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Scenes from the Long Island Rail Road
To view additional LIRR photos, scroll over the image above.By Annelies Kamran
Everyday I take the Long Island Railroad from Ronkonkoma to New York. I don’t actually live on the Ronkonkoma line, but it has several advantages: the parking lot is large, there are a lot of people around day and night because of MacArthur Airport, it’s (usually) well-lit, and sometimes, during winter, it is even plowed. In addition, I don’t have to change from the diesel train to an electric one at Jamaica or Babylon, so if I fall asleep there’s no chance I’ll wake up at the end of the line somewhere miles away from my car (and by extension, my bed).
Of course I can name all the stops. “This is the 9:15 train to Ronkonkoma, making stops at Jamaica, Hillside Facility for Rail Road employees only, Mineola, Hicksville, Bethpage, Farmingdale, Wyandanch, Deer Park, Brentwood, Central Islip, and Ronkonkoma.” The train only stops at Pinelawn during the day, because few people want to get off at a huge cemetery at night. (“The next stop will be Pinelawn. Only the first two cars will platform at Pinelawn. If you are not in the first two cars, please walk up.”) The train takes me from Suffolk County through Nassau and Queens to Manhattan, from the middle of the Pine Barrens to one of the most densely populated cities on the planet. The two-and-a-half hour trip gives me time to psych myself up for the rigors of the city, or to slowly decompress, deep-sea diver-like, on the way home.
Every time people hear how long my trip is, they say something to the effect that I must get a lot of reading done. Which is true, even if it’s not always school or work related. But mostly, I get a lot of staring into space done. For example…
Imagine a camera tracking through the cars on the train, following one person after another as they get on and off, read, drink, talk on their cell phones, and so on, until you get to me, sitting by the window. There’s a woman sitting across the aisle from me. Probably Hispanic, probably late thirties, wearing jeans, sneakers, sweatshirt and a pony tail, reading a novel with her glasses in her lap. She’s sitting in the third seat, next to the aisle, instead of next to the window like a normal person. And she’s clearing her throat once every eleven seconds (on average). I know, because I’ve given up all hope of being able to concentrate on my own work and have begun to time her. First I counted “one, one thousand; two, one thousand;” but I got bored with that and started to vary it with “one, Mississippi;” and “one, hippopotamus.”
It’s annoying, but it could be worse. It could be like that man last night. Big, white, unshaven, bearing a striking resemblance to Hounslow on “Keeping Up Appearances.” He was standing in profile to me, so when I first saw him talking, I assumed he was wearing a cell phone headset. Only he wasn’t. He was talking to some imaginary person, tracking them with his eyes.
The thing that struck me most wasn’t that he was talking to someone who wasn’t there; it was that he wasn’t letting the imaginary person get a word in edgewise. I’ve been fairly lucky when it comes to crazy people on the train, in that they usually don’t bother me. The worst was last August on one of the hottest days of the year. We got stuck because a broken gate had gotten stuck in the third rail. There was a woman all wrapped up in a dirty shearling coat, with knit hat and mittens (remember: this is August) with several trash bags of stuff, who deliberately picked a fight with a group of women on an outing with their small children. That could have gotten very nasty, were it not for the quick thinking of the ticket collector, who herded the crazy woman firmly away. And of course, when I’m passing the Merillon Avenue station, I think of Colin Ferguson and the people he killed. So I’ve been very lucky, knock wood.
Another thing I’ve noticed is that I instinctively know when I’ve left the city. Of course, there are the major landmarks like the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings fading into the distance. But you really know you’ve left the city when you don’t see the security measures on people’s houses. In Queens, there are bars on the windows and doors. Most of them have decorative scroll work, to be sure, but they are still bars. Nothing is left outside that could be stolen. On the other side of Belmont Race Track, in contrast, there are no bars, and people leave furniture and other valuables right on their porches, decks, and patios. There’s a major highway in between the two neighborhoods, and it’s amazing what a division it creates.
