To all our great members, past and present, let's get behind these dedicated members and provide support.
Bob
-----------------------------------------------
Hey Car 5 Crew,
Good morning, there is something more powerful and life changing in the
world than breast cancer. You! Each year people come together for the
Komen Maryland Race for the Cure and create an unprecedented buzz of
hope and excitement. Survivors share their stories to help empower us,
volunteers keep the Race running smoothly, participants cross finish
lines and donors help change the face of breast cancer research.
Please take a moment to make a donation to the Komen Maryland 2010 Race
for the Cure, join a team or volunteer. Your contribution supports the
promise of saving lives and ending breast cancer forever by empowering
people, ensuring quality care for all and energizing science to find the
cures. Until there's a cure, there's Komen!
Thank you for helping make this year's Race for the Cure bigger and
better than ever before. Candice, Pam and I will be participating and
have formed a team, please follow the link to our team webpage, DC
Commuters 4 the Cure, to make a donation or join the team with us! It's
as simple as point and click.
www.komenmd.org/2010/dccommuters4thecure
Thank you,
Ericka Joseph
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Sunday, August 22, 2010
An Alternate MARC Universe?
People I know seem to have popped out of reality, or maybe it is I who has made a quantum shift into a different world. It all began on Friday, August 13, 2010 around 5 o'clock in the afternoon.
The plan was for a quorum of the Car 5 Gang to meet at the Center Café in the Great Hall of Union Station. Trish has circulated the agenda and itinerary for what was supposed to be a grand sendoff for The Princess. She had been a multiyear personality in Car 5 for several years. Princess Carly has celebrated her 21, 22 and 23 birthdays while maintaining her membership in good standing. Several weeks ago she announced that she would be moving to South Carolina to go back to college and finish her undergraduate studies. All our celebrity hopes were dashed when She announced that She could not make the party due to previous engagements.
Bobbert, for one, was incensed and deeply hurt that Princess Carly Muffin would blow off all her commuter family in favor of a few unworthy friends who could see her any time she came home to roost.
The anticipated attendance at the retitled Generic Happy Hour dwindled. Trish and Billy and I confirmed our plans. Sandy was running late with Metro Moments. Three of us were there when Trish got the message from Bobbert that he had forgotten about a medical appointment and would not be coming.
In the end, the four of us held up the ceremonial ritual of a few drinks and a bit of snack while toasting the departure of a friend. So long, Princess.
We all wended our way to the 7:40 train and impressed a few strangers with the camaraderie we four had. At the station we parted our ways for the weekend and each headed home.
Sometime over the weekend the imperceptible shift happened. It might have happened coincident with a flash of light that might have been lightning or a quantum perturbation that sent me into a different world. The small differences were not readily discernable at first. There were hibiscus blossoms blooming in my front yard in Mid-August. The grass was greener or maybe I just thought so.
Monday I caught the train and quietly perused my email on the way into work. When I got back to the evening train and boarded at my usual spot, the wheelchair lift was already in place like they were actually expecting me. I got on and waited for the regular gang to arrive. The train lurched out of the station on time at 5:20 (a rare occurrence). I looked around and nobody I knew was there. Strangers populated Car 5 around me. They were self absorbed and silent. It was ominous and too quiet.
I had heard nothing of vacation or change of work schedules that would account for this change.
I turned to my BlackBerry and thumbed through the late day emails and Twitter messages that proliferate and collect there. At first I was confused. The most unlikely of facts became evident. Somehow, some way, the President of the United States was Black! Over the weekend I was transported into this reality where things are really different. In this reality John McCain didn't win over Hillary Clinton and a whole different Democrat candidate, an African-American from Hawaii or somewhere got enough electoral votes to be President. Wow! America is a hugely different country in this universe.
I spent the entire next day pouring over the Internet to see what all was different in this world. I haven't discovered exactly what it was that stopped it, but Israel hasn't bombed Iran, and a three-way hasn't taken place between Iraq, Israel and Iran. Only the US is fighting useless protracted war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Global financial markets did a meltdown during the Administration of George Bush's son! Son! I couldn't believe it. That man couldn't even talk straight. We made him President. Twice!
Well so many things are different in this reality. I suppose that I will have to get used to it being this way. Having seen what it is like in that other Universe, man have we gotten ourselves into some deep stuff.
When I arrived back at the evening train, there was the lift perfectly placed once again. I boarded and waited for the gang to arrive. 5:20 pm arrived and the train started out of the station with 4 of the 6 mezzanine seats still vacant. Two strangers sat across from me. Once we were underway, the 4 seats were taken by the people passing through from one end of the train to the other. No Car 5 Gang turned up. No messages from them lit up my BlackBerry. They all seem to have been left behind in that other universe.
Throughout the remainder of the week I came to realize just how many things remained the same. The train ran slow due to mechanical problems and other mysterious causes. WMATA scheduled the elevators at Union Station to be out of service for a three month renovation. If this were the universe I had come to know that elevator work would actually take six months and the escalators would be stopped at random intervals due to poor condition. I was beginning to wonder if this reality had a Princess Carly at all or a Big Bob, Trish, Mikey and all the other usual suspects. Maybe I will get shifted back to the old reality or an even better one.
The plan was for a quorum of the Car 5 Gang to meet at the Center Café in the Great Hall of Union Station. Trish has circulated the agenda and itinerary for what was supposed to be a grand sendoff for The Princess. She had been a multiyear personality in Car 5 for several years. Princess Carly has celebrated her 21, 22 and 23 birthdays while maintaining her membership in good standing. Several weeks ago she announced that she would be moving to South Carolina to go back to college and finish her undergraduate studies. All our celebrity hopes were dashed when She announced that She could not make the party due to previous engagements.
Bobbert, for one, was incensed and deeply hurt that Princess Carly Muffin would blow off all her commuter family in favor of a few unworthy friends who could see her any time she came home to roost.
The anticipated attendance at the retitled Generic Happy Hour dwindled. Trish and Billy and I confirmed our plans. Sandy was running late with Metro Moments. Three of us were there when Trish got the message from Bobbert that he had forgotten about a medical appointment and would not be coming.
In the end, the four of us held up the ceremonial ritual of a few drinks and a bit of snack while toasting the departure of a friend. So long, Princess.
We all wended our way to the 7:40 train and impressed a few strangers with the camaraderie we four had. At the station we parted our ways for the weekend and each headed home.
Sometime over the weekend the imperceptible shift happened. It might have happened coincident with a flash of light that might have been lightning or a quantum perturbation that sent me into a different world. The small differences were not readily discernable at first. There were hibiscus blossoms blooming in my front yard in Mid-August. The grass was greener or maybe I just thought so.
Monday I caught the train and quietly perused my email on the way into work. When I got back to the evening train and boarded at my usual spot, the wheelchair lift was already in place like they were actually expecting me. I got on and waited for the regular gang to arrive. The train lurched out of the station on time at 5:20 (a rare occurrence). I looked around and nobody I knew was there. Strangers populated Car 5 around me. They were self absorbed and silent. It was ominous and too quiet.
I had heard nothing of vacation or change of work schedules that would account for this change.
I turned to my BlackBerry and thumbed through the late day emails and Twitter messages that proliferate and collect there. At first I was confused. The most unlikely of facts became evident. Somehow, some way, the President of the United States was Black! Over the weekend I was transported into this reality where things are really different. In this reality John McCain didn't win over Hillary Clinton and a whole different Democrat candidate, an African-American from Hawaii or somewhere got enough electoral votes to be President. Wow! America is a hugely different country in this universe.
I spent the entire next day pouring over the Internet to see what all was different in this world. I haven't discovered exactly what it was that stopped it, but Israel hasn't bombed Iran, and a three-way hasn't taken place between Iraq, Israel and Iran. Only the US is fighting useless protracted war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Global financial markets did a meltdown during the Administration of George Bush's son! Son! I couldn't believe it. That man couldn't even talk straight. We made him President. Twice!
Well so many things are different in this reality. I suppose that I will have to get used to it being this way. Having seen what it is like in that other Universe, man have we gotten ourselves into some deep stuff.
When I arrived back at the evening train, there was the lift perfectly placed once again. I boarded and waited for the gang to arrive. 5:20 pm arrived and the train started out of the station with 4 of the 6 mezzanine seats still vacant. Two strangers sat across from me. Once we were underway, the 4 seats were taken by the people passing through from one end of the train to the other. No Car 5 Gang turned up. No messages from them lit up my BlackBerry. They all seem to have been left behind in that other universe.
Throughout the remainder of the week I came to realize just how many things remained the same. The train ran slow due to mechanical problems and other mysterious causes. WMATA scheduled the elevators at Union Station to be out of service for a three month renovation. If this were the universe I had come to know that elevator work would actually take six months and the escalators would be stopped at random intervals due to poor condition. I was beginning to wonder if this reality had a Princess Carly at all or a Big Bob, Trish, Mikey and all the other usual suspects. Maybe I will get shifted back to the old reality or an even better one.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Two Days on MARC and Metro
The last two days on MARC and Metro have been a true challenge even for the most seasoned of commuters. First the good news: For Candice it's going to be a girl. Well I guess it is already a girl, but the arrival is only imminent at that point in time.
Princess Carly gave her notice. She is heading to South Carolina to continue her education. Two weeks is all that remain for commuting for her. She claimed that she would not miss the MARC and Metro with all its delays and uncertainty. I told her, "you will miss it; every chance you get." It is so much like having ones own child head off to college. Her sunny disposition and honest naiveté all the while being a wild girl and The Princess will remain legendary in the chronicles of the Car 5 Gang. Although she will not be an intrepid commuter any longer, she will always be the Princess.
