only did because I would eat cardboard if it was smeared with chocolate). FIL’s “berries” dessert featured two strawberries–two, 2–cut in half. Technically, yes, they were “berries.”

In their defense, the Cabin did not charge for Little G’s meal (mind you, he never got his meal), or FIL’s Cape Cod Casserole. That smoothed frayed feelings to a degree.  

As I’ve said, we’ve had very good meals at the Cabin, and were very happy to see a good dining option to all the uninspired red-sauce joints in our area. But last night sure was a dud.

No sooner did I get home from work Friday, visions of “broken tracks” in Scarsdale having slowed down my morning commute hours before, when Little G ran over to me to read a book he’d grabbed from the library that afternoon.

It was called, fittingly, A Crack in the Track. A Crack in the Track is what they might’ve called a mash-up back in, oh, 2005 — two popular things jammed together as one. Ya know, a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, or Mork popping up on Happy Days. A Crack features the beloved Thomas the Tank Engine franchise cranked through the Dr. Seuss rhym-o-matic; indeed, the Seussian Cat in the Hat logo is on the top right corner of the cover.

A Crack sees Thomas chugging along, doing his thing as a useful little engine, when a sudden hailstorm on the island of Sodor busts a track. Friday’s 8:16 out of Hummerville actually fared better than Thomas, as his riders were forced off the train, where they were met by Bertie Bus, who cheerfully insisted to whoever would listen that buses were every bit as good as trains.

Alas, Bertie was waylaid by a toad in the middle of the road. The feckless passengers were rerouted to a train station within walking distance (you can make out ‘Ridge’ in the name, but not the first part of it), but the trains still weren’t running.

So along came Harold the Helicopter. Borrowing a page from the Bertie the Bus playbook, Harold too insisted helicopters were as good as trains.

Some time later, Thomas — and James, and Gordon, and of course Percy — were up and running again after the crack was fixed. Through it all, the good people of Sodor kept their composure. Which isn’t really that much of an accomplishment, because I don’t think anyone besides rail master Sir Topham Hatt actually works on Sodor.

What’s peculiar about A Crack in the Track is , despite the rhyme in the title, it doesn’t quite throw itself into the Seuss concept. There are random rhyming bits (So no trains could move up. And no trains could move back. They were stuck where they were at that crack in the track.), but long stretches where it’s just straight up non-rhyming prose. It’s like the Thomas camp and the Seuss camp started bumping heads midway through the project, couldn’t back out of the deal, and ended up with some half-assed compromise that doesn’t represent either brand very well.

The Missus, who knows a thing or two about children’s lit, says it may be a byproduct of the book being part of the “Beginner Book” series, where only a certain number of different words can be used.

Perhaps. Either way, it’s a fairly forgettable read, and one you may want to avoid if you’ve suffered your own Crack in the Track experience that day.

I had the divine pleasure of working from home yesterday, and with the 90 minutes of round-trip Metro-North time out of the equation, I was done–and, of course, home–at 5:30.

I took advantage of the bonus time by taking Little G to the playground over at Hummerville Elementary. He climbed the three steps up to the ramp he loves to run on, a 30-foot corridor on a slight incline that leads to a mad tangle of slides, tunnels and bars.

I was watching out of the corner of my eye when Little G suddenly dropped like a rock, parallel to the ground just before he slammed into the ramp. He jumped to his feet as I ran to him; he wore the WTF? mask just before his little face scrunched into prepare-to-wail mode.

As it turned out, some jackass–OK, more likely, some kid simply being a kid–had laid a branch about the size of a pool cue across the ramp’s handrails, about 2 1/2 feet from the ground. Caught up in the rapture that is those first couple steps on a playground, Little G hit the stick with his forehead at full speed, and even broke the thing in two.

I held Little G as he wailed, a small cut rising on his temple. Of course, he wanted Mommy, so we got in the stroller and headed for home.

I offered a little “special coal”– which seems to work for Thomas the Train’s boiler ache in one of Little G’s books, and often for Little G himself after he’s taken a tumble. The invisible offering helped a little.

There will be countless times when I’m at a loss to explain life’s small injustices to Little G (and, down the road, Big G) after he’s been stung by one.

This was but the first.

