MTA subways and trains have recently been blaming curtailed service on various fatalities, fire events and police activities at other stations. The problem is that these"fatalities" and fires and so on are not covered in the news. Somebody is either lying, incompetent or covering up. Possibly all three.
April has been the cruelest month for New York's subway and commuter train passengers. Here is a typical example from last night:
I got to Penn Station just past 5 to catch the 5:19 which, admittedly, usually runs very reliably and comfortably. By 5:12, they hadn't called the track, so I walked over to the display and found out that the 5:19 had been cancelled, and that it was being combined with the 5:24. When they finally called the track, there was a stampede, but I managed to secure a good window seat. Announcements kept coming out that there had been a "fatality" in Jamaica, Queens, and that train service was delayed. The train finally crawled out of the station and maintained a breakneck pace of 5 MPH through most of Queens. This was not the situation with all trains because 4 of them blew past us at normal speeds. I was an hour late getting home, but that's nothing compared to the situation for that dead person.
When we watched the Channel 11 news last night, there was nothing about an accident on the LIRR. We all know that Long Island Rail Road occasionally flattens some unlucky soul, but that would almost have to make the news somewhere.
Less than a week ago, we were coming home at night after a play and we got the same story. There was a fatality in Wantagh so our train would have to wait in Freeport for things to clear up. They wouldn't tell us how long, but it involved Eastbound and Westbound trains using the same track, and they would have to wait for one or two westbound trains to pass before they could take us the last mile to Merrick (They don't know how many trains? Maybe they could consult their schedule?). A half hour later, we finally got moving again. The next morning, I searched Wantagh in Google News, and found a story about a person killed on the westbound train track in Wantagh the previous night. However, it was only a blog that covered this and not Newsday or any of the mainstream media that I could search. Are we starting to smell fish here?
On the way to the play that same day we were stopped at Chambers street on the uptown 1 train. "There is a fire situation at 125th Street, so this train is not running until further notice." Chambers Street is at least 12 miles from 125th Street, so we had a hard time figuring out why one thing caused another. I didn't bother looking for the "Fire Situation" in the news the next day. I was too busy reading the blog. A colleague of mine had the identical situation in Brooklyn the week before. She was told that there was a police investigation 10 miles up the tracks, so this subway ride was cancelled. "Don't worry. There's a subway station on a parallel line a block away," as the people were ejected into the unlit streets in Brooklyn without one critical piece of information: A block in which direction?
I don't want to sound like Glenn Beck here, but weird things are going down in a system we can't live without.