Mikey, suggested that Shelly might fill that position. Carly snapped back, "Oh, no no. There is only one Princess." I am afraid she is right. A farewell happy hour at the Center Café is scheduled for Friday the 13th (for everyone who remembers to not drive that day.)
The week was a nuisance every day but the snafus reached a climax by Thursday. Garage 1 at BWI reopened, the northbound platform work has not been completed, the northbound track replacement seems like it should have been done by now but hasn't and the second set of elevators to the pedestrian bridge are underway giving us all yet another bottleneck until the track work is done.
Thursday, an Acela train broke down at BWI and we got snagged behind three other MARC trains. How fortunate that Amtrak trains break down IN the stations while MARC trains breakdown between stations. Okay, that is an unfounded supposition, but that is the way is seems to us. 40 minutes late, we get out to face the bed bridge and the stairs.
Friday, the afternoon fubars began at Metro Center with the backlog of Red Line trains at 4:30. One needs to get going earlier and earlier as the quality of WMATA service suffers. After waiting 11 minutes for a crowd to amass on the platform, the train finally arrived well loaded with people who were not getting off at Metro Center. After a few did exit, we began the daily ritual of packing ourselves in as best as PM attitudes would permit.
We were treated to a particularly jerky ride and stops at Gallery Place and Judiciary Square. On our way to Union Station from Judiciary Square the operator made a particularly hard stop. Everyone was propelled forward as the train decelerated. With a collective reflexive step to keep from toppling the odor of cluster-fart wafted through the car. The vapors of a dozen lunch time selections filled the air. Nobody looked at anyone else hoping to avoid the uncomfortable position making eye contact after such an event.
We had a few regulars on the way home. The train crawled along behind several leading trains. There were no reports of breakdown but we still arrived 20 minutes late.
I was treated one again to the "rain on the train that falls mainly on the brain…" On the brain, that is, it I am leaning forward. Otherwise the ceiling mounted HVAC Condenser dribbles into my lap and hands when I try to catch it before I get soaked. Nobody knows exactly how rank and foul that water is after it has been backed up in the unit long enough for it to spill over and drench a passenger below. Sandy provided hand sanitizer to mitigate whatever might be lurking in that brew.
Ah, another week, come and gone.
Princess Carly gave her notice. She is heading to South Carolina to continue her education. Two weeks is all that remain for commuting for her. She claimed that she would not miss the MARC and Metro with all its delays and uncertainty. I told her, "you will miss it; every chance you get." It is so much like having ones own child head off to college. Her sunny disposition and honest naiveté all the while being a wild girl and The Princess will remain legendary in the chronicles of the Car 5 Gang. Although she will not be an intrepid commuter any longer, she will always be the Princess.
Mikey, suggested that Shelly might fill that position. Carly snapped back, "Oh, no no. There is only one Princess." I am afraid she is right. A farewell happy hour at the Center Café is scheduled for Friday the 13th (for everyone who remembers to not drive that day.)
The week was a nuisance every day but the snafus reached a climax by Thursday. Garage 1 at BWI reopened, the northbound platform work has not been completed, the northbound track replacement seems like it should have been done by now but hasn't and the second set of elevators to the pedestrian bridge are underway giving us all yet another bottleneck until the track work is done.
Thursday, an Acela train broke down at BWI and we got snagged behind three other MARC trains. How fortunate that Amtrak trains break down IN the stations while MARC trains breakdown between stations. Okay, that is an unfounded supposition, but that is the way is seems to us. 40 minutes late, we get out to face the bed bridge and the stairs.
Friday, the afternoon fubars began at Metro Center with the backlog of Red Line trains at 4:30. One needs to get going earlier and earlier as the quality of WMATA service suffers. After waiting 11 minutes for a crowd to amass on the platform, the train finally arrived well loaded with people who were not getting off at Metro Center. After a few did exit, we began the daily ritual of packing ourselves in as best as PM attitudes would permit.
We were treated to a particularly jerky ride and stops at Gallery Place and Judiciary Square. On our way to Union Station from Judiciary Square the operator made a particularly hard stop. Everyone was propelled forward as the train decelerated. With a collective reflexive step to keep from toppling the odor of cluster-fart wafted through the car. The vapors of a dozen lunch time selections filled the air. Nobody looked at anyone else hoping to avoid the uncomfortable position making eye contact after such an event.
We had a few regulars on the way home. The train crawled along behind several leading trains. There were no reports of breakdown but we still arrived 20 minutes late.
I was treated one again to the "rain on the train that falls mainly on the brain…" On the brain, that is, it I am leaning forward. Otherwise the ceiling mounted HVAC Condenser dribbles into my lap and hands when I try to catch it before I get soaked. Nobody knows exactly how rank and foul that water is after it has been backed up in the unit long enough for it to spill over and drench a passenger below. Sandy provided hand sanitizer to mitigate whatever might be lurking in that brew.
Ah, another week, come and gone.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
A Pair of Whammies and an Ace Kicker
It happens all too often. It seems to me that it happens more often just as I am getting ready to put the commute on hold for a few days while I travel on business. The correlation is uncanny and I have mentioned to several of the regular MARC conductors enough times that when something goes terribly wrong, one or another will ask if I am traveling again. It used to be a preponderance of incidents low platform arrivals at Union Station that occur when I am about to travel. Now the train that I ride in the morning so regularly arrives on 8 or 16 that the correlation has been made meaningless.
This doesn’t mean that other fubars don’t surface to fill the void. It was July 26, the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. This day will live in my memory as the day of A Pair of Whammies and an Ace Kicker.
First let me explain that the following day I was scheduled to fly to Alabama on company business and would be off the remainder of the week. We arrived on the 16 Track as recent normal would dictate. The manual lift was littered with trash that the conductor kicked to the curb, so to speak, and onto the track bed. Beads of sweat on his forehead formed into rivulets and dripped off his chin. As always, I thanked him for the service he provided and let him know that I was going to be away for the remainder of the week. He replied with, “ah, oh.” We both knew that something probably was in store for us.
I departed the office a few minutes early in order to stop by the ATM at the corner near the office. I would need a few dollars for the meals on the trip. When I arrived at the station, Dave, one of the station supervisors gave be the heads up for the 16 Track so that I could get aboard before the onslaught of the remaining 899 passengers. I got me vertical ride to the car floor level and backed into my usual spot. Soon others of the Gang filtered in. Sandy and Mikey arrived followed by George. Even Princess Carly arrived soon enough to get a seat. George got up for Shelly, who has been a new addition to the usual suspects. Mikey held his seat in case Candice arrived.
Billy and Andrew made their appearances and Susan too. We had a quorum and a peanut gallery of itinerants, those people who just happen to stop for an open seat.
The day had been one of those above 90 days where Amtrak promised cold water in the station and just water on the trains in case there was a problem. The HVAC cut out a minute or two before the train started moving. The Princess, sitting in her corner spot, said, “A least we are moving.” It could not have been more than 30 seconds before the train slowed to a stop. I gave Carly one of those sideways glances and expression of mock disgust.
We all waited for the announcement. They were going to get the on-site mechanic out to the locomotive to see about getting it restarted. We had only moved about 2 car lengths before the end came. They fiddled about for a few minutes before announcing that the train was dead and the run canceled. Remember the double whammy? Here it comes. The 6 o’clock departure would take on as many of us that would fit. Here it is. The 6 o’clock train is on Track 8.
Now I have to wait to get off after they drag the half dilapidated lift down to my new location AND I would need to wait again to get back on the replacement train. The Gang ran ahead and regrouped in the fifth car on the new trainset. While there were a few strangers already seated, Carly and Shelly got their relative positions again. While I waited for the lift to be brought along the platform, Sandy and George taunted me by holding cold beer cans up to the window. Although I would have to wait, I did know that a cold one would be waiting. Billy took the opportunity to stop by the station package store.
A round of cheers when up as I made my entrance. Even though the aisle was crowded, my usual spot had been preserved. The new fifth car was a “café car” with the alcove behind where I sit. I offered to pull in there if two people cared to sit. Billy declared, “no way, we fought hard to keep that seat up.” I didn’t argue. Soon enough I was cracking open the cold one that was handed across the aisle and along to me.
We waited until the scheduled departure of this train. As we lurched into motion I said to Carly, “don’t say a word.” She pursed her lips and kept quiet. We held our anticipation until we were fully out of the station.
One of the occasional guys who drops in on occasion got talking about how the heat breaks down the locomotives and that they knew that DC was hot in the summer. Why then didn’t they buy equipment that wasn’t as sensitive to the heat? Billy mentioned the catenary lines and how they sag when it is hot. Mikey added the phrase “the cat and the canary” from our previous raucous conversations.
I said that it was just like the railroad folks to underestimate the needs of the people that serve. After all they would prefer to be hauling freight. Bill questioned, “Why so negative, Bob? You are usually the optimist.”
Mikey quipped, “He’s SEEN the canary.” That brought up all the imminent failures we have experienced over the years. Susan brought up her fifteen years of MARC commuting and how even when it was bad in those “old days” it was not nearly so often.
The ride moved along reasonably fast up until we had to stop to allow the Acela to clear the BWI platform before we proceeded. I promised an “ace kicker.”
The train stopped with our car reasonably close to the stairwell. I jumped out and headed for the stairs like everyone else. Susan and I waited by the elevator for it to return to the lower level. A crowd of other anticipatory commuters hoped for a spot in the elevator. One of these days BWI station will have two elevators on both sides of the platform. For now though the single rickety units would have to suffice. We packed in and bore up under the extreme heat of 8 human bodies packed into an already hot 280 cubic foot box. When we arrived at the pedestrian bridge level, the kicker became manifest. The door failed to open. The buttons failed to prompt the door. The car would not move and the door did not open.