There’s a curve in the tracks between Bethpage and Farmingdale; if you’re in the last car, you can see the first cars pulling around, heat shimmering on the tracks. There’s a house with a porch right next to the tracks, and I once saw a young man in a lawn chair on the porch. He was wearing a plain white T-shirt and broken-in jeans, and his feet were bare. He looked like a model, taking a break from a photo shoot involving a Harley, drinking in the sun. I’ve looked for him since, but never saw him again. On the porch of the house across the street are two cats. They live outside, and you can see their boxes, all fitted up nicely with blankets.
There’s a strategy to picking a seat. On the way home from the city, I hustle to find a seat in the last car, because when the train stops in Ronkonkoma, that will put me closest to the parking lot where my car is. Like most everyone else, I try to get a window seat, and if I’m by myself, I try to sit on the side of the aisle that has two seats and not the side with three. Lastly, I try to get a seat in the middle of the train, so I’ll get the full benefit of the heat or air conditioning, and won’t get blasted when the doors open. It’s different when I’m going to work. I work in Hicksville, so I try to sit in one of the middle cars of the train. This way, I’m right above the main entrance—when I go downstairs, I’ll be right in front of the coffee truck. The coffee truck is run by a local celebrity, Frank, who always has a smile and remembers how I take my coffee (milk, one sugar).
Frank is always being interviewed by the local TV stations, whenever there’s a story involving the LIRR.
Like during the blackout this past summer. I was stuck in Hicksville, and it was very scary at first because nobody knew what the hell was going on. Kind of like when the train stops in the tunnel under the East River for no reason and all you can imagine is the worst. After a while, news started to trickle in, but still no trains. I talked with two women who were waiting for their teenage children, who were on their way back from the city. It was awfully hot, the station bathroom (never a treat at the best of times) was unendurable, and the LIRR did not appear to have battery-operated back up for anything. Hours later, things slowly got organized—people called in from vacation, clearly coming straight from the beach. The driver in the Nassau county bus that came to pick us up had just retired. His long experience showed in the masterful way he got us safely through streets with no lights, and around downed rail crossing guards.
Seeing it snow from the train is a cozy experience. Big fat flakes float down and cover the scenery, giving it a transient cleanliness. You can also see some fairly entertaining behavior on the train. A friend of mine told me about taking the train into the city with a group of young men in the car. After his class, he caught a train home, and the same group, now drunk as lords, were still in the car. One of them had had an unfortunate encounter with a solid substance that left him with a bloody gap where some teeth used to be—something that was probably going to hurt like crazy when he sobered up! I was recently in a car with such a group, and the epic mess they made of spilled beer and peanut shells in only an hour and a half was truly impressive. I said as much, and one of them responded that for $252 a month (the price of a monthly pass), he was going to make as much mess as he possibly could. Still, they were amusing. For sheer discomfort of fellow passengers, only a field trip of teenagers will do.
The Ronkonkoma line is always having problems, and I’m used to it running late (my boss is used to it too). “Attention brakeman, channel four please,” means that the train’s crew wants to say something that they don’t want the passengers to hear. And judging by what they do say on the public channel, I can only assume that channel four is reserved for dire situations indeed. What’s worst is when there’s a problem at Penn or in the tunnels, because then the whole system is held up. “Attention passengers. Currently, we are experiencing 20 to 30 minute delays system-wide, due to ______.” You can fill in the blank, with “signal trouble,” “switch trouble,” “weather,” “track work,” you name it. The last time that happened to me, it was right before Christmas, and Penn Station just got more and more crowded as people had to get off the trains and come back upstairs to wait for the situation to get sorted out. I got an attack of claustrophobia with so many people around, so I went upstairs and walked around the block briskly to clear my head. By the time I got back, things were working again.
I really have to hand it to the employees, and especially the train crews. They do the best they can with what they have to work with. I know some of the ticket collectors by sight, and, for the most part, they are very pleasant people. I’ve seen them successfully deal with drunks, rowdy passengers, and passengers who don’t speak human languages (and have bought the wrong ticket). If they see people making the hundred-yard dash from the parking lot in the morning, they’ll hold the train a few extra seconds.
For me, taking the train is a large part of my life, with occasional undercurrents of doubt and dread. So why do I do it? Because it beats the alternative: battling SUVs and other idiot drivers and construction on the Long Island Expressway.
