More Metro Fun

The metro trains have been all screwed up in downtown Manhattan (where the lines all cross each other). A train will make a stop, then suddenly the announcer will say "we are going to be stopping at station whatever (which is totally not on the line)", and then there is a scramble as about a hundred people get out of the train before they end up going in the opposite direction they intend to go. Then all those poor people have to figure out how to work their way back to their stop.

To go between my flat and work place I had a choice of two lines which happened to be sharing the same track because of construction. Either one was fine, they both made the same stops. One day, I was sitting on Line B to get to my connection, and the train just up and went on its usual pre-construction course without any announcement at all. This was a problem because I did not realize what happened until I was seeing unfamiliar stops. So I jumped out first chance I had and found a map to figure out where the heck I was. I ended up way out on the West Side of Manhattan. I have never been on any of the lines or stations on the West Side because all my business was on the East Side or even further east in Queens or Brooklyn. I had no idea how to get where I want to go without backtracking. There was a map at the station, but if the trains are picking routes out of a hat then a map is not help at all. I got on a line that thankfully made the stops it was suppose to make and I bailed out on the East Side before I ended up in Queens, found my regular line, and made it to my place of work.

Another night I stepped on a line to Brooklyn on the southern tip of Manhattan to go home, and the announcer came on and said "mumble mumble last stop mumble". I figured he meant last stop before Brooklyn, so I just sat down and the train began moving. I noticed that I was the only person in the wagon, and I thought that was kind of ironic. Most of the time it is packed, and here I am with a wagon all to myself! Nice! Then I looked out into the other wagons too, and I thought "wow, looks like I got the whole TRAIN to myself!". The train then began to slow, and eventually stopped deep in the middle of the earth. This happens sometimes, so I waited as usual. Only, the train wasn't going anywhere. Time passed, "what is going on?" I thought. Then I began to think back and everything suddenly came together--the train was parked off the line. I walked down through the wagons while the automated announcer kept saying "It is a violation to walk between cars while the train is in motion...."--the stupid train is NOT in motion! You do your thing first, train! I found the guy in the middle who does the doors, and he asked me "fell asleep?" And I apologized and said I am new to New York and what is going on with the train???? Apparently the line was moved back to express schedule and no longer made the trip to Brooklyn at night, so it was waiting off the line before turning around and going back the other way. I waited a few minutes, the train returned to the station I just left, so I got out and found another train to Brooklyn. Whew!