At least the emergency bell, for what it’s worth, rang out clearly. The emergency phone also dutifully dialed its prescribed number. No one answered. Maybe he or she was out for a smoke or a toilet break or maybe no one was there. We didn’t wait.
A woman asked the logical question, “can we open the door ourselves.” She also posed the associated one about how we would do it. Undoubtedly there was at least one person on the verge of freakout.
I said for those by the door to place the palms of their hands flat on the door and push left. With several intermittent pushes, the door mechanism clicked into place and it slowly slid open. In one big wave everyone was out the door. I quipped to myself that I would probably be the only one in the elevator on the other side. It was astute deductive reasoning. No one waited there to ride down.
Just as I was about to cross the bridge, Jill emerged from the stairwell and we walked over together. I related that we had just averted a major meltdown in the stuck elevator. “Really,” she pondered? “Yes, really. No one is waiting to ride down in this one.” It arrived at my call, Jill and I rode down together. There was no Ace to match the kicker.
Now my only travails will be the three As of flying that constantly are a problem to the traveler: Airlines, Airplanes and Airports. They are all equally good and equally bad each in their own ways. But THAT is another story.
This doesn’t mean that other fubars don’t surface to fill the void. It was July 26, the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. This day will live in my memory as the day of A Pair of Whammies and an Ace Kicker.
First let me explain that the following day I was scheduled to fly to Alabama on company business and would be off the remainder of the week. We arrived on the 16 Track as recent normal would dictate. The manual lift was littered with trash that the conductor kicked to the curb, so to speak, and onto the track bed. Beads of sweat on his forehead formed into rivulets and dripped off his chin. As always, I thanked him for the service he provided and let him know that I was going to be away for the remainder of the week. He replied with, “ah, oh.” We both knew that something probably was in store for us.
I departed the office a few minutes early in order to stop by the ATM at the corner near the office. I would need a few dollars for the meals on the trip. When I arrived at the station, Dave, one of the station supervisors gave be the heads up for the 16 Track so that I could get aboard before the onslaught of the remaining 899 passengers. I got me vertical ride to the car floor level and backed into my usual spot. Soon others of the Gang filtered in. Sandy and Mikey arrived followed by George. Even Princess Carly arrived soon enough to get a seat. George got up for Shelly, who has been a new addition to the usual suspects. Mikey held his seat in case Candice arrived.
Billy and Andrew made their appearances and Susan too. We had a quorum and a peanut gallery of itinerants, those people who just happen to stop for an open seat.
The day had been one of those above 90 days where Amtrak promised cold water in the station and just water on the trains in case there was a problem. The HVAC cut out a minute or two before the train started moving. The Princess, sitting in her corner spot, said, “A least we are moving.” It could not have been more than 30 seconds before the train slowed to a stop. I gave Carly one of those sideways glances and expression of mock disgust.
We all waited for the announcement. They were going to get the on-site mechanic out to the locomotive to see about getting it restarted. We had only moved about 2 car lengths before the end came. They fiddled about for a few minutes before announcing that the train was dead and the run canceled. Remember the double whammy? Here it comes. The 6 o’clock departure would take on as many of us that would fit. Here it is. The 6 o’clock train is on Track 8.
Now I have to wait to get off after they drag the half dilapidated lift down to my new location AND I would need to wait again to get back on the replacement train. The Gang ran ahead and regrouped in the fifth car on the new trainset. While there were a few strangers already seated, Carly and Shelly got their relative positions again. While I waited for the lift to be brought along the platform, Sandy and George taunted me by holding cold beer cans up to the window. Although I would have to wait, I did know that a cold one would be waiting. Billy took the opportunity to stop by the station package store.
A round of cheers when up as I made my entrance. Even though the aisle was crowded, my usual spot had been preserved. The new fifth car was a “café car” with the alcove behind where I sit. I offered to pull in there if two people cared to sit. Billy declared, “no way, we fought hard to keep that seat up.” I didn’t argue. Soon enough I was cracking open the cold one that was handed across the aisle and along to me.
We waited until the scheduled departure of this train. As we lurched into motion I said to Carly, “don’t say a word.” She pursed her lips and kept quiet. We held our anticipation until we were fully out of the station.
One of the occasional guys who drops in on occasion got talking about how the heat breaks down the locomotives and that they knew that DC was hot in the summer. Why then didn’t they buy equipment that wasn’t as sensitive to the heat? Billy mentioned the catenary lines and how they sag when it is hot. Mikey added the phrase “the cat and the canary” from our previous raucous conversations.
I said that it was just like the railroad folks to underestimate the needs of the people that serve. After all they would prefer to be hauling freight. Bill questioned, “Why so negative, Bob? You are usually the optimist.”
Mikey quipped, “He’s SEEN the canary.” That brought up all the imminent failures we have experienced over the years. Susan brought up her fifteen years of MARC commuting and how even when it was bad in those “old days” it was not nearly so often.
The ride moved along reasonably fast up until we had to stop to allow the Acela to clear the BWI platform before we proceeded. I promised an “ace kicker.”
The train stopped with our car reasonably close to the stairwell. I jumped out and headed for the stairs like everyone else. Susan and I waited by the elevator for it to return to the lower level. A crowd of other anticipatory commuters hoped for a spot in the elevator. One of these days BWI station will have two elevators on both sides of the platform. For now though the single rickety units would have to suffice. We packed in and bore up under the extreme heat of 8 human bodies packed into an already hot 280 cubic foot box. When we arrived at the pedestrian bridge level, the kicker became manifest. The door failed to open. The buttons failed to prompt the door. The car would not move and the door did not open.
At least the emergency bell, for what it’s worth, rang out clearly. The emergency phone also dutifully dialed its prescribed number. No one answered. Maybe he or she was out for a smoke or a toilet break or maybe no one was there. We didn’t wait.
A woman asked the logical question, “can we open the door ourselves.” She also posed the associated one about how we would do it. Undoubtedly there was at least one person on the verge of freakout.
I said for those by the door to place the palms of their hands flat on the door and push left. With several intermittent pushes, the door mechanism clicked into place and it slowly slid open. In one big wave everyone was out the door. I quipped to myself that I would probably be the only one in the elevator on the other side. It was astute deductive reasoning. No one waited there to ride down.
Just as I was about to cross the bridge, Jill emerged from the stairwell and we walked over together. I related that we had just averted a major meltdown in the stuck elevator. “Really,” she pondered? “Yes, really. No one is waiting to ride down in this one.” It arrived at my call, Jill and I rode down together. There was no Ace to match the kicker.
Now my only travails will be the three As of flying that constantly are a problem to the traveler: Airlines, Airplanes and Airports. They are all equally good and equally bad each in their own ways. But THAT is another story.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Yet Another Way to Have a Delayed Commute
Every day there is something else or a familiar cause of delay. As of late, the morning train that I use has been arriving on Track 8. Even when I caught a later train after a planned late ride home the night before, there we were being assigned to Track 8. For anyone who doesn't count the track locations, Track 8 along with #15 and #16 are low level boarding locations. The architects and railroad managers decided that when they remodeled the Great Hall at Union Station and added a multi-level parking structure behind the old station that the trains and their passengers would take secondary status. Actually there is a match to the Track 8 location that is likewise low level boarding but it is rarely used for daily commuter trains. These two pairs of tracks allow Amtrak and maintenance crews to drive their baggage and service tugs in and out of the station.
When there are several arriving or departing passenger trains is not the time to be moving supplies and equipment along the boarding platforms. This has never stopped them from trying. Of course the movement of equipment along the platforms is not without its other negatives. Garbage and trash are hauled in and out along those same walkways dripping their fermented brew on the crumbling concrete and asphalt. That brings up the state of deterioration of the walkway themselves.
Back in 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act promulgated accessibility regulations that included measures that were supposed to assure that persons who are blind or visually impaired could detect the edge of the raised platforms and know where the pedestrian paths and vehicle paths cross. Amtrak and the Union Station management opted to install the "yellow bumpy dots" that were the required minimum. These bright yellow plastic plates were riveted to the subsurface after the pavement was milled down a quarter of an inch to assure a smooth transition. With years wear from driving the station equipment over the plastic, they are both heavily soiled with grease and extensively broken. The smell of garbage and the poor condition of the walking surfaces testifies to the status of the commuter and passengers of the three railroads that utilize the station.
The character of the 7/8 and 15/16 track pairs is significant because anywhere from 600 to 900 passengers per train must climb and descend the steps of the train when the train is scheduled on those tracks. Most people are only marginally inconvenienced by those arrival locations. There are many people whose knees, ankles and hips do not fair well especially when descending and making that last step down to the pavement. Couple that with the poor conditions of the platform edges and damaged yellow detectable warnings, and you get a significant financial liability and risk of passenger injury.
The most inconvenienced of commuters are the persons who use wheelchairs who must wait until one of the train or station crew members drags a corroded dirty trash strewn aluminum lift along that cluttered broken pavement to the train car door when one waits until the accessibility equipment is properly positioned and ready to board or disembark the passenger. I describe this point of view from my perch on a wheelchair waiting by the doorway to enter or exit these trains.
Now to be fair, the conductors do not make track assignments. They do not maintain the station or the lift equipment. Although sometimes they get busy with other passenger assistance or forget that I am waiting, they do an excellent job of handling the accessibility of their trains. For those times they all have my forgiveness.