A few months back, we took advantage of having missed the train to pick up a replica F train for Little G for Christmas. It was in Vanderbilt Hall in Grand Central, in those booths they set up for Christmas shopping.

Created by “Munipals“, the little F subway car cost $10 and was compatible with the trains and tracks. Little G promptly worked his new “Effy” train into the lineup along with Thomas, Percy, Spencer and the rest of the Sodor cabal. Effy seemed to give some Noo Yawk attitude to the quaint Brit world of Thomas.

One thing about the Thomas trains–lead paint notwithstanding, they’re expertly crafted. The Thomas trains we first started playing with a year ago run every bit as well as the day we opened them, and seem like they’ll continue to do so for years. Far as I can tell, they last forever.

Alas, not so much the Munipals F train from Grand Central. After maybe a month of moderate use, the F train’s wheels started locking up. He’d be pulling a big line of cars–Percy, Diesel, Little Henry–when the wheels would lock and the whole line would tumble like the New Haven Line on black ice.

Effy spent more and more time on the Sodor sidelines as the rest of the Thomas gang did the heavy lifting around our family room.

And Little G stopped calling him “Effy” or “F train” or anything with an F in it. Instead, he dubbed the crappy Munipals toy “Old Slow Coach”–after one of the wheezing old retro train cars from the Thomas & Friends catalog.

Old Slow Coach

[photo: LAToys.com]

Thanks to Little G, we end up spending a lot of time in Sodor—that is, the mythical island on which Thomas the Tank Engine and his train friends operate. All of the trains in Thomas’ world have unique personalities, whether it’s the narcissistic engine James or the perky young train Percy.  

That got us thinking—if Manhattan was Sodor, and vice versa, where would the Metro-North cast of characters fit in in Thomas’ little technicolor world? 

New Haven Line = Henry

Henry is a long train that “tends to be somewhat highly strung and prone to illness,” according to ThomasandFriends.com. The New Haven Line is highly strung as well–as in those arms extending to the electric catenary wires strung above the tracks. The most susceptible to foul weather of the three lines, New Haven is indeed prone to illness. Just ask any veteran rider of the line. 

The Harlem Line = Peter Sam

Peter Sam is “a happy and kind engine, but is a little vulnerable and often teased by the others.” Like Peter Sam, the Harlem Line suffers from a severe case of Middle Child Syndrome–not quite the doddering doofus that the New Haven Line is, not quite the beacon of efficiency that the Hudson Line is. 

MTA Board Member Mitchell Pally = Lady Hatt

Lady Hatt is Sir Topham Hatt’s wife and “a kind and gentile woman…who will also scold the engines when they act up or behave improperly.” Pally is the schoolmarm who wanted to do away with drinking on the trains.  

Slippery Rail Season = Lead Paint from China Used on Thomas Trains

Both lead paint and oily residue left on Metro North tracks force trains out of commission and leave their users gravely agitated.  

Finally, where, you ask, does our humble narrator, Thomas himself, fit into the equation? Thomas is described as a “cheeky, fussy little engine. He often gets into scrapes…but clouds never last long in Thomas’ world and he’s soon bustling about again.” 

Yes, that’d be you and me—the working stiffs shrugging off the floods and snowstorms and rude riders to turn up at our jobs in Sodor…er, Manhattan…each day.

As has been well-covered, China took a giant step in enhancing its business relationship with the U.S. by dousing Thomas & Friends toy trains with lead paint.

While we were playing with said trains (duh, the non-lead ones) with Little G, something struck us. The “character card” (think, baseball card for trains) for “Henry” made me wonder what Henry knew prior to the revelation that lead paint was used on the trains.

Reads the card: “[Henry’s] vanity and temperament were made famous when the tunnel he refused to leave, for fear of ruining his coat of paint, was bricked over so that he could not get out.”

[Yes, we realize that’s Thomas images in back to back days.]

Here’s the theory: Henry knew he’d been painted with lead paint, and took one for the team by refusing to leave the tunnel and subjecting himself to the curious mouths of small children all over the world. He sentenced himself to life in a brick tunnel to prevent children from brain damage.

Granted, it’s a longshot. But if it’s the case, well, Henry is a hero in our book.