July 22, 2010 yet another cause of delay can be written into the log book. When we arrived at about 4:45 in the evening we discovered that due to "a police action" tracks 7 through 11 were closed ant out of service. No trains were being allowed to enter the station on those tracks. Furthermore, the trains already parked on those track in the station were not being allowed to leave.
I was about to suggest to Sandy that we go to the Center Café and wait out the delay when one of the station crew called me over to the MARC desk. They had just opened access to Track 13 and we were going to be able to leave. Sandy got separated from me when I stopped to talk with one of our regular conductors.
"You put her up to this didn't you?" he said. I didn't know what he was referring to but I played into the gig.
"Well, somebody had to," I said.
"You just didn't want to be on track 8 again."
"I never do, but I have to deal with it, don't I?"
I got to the usual Car 5 location where Larry already was situated and Sandy had just arrived ahead of me. "So you decided to not jump, huh, Sandy," I said cryptically. She did not know what I was talking about. I got the change to recycle the comment when Trish arrived. She too was not getting my sarcasm.
Sam knew. His office window overlooks the Union Station parking structure. He related the news that a woman was on the edge at the top threatening to jump while the police held back and negotiated.
I said that it is good that MARC riders are mostly a mellow lot because if anyone had a reason to want to jump off the garage, it was us. We put up with a lot of crap nearly everyday. The difference is that we are just angry enough to "have nothing better to do then write letters of complaint."
We put up with nearly continuous construction of both boarding platforms at BWI, the alternately partial then complete closure of one garage and partial reopening, the elevators out of service, the cross station arrival each evening with the steep narrow stairwell to the pedestrian bridge. This work has stretched on for over three years now. If anyone was going to snap, they would have done it by now. If everyone who had good cause to snap did, we would have felt an earthquake much bigger than our July 16th 3.6 one in Gaithersburg.
When there are several arriving or departing passenger trains is not the time to be moving supplies and equipment along the boarding platforms. This has never stopped them from trying. Of course the movement of equipment along the platforms is not without its other negatives. Garbage and trash are hauled in and out along those same walkways dripping their fermented brew on the crumbling concrete and asphalt. That brings up the state of deterioration of the walkway themselves.
Back in 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act promulgated accessibility regulations that included measures that were supposed to assure that persons who are blind or visually impaired could detect the edge of the raised platforms and know where the pedestrian paths and vehicle paths cross. Amtrak and the Union Station management opted to install the "yellow bumpy dots" that were the required minimum. These bright yellow plastic plates were riveted to the subsurface after the pavement was milled down a quarter of an inch to assure a smooth transition. With years wear from driving the station equipment over the plastic, they are both heavily soiled with grease and extensively broken. The smell of garbage and the poor condition of the walking surfaces testifies to the status of the commuter and passengers of the three railroads that utilize the station.
The character of the 7/8 and 15/16 track pairs is significant because anywhere from 600 to 900 passengers per train must climb and descend the steps of the train when the train is scheduled on those tracks. Most people are only marginally inconvenienced by those arrival locations. There are many people whose knees, ankles and hips do not fair well especially when descending and making that last step down to the pavement. Couple that with the poor conditions of the platform edges and damaged yellow detectable warnings, and you get a significant financial liability and risk of passenger injury.
The most inconvenienced of commuters are the persons who use wheelchairs who must wait until one of the train or station crew members drags a corroded dirty trash strewn aluminum lift along that cluttered broken pavement to the train car door when one waits until the accessibility equipment is properly positioned and ready to board or disembark the passenger. I describe this point of view from my perch on a wheelchair waiting by the doorway to enter or exit these trains.
Now to be fair, the conductors do not make track assignments. They do not maintain the station or the lift equipment. Although sometimes they get busy with other passenger assistance or forget that I am waiting, they do an excellent job of handling the accessibility of their trains. For those times they all have my forgiveness.
July 22, 2010 yet another cause of delay can be written into the log book. When we arrived at about 4:45 in the evening we discovered that due to "a police action" tracks 7 through 11 were closed ant out of service. No trains were being allowed to enter the station on those tracks. Furthermore, the trains already parked on those track in the station were not being allowed to leave.
I was about to suggest to Sandy that we go to the Center Café and wait out the delay when one of the station crew called me over to the MARC desk. They had just opened access to Track 13 and we were going to be able to leave. Sandy got separated from me when I stopped to talk with one of our regular conductors.
"You put her up to this didn't you?" he said. I didn't know what he was referring to but I played into the gig.
"Well, somebody had to," I said.
"You just didn't want to be on track 8 again."
"I never do, but I have to deal with it, don't I?"
I got to the usual Car 5 location where Larry already was situated and Sandy had just arrived ahead of me. "So you decided to not jump, huh, Sandy," I said cryptically. She did not know what I was talking about. I got the change to recycle the comment when Trish arrived. She too was not getting my sarcasm.
Sam knew. His office window overlooks the Union Station parking structure. He related the news that a woman was on the edge at the top threatening to jump while the police held back and negotiated.
I said that it is good that MARC riders are mostly a mellow lot because if anyone had a reason to want to jump off the garage, it was us. We put up with a lot of crap nearly everyday. The difference is that we are just angry enough to "have nothing better to do then write letters of complaint."
We put up with nearly continuous construction of both boarding platforms at BWI, the alternately partial then complete closure of one garage and partial reopening, the elevators out of service, the cross station arrival each evening with the steep narrow stairwell to the pedestrian bridge. This work has stretched on for over three years now. If anyone was going to snap, they would have done it by now. If everyone who had good cause to snap did, we would have felt an earthquake much bigger than our July 16th 3.6 one in Gaithersburg.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
The Adventure of Commuting
Recently, my oft posed question has been: When did commuting to work become an adventure? Wasn’t the stereotype of the commute a long boring drudgery that had to be endured in order to match ones household expenses to ones income. Or it was a necessity for having access to suburban schools while still holding down that urban managerial job where you had worked your way up from peon to harried middle-manager. Whatever the reason for the long trip, one had to drive alone on what is euphemistically called an “Expressway” or sit in a bus in the same traffic are the motorists or read the morning newspaper while cruising along the tracks on a commuter train.
When I relocated my career to DC in 1994 while still living in my house on the cul-de-sac in Baltimore, the daily repetition was quite ordinary and indeed boring. I had to meet the train on a crumbling platform in a swampy valley near the BWI airport. The station there already showed signed of its age even though it was not quite 15 years old. The bloom was off its flower even then, but the station as a whole was still quite functional. The two elevators that made crossing over the three tracks worked every day and there was little need to consider what I would do should there be an outage. My wheelchair doesn’t do steps very well but it goes down a flight far better than up one.
On February 22, 2000 the MTA inaugurated the bi-level train car service and announced the intent of doubling MARC ridership by 2020. That was a noble endeavor but one that was more marketing and pronouncement than substance. Ridership did however increase with the advent of the larger capacity cars. At an average of 132 seats per can there was comfortable room for more passengers. Fortunately there was also more standing room for the additional commuters who would be seeking transport into DC each day. The total number of trains each day remained constant on the Penn Line and space was at a premium almost from the start, even on a normal day.
Soon the parking lots at three of the busiest stations were filled and reached capacity earlier in the morning. Halethorpe, BWI and Odenton each reached capacity in a rotation mostly determined by the construction schedules of additional space and the fees that were charged at BWI where they constructed first one garage then a second one. Walking distances at Halethorpe and Odenton reach as long as 0.6 miles from the farpoint to the boarding zones. This long walk is an inconvenience but doesn’t not deter the commuters as a whole. There is a significant amount of ‘churn’ in the overall ridership. When a new rider sees the crowded conditions and challenges of parking and the regular delays of service, they drop out and someone else fills their place. One doesn’t need to be a masochist to commute on MARC, but it certainly helps. I say that with all due respect to MARC personnel who are the front line interface between riders and the operations and themselves must have masochistic tendencies in order to put up with the daily guff that several thousand people can present.
The MTA intent coupled with the economics of $4 gasoline conspired to raise the level of ridership to unprecedented levels. They added a ninth car to some trains because there is a fixed number of parking slots for trains at the terminus in DC. More and heavier cars loaded with 132 seated people and sometimes another 20 to 40 standees, taxed the capacities of the locomotives that were sized and purchased at a time when there were fewer and smaller cars in the set. One an occasional basis the additional weight could be handled by the exiting tracktive effort of the equipment. That ability to manage the additional load may have been possible when the equipment was new, but after a decade and longer, the motors just cannot work reliably every run every day. MARC is the victim of its own success and lack of ability to respond to age and capacity demands. This all is cold comfort to the 900 plus riders who were stranded in sweltering heat on May 21, 2010 when the locomotive that pulled them homeward failed between stations for the ‘um-teenth’ time.
But all of that is not what I am writing about today. There are ancillary equipment and services that are just as essential to commuting as getting a seat on a crowded train and having a locomotive successfully pull it to all the stations in a reasonable on-time manner.
Union Station has 4 tracks on the lower level which do not board from high-level platforms. On the upper level where most MARC commuters are familiar, there are three such tracks without high-level platforms for boarding the trains. To most riders climbing the steps is a perfunctory exercise that is accomplished without must thought. But then there are those passengers who are marginal at best with their abilities to walk and climb steps. Such people actually have a more difficult time going down the steps than up because of the last big step and the affects of momentum as their body mass continues to move pursuant to Newton’s Law’s of gravitational forces. Ten there are the riders such as myself who use wheelchairs and are completely dependent on the train crews and the lift equipment to board and alight a train when the high-level platforms are not scheduled for the train.
The need for such lift equipment is a necessary part of the realities of a station that has a higher need for moving luggage and supplies around than for ease of passenger boarding. Elevators are necessary where passengers must cross over tracks. This is a fact. The issue is the collateral deterioration of these ancillary systems. The wheelchair lifts and elevators are getting older too and are in a state of decline just like the locomotives and rail cars. All are necessary for the successful operation of a passenger railroad.
During the last two weeks period of June when the locomotives failed and an engineer blew passed the Odenton Station there were multiple incidents of passengers being diverted and delayed due to the ancillary equipment and scheduling failures.
One evening the conductor stopped back at my location as we prepared for arrival at BWI. He reported that the elevator was broken and I could not cross the tracks to the garage. The Plan B solution was to continue on to Penn Station and take the next train back to BWI. This entails an extra hour of travel in order to get 30 feet across the tracks to the other side. A week later that scenario was repeated on July 2 except that no one on the train knew that the elevator was positioned between levels while a technician was troubleshooting why it did not work. Faced with another unscheduled trip to Penn Station, I negotiated a solution with the Tech. He could make it run in manual mode by riding along and communicating with his partner in the well beneath the car.
All of these snafus took place during one of the worst weeks for MARC commuters that included three out of 5 days on low-level tracks, a major breakdown, a station blow-by, a meet the managers meeting where the managers were 35 minute late, two minor locomotive failures, two elevator outages.
This is one week in the life of a MARC commuter. Other events in the past year involve the extended commute that involves driving to the parking lot, and talking WMATA to ones final destination. Metro has its share of the exact same infrastructure deficiencies. I have lost count of the elevator and escalator failures that have impacted arriving at work and catching the evening MARC back home. The trains are the primary mode of transport, but getting into and out of the stations counts as part of the experience. Those experiences constitute the adventure I alluded to at the beginning of this story.
There was the fatal crash that claimed 9 lives a year ago. There is the dropped collector shoe that set off electrical explosions in the tunnel by Judiciary Square in October 2009. There are the innumerable service disruptions that took place in that year since that fatal crash. All events add to the notion that commuting has become a life and limb adventure. Not one of these situations is related to terrorist or even alleged terrorist activities. Commuting is quite enough excitement without the addition of the intrigue of bad actors trying to make it worse.
When I relocated my career to DC in 1994 while still living in my house on the cul-de-sac in Baltimore, the daily repetition was quite ordinary and indeed boring. I had to meet the train on a crumbling platform in a swampy valley near the BWI airport. The station there already showed signed of its age even though it was not quite 15 years old. The bloom was off its flower even then, but the station as a whole was still quite functional. The two elevators that made crossing over the three tracks worked every day and there was little need to consider what I would do should there be an outage. My wheelchair doesn’t do steps very well but it goes down a flight far better than up one.
On February 22, 2000 the MTA inaugurated the bi-level train car service and announced the intent of doubling MARC ridership by 2020. That was a noble endeavor but one that was more marketing and pronouncement than substance. Ridership did however increase with the advent of the larger capacity cars. At an average of 132 seats per can there was comfortable room for more passengers. Fortunately there was also more standing room for the additional commuters who would be seeking transport into DC each day. The total number of trains each day remained constant on the Penn Line and space was at a premium almost from the start, even on a normal day.
Soon the parking lots at three of the busiest stations were filled and reached capacity earlier in the morning. Halethorpe, BWI and Odenton each reached capacity in a rotation mostly determined by the construction schedules of additional space and the fees that were charged at BWI where they constructed first one garage then a second one. Walking distances at Halethorpe and Odenton reach as long as 0.6 miles from the farpoint to the boarding zones. This long walk is an inconvenience but doesn’t not deter the commuters as a whole. There is a significant amount of ‘churn’ in the overall ridership. When a new rider sees the crowded conditions and challenges of parking and the regular delays of service, they drop out and someone else fills their place. One doesn’t need to be a masochist to commute on MARC, but it certainly helps. I say that with all due respect to MARC personnel who are the front line interface between riders and the operations and themselves must have masochistic tendencies in order to put up with the daily guff that several thousand people can present.
The MTA intent coupled with the economics of $4 gasoline conspired to raise the level of ridership to unprecedented levels. They added a ninth car to some trains because there is a fixed number of parking slots for trains at the terminus in DC. More and heavier cars loaded with 132 seated people and sometimes another 20 to 40 standees, taxed the capacities of the locomotives that were sized and purchased at a time when there were fewer and smaller cars in the set. One an occasional basis the additional weight could be handled by the exiting tracktive effort of the equipment. That ability to manage the additional load may have been possible when the equipment was new, but after a decade and longer, the motors just cannot work reliably every run every day. MARC is the victim of its own success and lack of ability to respond to age and capacity demands. This all is cold comfort to the 900 plus riders who were stranded in sweltering heat on May 21, 2010 when the locomotive that pulled them homeward failed between stations for the ‘um-teenth’ time.
But all of that is not what I am writing about today. There are ancillary equipment and services that are just as essential to commuting as getting a seat on a crowded train and having a locomotive successfully pull it to all the stations in a reasonable on-time manner.
Union Station has 4 tracks on the lower level which do not board from high-level platforms. On the upper level where most MARC commuters are familiar, there are three such tracks without high-level platforms for boarding the trains. To most riders climbing the steps is a perfunctory exercise that is accomplished without must thought. But then there are those passengers who are marginal at best with their abilities to walk and climb steps. Such people actually have a more difficult time going down the steps than up because of the last big step and the affects of momentum as their body mass continues to move pursuant to Newton’s Law’s of gravitational forces. Ten there are the riders such as myself who use wheelchairs and are completely dependent on the train crews and the lift equipment to board and alight a train when the high-level platforms are not scheduled for the train.
The need for such lift equipment is a necessary part of the realities of a station that has a higher need for moving luggage and supplies around than for ease of passenger boarding. Elevators are necessary where passengers must cross over tracks. This is a fact. The issue is the collateral deterioration of these ancillary systems. The wheelchair lifts and elevators are getting older too and are in a state of decline just like the locomotives and rail cars. All are necessary for the successful operation of a passenger railroad.
During the last two weeks period of June when the locomotives failed and an engineer blew passed the Odenton Station there were multiple incidents of passengers being diverted and delayed due to the ancillary equipment and scheduling failures.
One evening the conductor stopped back at my location as we prepared for arrival at BWI. He reported that the elevator was broken and I could not cross the tracks to the garage. The Plan B solution was to continue on to Penn Station and take the next train back to BWI. This entails an extra hour of travel in order to get 30 feet across the tracks to the other side. A week later that scenario was repeated on July 2 except that no one on the train knew that the elevator was positioned between levels while a technician was troubleshooting why it did not work. Faced with another unscheduled trip to Penn Station, I negotiated a solution with the Tech. He could make it run in manual mode by riding along and communicating with his partner in the well beneath the car.
All of these snafus took place during one of the worst weeks for MARC commuters that included three out of 5 days on low-level tracks, a major breakdown, a station blow-by, a meet the managers meeting where the managers were 35 minute late, two minor locomotive failures, two elevator outages.
This is one week in the life of a MARC commuter. Other events in the past year involve the extended commute that involves driving to the parking lot, and talking WMATA to ones final destination. Metro has its share of the exact same infrastructure deficiencies. I have lost count of the elevator and escalator failures that have impacted arriving at work and catching the evening MARC back home. The trains are the primary mode of transport, but getting into and out of the stations counts as part of the experience. Those experiences constitute the adventure I alluded to at the beginning of this story.
There was the fatal crash that claimed 9 lives a year ago. There is the dropped collector shoe that set off electrical explosions in the tunnel by Judiciary Square in October 2009. There are the innumerable service disruptions that took place in that year since that fatal crash. All events add to the notion that commuting has become a life and limb adventure. Not one of these situations is related to terrorist or even alleged terrorist activities. Commuting is quite enough excitement without the addition of the intrigue of bad actors trying to make it worse.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
It’s Been a Bad Month for MARC and its Riders
It’s been a bad month for MARC and its riders. First, age and decay has taken their toll on the conditions of the locomotives, the cars and the track infrastructure. Second, the high temperatures of June pushed the system over the edge. Third, the chronic lack of managerial planning for known deficiencies has lead to a repeat of the long ago breakdown that stranded many hundreds of passengers in sweltering heat inside unpowered cars on the Northeast Corridor between Washington, DC and Baltimore.
In that years ago incident, passengers waited in darkened cars without functioning HVAC and, water or any way to mitigate the situation. There was no way that is until they took it upon themselves to remove emergency exit window panels to get what little ventilation could be had in the dead air of mid-summer. The restroom cars were a relief for a short time until they filled to their capacity and stopped functioning.
The temperature continued to climb while the railroad personnel tried everything they could to restart the locomotive or hook up a replacement motor and pull the train back to Union Station. When the breakdown stretched into second hour, some people saw the open window frames as a means of egress. They climbed out onto the track bed where the conditions were not much better. The sun blazes down on the steel rails, gravel ballast making an efficient furnace on the ground. Some of the more energetic commuters just walked away, preferring to implement their own personal Plan B.
After that event, the MARC management said that they would have a better emergency response plan before the next time. The next time? In the months since that fateful day there have been dozens of times that faulty locomotives, ruptured brake line, wonky circuit-breakers have delayed departures or initiated mid-station breakdowns. All of these events have been the warning signs of the imminent collapse of this commuter rail system.
June 21, 2010. The much anticipated unexpected breakdown came. Train 538 departing Union Station at 5:34 came to a stop between stations and sat there with locked brakes. The automatic braking system did its job when the locomotive lost power. The problem was that the system would not disengage and the rescue locomotive dispatched to assist and bring the train back to DC was unable to do so. This is where a well conceived Plan B would have been quite helpful. Conductors would have made periodic accurate announcements and they would have opened the storage compartments and distributed the water to everyone who needed it. The trouble was there was no accurate information to announce and no water to distribute.
So much for Plan B.
The next day there was another breakdown on a train departing at 4:15 from DC. They were lucky. The delay was short and the events unremarkable.
Tuesday the following week the engineer of Train 538 forgot that he was supposed to stop at Odenton Station. In what is euphemistically referred to as a “blowby” the train kept going on to BWI where the passengers who wanted to get off at Odenton had to wait on an Acela to take them back. In a related event, the train I was on in the morning of July 1, over shot the Bowie State platform by two extra car lengths. Our conductor jokingly said “we’re off the platform but at least we still have a few cars on,” as he hurried by to get to the doors that he could open.
MARC and Amtrak managers had a “Meet the Managers” session set up for June 30, at 4:30 in the Gate C area of Union Station. In an ironic move, they were all 35 minutes late. One long time rider comments, “There were on MARC time.” After that meeting, the train crews must have had a meeting where they got a bug in their trowsers or something.
On the 5:20 train Lash Larue called an unscheduled stop north of Odenton and just out of BWI because several passengers had moved pre-maturely into the vestibule on at least one car. He was only able to see one vestibule before he authorized the stop. Lash came through our car to inspect another vestibule on the other end of our Car 5. His PA announcement clearly informed everyone that we were stopping because a few passengers were in the vestibule and the train was stopping because THAT was a safety hazard. Good move, Lash. We are all better off when people don’t crowd the vestibule even though they backlog the aisle and stairwells up and down. If we hadn’t already been running late, there would not be as much anxiety about getting off the train and out of the garages. That raises items Four and Five, but that will have to wait.
Lash Larue made an off the cuff remark as he breezed by to the other end of the car. “Bob, it’s your friends that did this.” The Gang who was there looked at me and I wagged my finger back at them. Larry said, “I didn’t know you had friends in other cars too.” I told him there more friends than there were seated in our end of the car.
It was a power move, and we were under way in a minute or two. It is ironic that an unscheduled stoppage of the train is far more hazardous than a few people standing in the vestibules. Instead of a half dozen people at risk of being crushed if the train suddenly struck an immovable barrier, 900 plus people were at risk of being stranded a couple of hundred yards from the safety of the BWI platform if the locomotive should fail or the brakes decided to not release. We wondered if the corridor dispatcher knew about the unscheduled stop before it was implemented.
Now Four and Five. Four, the northbound platform has been under reconstruction of over a year so there is a large gap between the two ends. Trains can only access the shorter north end portion. Amtrak is overhauling the northbound track and sleepers so our evening train are using the southbound side because the entire train can offload at once there. This means about 400 BWI commuters must trek the stairs up and across then down the other side. It’s a big irritating inconvenience for everyone and an impossibility when the elevators are out-of-service when one uses a wheelchair.
Five, half of Garage 1 is closed while they finish the repair to the structure and clean up. Everyone temporarily must exit through Garage 2 and half as many exit lanes. Somewhere back there in time, commuting became an adventure, or a mis-adventure if you prefer.
In that years ago incident, passengers waited in darkened cars without functioning HVAC and, water or any way to mitigate the situation. There was no way that is until they took it upon themselves to remove emergency exit window panels to get what little ventilation could be had in the dead air of mid-summer. The restroom cars were a relief for a short time until they filled to their capacity and stopped functioning.
The temperature continued to climb while the railroad personnel tried everything they could to restart the locomotive or hook up a replacement motor and pull the train back to Union Station. When the breakdown stretched into second hour, some people saw the open window frames as a means of egress. They climbed out onto the track bed where the conditions were not much better. The sun blazes down on the steel rails, gravel ballast making an efficient furnace on the ground. Some of the more energetic commuters just walked away, preferring to implement their own personal Plan B.
After that event, the MARC management said that they would have a better emergency response plan before the next time. The next time? In the months since that fateful day there have been dozens of times that faulty locomotives, ruptured brake line, wonky circuit-breakers have delayed departures or initiated mid-station breakdowns. All of these events have been the warning signs of the imminent collapse of this commuter rail system.
June 21, 2010. The much anticipated unexpected breakdown came. Train 538 departing Union Station at 5:34 came to a stop between stations and sat there with locked brakes. The automatic braking system did its job when the locomotive lost power. The problem was that the system would not disengage and the rescue locomotive dispatched to assist and bring the train back to DC was unable to do so. This is where a well conceived Plan B would have been quite helpful. Conductors would have made periodic accurate announcements and they would have opened the storage compartments and distributed the water to everyone who needed it. The trouble was there was no accurate information to announce and no water to distribute.
So much for Plan B.
The next day there was another breakdown on a train departing at 4:15 from DC. They were lucky. The delay was short and the events unremarkable.
Tuesday the following week the engineer of Train 538 forgot that he was supposed to stop at Odenton Station. In what is euphemistically referred to as a “blowby” the train kept going on to BWI where the passengers who wanted to get off at Odenton had to wait on an Acela to take them back. In a related event, the train I was on in the morning of July 1, over shot the Bowie State platform by two extra car lengths. Our conductor jokingly said “we’re off the platform but at least we still have a few cars on,” as he hurried by to get to the doors that he could open.
MARC and Amtrak managers had a “Meet the Managers” session set up for June 30, at 4:30 in the Gate C area of Union Station. In an ironic move, they were all 35 minutes late. One long time rider comments, “There were on MARC time.” After that meeting, the train crews must have had a meeting where they got a bug in their trowsers or something.
On the 5:20 train Lash Larue called an unscheduled stop north of Odenton and just out of BWI because several passengers had moved pre-maturely into the vestibule on at least one car. He was only able to see one vestibule before he authorized the stop. Lash came through our car to inspect another vestibule on the other end of our Car 5. His PA announcement clearly informed everyone that we were stopping because a few passengers were in the vestibule and the train was stopping because THAT was a safety hazard. Good move, Lash. We are all better off when people don’t crowd the vestibule even though they backlog the aisle and stairwells up and down. If we hadn’t already been running late, there would not be as much anxiety about getting off the train and out of the garages. That raises items Four and Five, but that will have to wait.
Lash Larue made an off the cuff remark as he breezed by to the other end of the car. “Bob, it’s your friends that did this.” The Gang who was there looked at me and I wagged my finger back at them. Larry said, “I didn’t know you had friends in other cars too.” I told him there more friends than there were seated in our end of the car.
It was a power move, and we were under way in a minute or two. It is ironic that an unscheduled stoppage of the train is far more hazardous than a few people standing in the vestibules. Instead of a half dozen people at risk of being crushed if the train suddenly struck an immovable barrier, 900 plus people were at risk of being stranded a couple of hundred yards from the safety of the BWI platform if the locomotive should fail or the brakes decided to not release. We wondered if the corridor dispatcher knew about the unscheduled stop before it was implemented.
Now Four and Five. Four, the northbound platform has been under reconstruction of over a year so there is a large gap between the two ends. Trains can only access the shorter north end portion. Amtrak is overhauling the northbound track and sleepers so our evening train are using the southbound side because the entire train can offload at once there. This means about 400 BWI commuters must trek the stairs up and across then down the other side. It’s a big irritating inconvenience for everyone and an impossibility when the elevators are out-of-service when one uses a wheelchair.
Five, half of Garage 1 is closed while they finish the repair to the structure and clean up. Everyone temporarily must exit through Garage 2 and half as many exit lanes. Somewhere back there in time, commuting became an adventure, or a mis-adventure if you prefer.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
So Where IS Plan B?
I have commuted between BWI Rail station and Union Station for 16 year. I've seen the best service and the worst service events in that time. Mechanical failures are inevitable. They are related to equipment age and funding issues. The bigger failures are always the ones that are compounded when company management fails to appreciate the gravity of the situations they allow to take place by their short-sighted responses and lack of timely information. There is no excuse for a poor or non-existent plan.
Several years ago, I was fortunate to not be commuting on the MARC Penn Line on the occasion of a mid-summer breakdown that lasted several hours. The train was stalled on the tracks between stations and a rescue locomotive was dispatched but the entire ordeal lasted the several hours in the afternoon heat that caused several passengers to experience medical emergencies. It was only my work travel schedule that had me elsewhere on that fateful day.
Stalled without power, the HVAC systems were not functioning and the interior temperatures of the bi-level cars climbed over 100 degrees. A lack of useful information and emergency planning by the MTA management and staff left passengers to fend for themselves. People in each can took it upon themselves to remove the emergency exit window panel in order to create some level of ventilation. Even with the windows out the stifling heat prompted some passengers to climb out on to the track bed to get away. Many walked over the berm and found their own way home at the end of a very bad ride.
After that incident, the MTA furnished promises that they would handle any future such events with more competent response. One of the plan elements was a supply of emergency bottled water. Fast forward to May 28, 2010. Again I was fortunate to be on company travel and not on the stalled train. The evening express train, 435, leaving Union Station experienced mechanical troubles just south of the New Carrollton station and was pushed back to DC for a different locomotive. That incident did get handles in an expedient manner and the passenger, though delayed and irritated, were not left stranded in dangerous heat conditions.
June 21, 2010, the 5:38 departure from Union Station with a full consignment of 900 passengers left the station only to become stranded by a stalled locomotive between stations. This time the braking systems became locked and the rescue locomotive could not move the train. These 900 passengers were stranded inside the aluminum cars once again. If one thinks that emergency water was available in June, that person would have been wrong. There were many opportunities for the management to load the water supplies aboard the train, but did not do it. There are several allocated cars on MARC Trains that are called Café Cars. In those cars there is a compartment large enough for many dozens water bottles. An interesting observation I made on June 23, is that there was a new nylon tie sealing the door of the Café compartment with the date 6-23-10 inscribed on it. I suspect that just maybe there is a supply of bottled water in there for the next time the train breaks down in the afternoon DC heat.
Several years ago, I was fortunate to not be commuting on the MARC Penn Line on the occasion of a mid-summer breakdown that lasted several hours. The train was stalled on the tracks between stations and a rescue locomotive was dispatched but the entire ordeal lasted the several hours in the afternoon heat that caused several passengers to experience medical emergencies. It was only my work travel schedule that had me elsewhere on that fateful day.
Stalled without power, the HVAC systems were not functioning and the interior temperatures of the bi-level cars climbed over 100 degrees. A lack of useful information and emergency planning by the MTA management and staff left passengers to fend for themselves. People in each can took it upon themselves to remove the emergency exit window panel in order to create some level of ventilation. Even with the windows out the stifling heat prompted some passengers to climb out on to the track bed to get away. Many walked over the berm and found their own way home at the end of a very bad ride.
After that incident, the MTA furnished promises that they would handle any future such events with more competent response. One of the plan elements was a supply of emergency bottled water. Fast forward to May 28, 2010. Again I was fortunate to be on company travel and not on the stalled train. The evening express train, 435, leaving Union Station experienced mechanical troubles just south of the New Carrollton station and was pushed back to DC for a different locomotive. That incident did get handles in an expedient manner and the passenger, though delayed and irritated, were not left stranded in dangerous heat conditions.
June 21, 2010, the 5:38 departure from Union Station with a full consignment of 900 passengers left the station only to become stranded by a stalled locomotive between stations. This time the braking systems became locked and the rescue locomotive could not move the train. These 900 passengers were stranded inside the aluminum cars once again. If one thinks that emergency water was available in June, that person would have been wrong. There were many opportunities for the management to load the water supplies aboard the train, but did not do it. There are several allocated cars on MARC Trains that are called Café Cars. In those cars there is a compartment large enough for many dozens water bottles. An interesting observation I made on June 23, is that there was a new nylon tie sealing the door of the Café compartment with the date 6-23-10 inscribed on it. I suspect that just maybe there is a supply of bottled water in there for the next time the train breaks down in the afternoon DC heat.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
The Return
Big Bob, our Spiritual Leader, has returned. There was a time when the loyal Gang began to believe that he had undergone an out-of-body experience and failed to return as planned. Those reports of the transmigration of his soul were greatly exaggerated. His Baldness was back in full glory of his former self. Actually he had not gone anywhere at all but was on an earlier train, morning and evening, due to a change of life we euphemistically call “a new job.” But in the true sense of Spiritual Leadership, he returned on a day of celebration, Friday With Pizza and Beer. His Magnificence was tempered with the declaration that “I’m alright and everything is right with Homeland Security.” His schedule has not settled down completely yet.
Recently he had been working on a training program utilizing the Million Dollar Man that is the high-tech replacement for the plastic “Recessi-Annie” doll that early EMT trainees used to learn CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. I had just that afternoon completed our company policy requirement for CPR/AED training in advance of our annual national EXPO conference later this month that will last a week. I said that when the female co-worker I was paired with bent over to do the breathing part, my heart was jump-started.
The Friday activities were well attended with the consumption of three pizzas and three six-packs. No Saturday breakfast pizza for Larry’s dogs this time. We kicked the entire supply. What is especially cordial is that everyone is welcome. We are always glad you came, even if we don’t know your name. Yet.
Monday afternoon the train was delayed in its departure. We could have predicted the failure with a meteorologist, even just the hacks who read the national weather feed from NOAA. It was hot and humid in DC for the first day in the year. It was also the first Monday in May. These conditions are always a harbinger of the long rides home on the MARC commuter trains. Those poor tired locomotives can barely handle the 8 car loads that are not completely filled. But with 9 cars and standing room only, the engines and the generators that run the lights and HVAC just can’t seem to keep up. It’s just a national infrastructure deficiency disgrace that every mode and every utility has experience with all the funds being diverted into wars and useless pursuits. Don’t get me started on THAT. The Car 5 Gang has chewed over that rag many times, from both party affiliation POVs.
Monday we exercised perfect hindsight and said we should have had a couple of six-packs for the journey home. Tuesday, the delay was even longer, 40 minutes by the time we all were exiting the BWI garages. And you know, there were no refreshments. I suggested that we needed to have supplies for Wednesday so that the train would not dare breakdown or be delayed. And if it wasn’t delayed, we would be doubly happy. We even brainstormed a plan to carry a quarter-keg in a wheelie bag and stash it in a Union Station locker for the day.
Wednesday arrived in its due time and they had our train on a different track. This is rarely a good omen, but it turned out to be okay. CJ arrived with a blue insulated cylinder and a brown paper bag. ‘Tis Cinco de Mayo! He was well prepared for the ride home. His bag contained a huge bottle of Margaritas and plastic cups. The cylinder had an ample supply if ice. In a few minutes Trish arrived with the Coronas.
While we were self-organizing our imminent celebration, a woman who usually doesn’t sit with us but who did this evening got up and headed upstairs. “You don’t have to leave. Everyone is welcome,” Mikey said. She was off to a boring part of the train.
The refreshments did the trick. The 5:20 train left at 5:20. We anticipated the longer interval between stations but were just as happy getting along on time.
I think we have a new recruit. A tall business suited woman, Victoria, stood in the periphery by the stair down to the lower level. She seemed interested in our camaraderie even though she did not join in on our Cinco de Mayo celebration. Trish called from across the car to say that she could come back again on Friday for the semi-regular pizza and beer day. Victoria said she usually takes an earlier train. “We will give you a good reason to be later on Fridays,” Trish said.
In other recent developments, Bicycle Coast Guard Girl announced her impending motherhood. George and Larry both have been even more forthcoming with the offer of their seat when she arrives.
Princess Carly turned 23. That was distressing to several of the Gang because the reality is that we all remember her reaching 21. Where did those years go? How did THAT happen? On this night of CdM, she is the beer-girl at La Palapa’s in Ellicott City. “I’m handing out the beer tonight at La Palalalalplas. One for you and one for me. One for you, two for me.”
Gerry is out again with his bad knee. Hey guy, get back on your feet soon, but not too soon.
Pam is a, dare I say, a grandmother! Ericka circulated a condolences card. Actually, it was very nice.
Our regular Conductor, Tom, passed back through the car on Tuesday and said he was leaving us for the ‘work train” soon. I think this means freight line duty, but I’m not sure. I will have to confirm the change and the last day. Tom, I’ve seen a dozen men come and go over my years of commuting. Have fun where you go, but not too much.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Pizza Without Vincent
One drizzly morning, I arrived at the train station to discover that the south side elevator was out of service. I went inside to decide what I would do. There are typically two alternatives. One is to crawl into the backseat of a taxi and go to the Odenton Station and catch the next local train. The other choice is to go home and call it a day. Getting into a taxi, and equally important, out of the taxi, involves major contortions wherein my shoulder is at risk for yet another incident where pain and weakness could prevail for several days. I opted to go home.
When I do not go into DC on the morning train, I cannot be on the evening train and see the Car 5 Gang. The random association of members will be there although specifically who on any particular day is not known until the door closes and the train lurches out of the station. Even then, there might be a straggler or two who just made it into a vestibule somewhere back in cars 6 through 9 before the doors closed and were delayed as they filtered through the other standees to our usual spot.
Tuesday that week I was not on the evening train. My usual position where I flip up a seat to park my wheelchair was quickly claimed by two people who knew that if I were already there, that seat was theirs. If I did manage to arrive at the last moment, they would vacate the seats and all would be made right again. Of course, when I did show up on Wednesday, I received the third-degree with, “So! Where were YOU yesterday? We saved your spot and you didn’t show up.” Three people made similar comments as though I had no rights to be absent.
“You know, I get less questions where I work when I am not there for a day.”
“They probably don’t save your seat.” I agreed. Occasionally, I get the opportunity to email ahead when I won’t be there, but not always.
We settled into the routine of chatting about the day and the weather and the impending clock change that will darken our mornings again for a while. Princess Carly rested her elbows on the back of the seat next to me and zoned out. Her eyes kind of glazed over and became distant. “Wake, up, Carly,” I said.
“I am sooo tired. I got in last night at 3:30 and got up at 6.” Carly’s youthful indulgences and endurance allow her to still get up and get going to work whereas the rest of us would be out for the count. For the remainder of the ride she leaned quietly on the back of the seat.
A couple of days earlier, she and Trish were hanging around Big Bob’s big pickup truck in the Train station parking garage. They were tampering with the magnetic “Go Navy” signs that adorn the doors. The prank did not go unnoticed by the surveillance cameras and Bob got a phone call that his vehicle had been molested. They wanted to know if he wanted to press any charges. At that time he had no idea who the perps were or what they had done. When Trish heard this, she hurriedly tried to get him on the phone to head off and complications.
As always, the question of pizza and beer on Friday way raised. This would be the on weekend. Larry accepted the donations for the pizza and the plan set.
Friday was one of those days when the morning train arrives of the 16 Track that lacks a level boarding platform. When that occurs with the train I ride in on, it usually means that it will still be there as our 5:20 train back home. This Friday was no different. Five of us queued up in the waiting area until they let us head to the train. Larry had already placed the pizza order and would go back for it after dropping off his backpack on this seat to hold it.
Trish and Mike were among the five who were early. Coast Guard Bicycle Girl arrived later but still in time for a seat. Robert arrived after a week of later trains. Princess was better rested after not going out so late the night before.
During the day I got the Facebook message that the legendary Vincent Chianese from Pittsburgh where I grew up had died on the previous Sunday. Vincent owned Vincent’s Pizza Park in Forest Hills. He opened the shop in 1950 with a unique recipe and amalgam of ingredients and sauce that made people from all over the area come to his store and come back again and again.
I announced, “I know that none of you knew Vincent Chianese, but he was the legendary Vincent of Vincent’s Pizza Park fame in Pittsburgh since 1950. He died on Sunday at age 85.” Then we toasted him and plowed into our less than perfect pizzas from the Union Station pizza place. (Just a plug for a friend's sister's pizza blog: http://www.pizzapizzazz.
When we were all satisfied with a slice or two, there remained a half disk of cheesy pizza. “Larry, I guess you’ll have two more breakfast pizzas for the scrambled eggs,” I quipped. The last time he had an entire pizza because too many people did not show up.
“I put scrambled eggs and bacon on the pizza and reheat it.”
I said, “you could also put some grilled chicken and jalapenos and cleve it with a second slice, then broil the whole thing. It would be like a, what is it, a quesadilla.”
Coast Guard Bicycle Girl added, “maybe call it a pizzadilla?” Pizzadilla was a good name for the concoction. So good that it is already in use. The so-called pizzadilla is the inverse of what I was proposing. We were talking about putting the Mexican type ingredients on a traditional cheese pizza whereas the pre-existing pizzadilla combination uses a tortilla with traditional pizza parts. I like my version better. It gives you a higher use for the leftover crusts.
We stepped out into a light drizzle that was actually the harbinger for about 4 inches of rain that would follow that weekend. The ground was so saturated and soft that trees were merely toppling because they were unbalanced and the soggy soil could no longer restrain the roots. The following Monday might be fraught with delays and cancellations of the railroads due to high water and fallen trees. Just another week of adventure in commuting.Saturday, January 23, 2010
Misadventures in Commuting
My morning emails to the office staff group address have become legendary at the place I work. In short there is always something that messes with the seamless process that is supposed to be a daily trip-to-work.
In the olden days (circa 1996) there were the rare occasion s that the Washington Metro would have a problem that caused the next train to be delayed an extra few minutes, but they usually arrived soon and reporting lateness to the office was not necessary. The MARC commuter trains had their hot weather slow downs and powder-snow short circuits when it was sucked into an electric locomotive and melted. Those instances were mostly few and far between.
Looking back at my 16 years of commuting, it appears to me that 2006 was the seminal year when something changed. The change was most probably the result of the accumulation of quantum (that is very small increments) degradation. That notwithstanding, the accumulation has manifest itself as daily disruptions that result in extended work days and days when one “should have stood in bed.”
I was talking with our new intern who rides into DC and the office in a vanpool with two of our regular staff and management. He was asking about how long it takes me to commute. My reply was that my day lasts about 11 hours when one adds the dork hours to the commute hours. The facts are that it takes about 1.5 hour in the morning and about 1 hour-15 minutes in the evening, when everything goes according to the plan.
As we talked, a colleague stopped by and rested her forearms on the half wall that defined the corner work space where the intern sits. She said, “I’m fortunate that it take me 20 minutes to get here. And when everything is really messed up, I can still walk.”
Kevin asked, “how long would that take?”
“Two days.” Then a strategic pause and, “there are a lot of bars between home and here.”
My legendary reports and epic misadventures on the train prompted a woman in our Pacific Northwest remote office to ask that she be added to my report distribution list. Since those days, Twitter has come online and could suffice to share the word about. I didn’t consider the narrative of my challenges to be of interest beyond my immediate circle of co-workers.
The vast majority of Americans sit along in their metal shells and compete for lane space and places to park. For them everyone they can see around them is an adversary, someone who will get there (where ever that is) before them. Drivers continually change lanes in vain attempts to choose the one that will move them along faster than the others.
For those of us who choose trains and subways, there is a sense of comrade-ness that is borne of being in the same boat under the same circumstances, all subject to being just as late as everyone else. That equality is lost when the doors of the MARC open at BWI and the mad rush is on to get to the their cars and start their engines and jump out of the gate for the sluggish climb to the top of the hill where Amtrak Way meets MD 170. But while on the train there is a calm that is not resignation to immutable forces but one where friendships can be formed and loose affiliations form that are able to transcend the drudgery of commuting 40 miles every day on the train after driving sometimes 25 miles just to get to the station.
The Car 5 Gang is one such loose affiliation of misfits, knuckleheads and eccentrics. This is the place where everyone knows your name (and usually are glad you came.) Long absent members who had temporary schedule changes or leaves of absence are greeted by name when they appear in the vestibule doorway. Sometimes the schedule change that keeps them away persists but a spurious change of fortune brings them back to the 5:20 train in Car 5. They always know where the gang will be and seeks them out.
The Social Director, Trish, has been keeping the membership apprised of the upcoming plans to revisit Bamboo Bernie’s to listen to The Reagan Years band again. There is a competing venue that may in the long run win out. It is in White Marsh and is a week or two earlier for TRY. I recommend a good set of OSHA compliant earplugs to save your hearing for your Golden Years. It is not that TRY is in any way a bad performance, but they ARE LOUD.
The most recent Friday homeward-bound commute was well attended by 12 of the Gang, three large pizzas and 2 six-packs. Not everyone drinks the beer, but most everyone at one time or another has the pizza.
Dinner conversation taboos are always ignored on Car 5. Politics, economics and religion are always on the plate. The topic of gun control and de facto registration in the form of having to report who you sell one of your guns to popped to the top of the agenda. Through all the bantering on pro and con positions, I said, “I don’t know anyone I would trust with a handgun around me. You are more likely to be killed by someone who gains control of your gun. You provide your own murder weapon.”
Friday, January 8, 2010
Real Men Ride MARC
It was the first week of January in the new decade. It was the new decade if you subscribe to the notion that Western Civilization denotes decades by the ‘tens digit’ and not by the purist-notion that there was no ‘Year Zero’ and therefore the decade spanned from January 1, 2001 until December 31, 2010, thereby screwing up the decade designations such as the Roaring 20’s. Come off it Guys, this argument goes back 2000 years. Get over it. Blame it on the Gregorian Monks and enjoy the celebration. Besides, I didn’t hear anyone claiming we were celebrating the New Year in error by dropping the big bright ball in Times Square one minute early.
We were headed home in the middle of that first week all happy that it was Humpday and firmly into the second half of the week by at least a one-half workday. Erika was facing the stairs from her seat by the vestibule door when she spied the bag of a man who was sitting upstairs facing our little enclave from above. His bag was stenciled with the message “You best stay out of my way because I ride MARC.” This was just the type of sentiment that was well respected among the Notorious Car 5 Gang members. Erika called out that she liked the message. The man turned the bag around and displayed the other message: “Real Men Ride MARC.”
Erika wanted to know where he got it. She told Loud Bob to go ask him if he made it himself. Bob looked up at it and said, “I not going to ask a man if he made his bag himself. THAT would just BE WRONG.” Erika called up to him again and he replied that he ordered it from a specialty website that will put just about anything you want on various items. (It’s www.spreadshirt.com if you are interested.) I told him he was our kind of commuter and that he should join us when we have pizza and beer on occasional Fridays.
All this time Princess Carly was providing us with the itinerary of her pending New England weekend bus trip to watch a football game. Four layers of warm clothes were suggested for the 7 hour or so early morning ride up north and the extended outdoor day. She could use some advice from Sheila or Rose (the street people who populate the sidewalk near where I work) on surviving long hours in the cold. Although several other people from her job office were also going, she still had to be back for Monday morning.
Thank the Gregorian Monks its Friday.
Our happy hour almost was scuttled by the Red Line delays. When I was almost to the Car, Erika was coming back along the platform. “Did they send you out to look for ME?” I asked.
“No. Larry isn’t here. They said he might have gotten stuck in that Red Line mess. I’m going to see if he’s getting the pizzas.” I was disappointed that they weren’t looking for me, but the pizza did have a higher priority.
Erika returned with Larry and no pizza. Although the order of events had been severely messed up, with who was doing what and all, three pizzas did arrive in due time along with a sufficient supply of Busch and Miller Lite. Billy and Mikey had the brews and I didn’t see who actually carried the pizza to the train because it was ceremoniously passed from hand to hand through the vestibule door into our greedy hands.
The Real Man was back upstairs in his spot watching over the festivities going on below. I motioned for him to join us. He declined.
It was not long before we polished off the food and drink and were all happy and ready for the weekend. Billy asked me something as he stood nearby. I asked him to repeat it because I did not believe what he said. “What do you call those little urges,” he asked?
“What?”
“What do you call those little urges,” he repeated? I was completely baffled by why he was saying that.
“I really don’t know how to answer that question. I have to say NOBODY has ever asked me that.”
Then from beyond where I could see a single word clarified everything. “Clementines.”
Our ride was over and the train eased into the BWI station. Another week of commuting adventures was behind us.
For L. Bob though, the night was far from over. He was parked near the stairwell closest to the station. When he went to unlock the door of his pickup, the key broke off due to a frozen lock. I stopped to see what I might do. Try as we might, there was no unlocking the door. A phone call to his wife obtained for him a long ride home to get a spare key and ride back to the train station.
We stood there next to the truck talking about various things including how after my wife chewed my out for losing my wallet once, she had her entire purse stolen in 30 seconds in Costa Rica. Try as I might, and I tried very hard, I could not withhold the comment, “Remember when I lost my wallet?”
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