New High Price, Same Old Crappy Service

I mentioned a few inches back that the Bloody Long Island Railroad had raised it's prices as of the first of January.

What I forgot to relate was how on the second day of this new Luxury Priced service¹ the Bloody Long Island Railroad, having a problem somewhere at the east end of the Ronkonkoma Branch and needing to reduce the traffic load² canceled the only straight-through train from Atlantic Terminal³, announcing that we would be accommodated on a train at Jamaica.

Now only someone who works⁴ for the Bloody Long Island Railroad could think that loading a trainful of people onto a train that began it's journey at Penn Station during the height of the evening rush hour was a good, or even workable, idea, and certainly only someone who works⁵ for the Bloody Long Island Railroad could be so blissfully ignorant of the fact that the train they chose was already the most overloaded train in the schedule.

So it was that we were loaded onto a train that normally doesn't stop at Jamaica and since there were already no free seats and no space to stand in the vestibules by the doors we filled the walkway space between the seats. Naturally the sensitive fellow commuters realized that we were not personally to blame for this inconvenience to them, or they did after one thick bleeper complained a little too loudly about being crowded, at which point I looked him right in the eye and snarled at volume 11 that if he thought anyone standing in the aisles was there by choice he must be suffering from brain damage, and that he might consider that he at least had a seat and hadn't been thrown off a perfectly good train for the convenience of some idiot dispatcher.

This provided some relief but as soon as people needed to get out tempers became frayed. Everyone was wearing huge down coats and most of the commuters that day were of robust size before they put the coats on. The aisles are wide enough to accommodate one person. Not a situation conducive to amity.

This hell went on forever, or at least, it seemed to. Finally I was able to disembark myself and begin the long walk to my car⁶ over inadequately cleared sidewalks.

To sum up: The Bloody Long Island Railroad managed to deliver exactly one and one-half commutes under the new Luxury Pricing before bleeping up and bleeping everyone leaving from Flatbush Avenue Atlantic Terminal where they breathe.

They even forgot to have someone call the Guinness Book of Records so they could claim the Worst Excuse For A Railroad In The World award.

1. The price is now a luxury, the service remains execrable↑
2. There is no other explanation of the bizarre nonsense I am about to reveal↑
3. nee Flatbush Avenue↑
4. A loaded term and one that implies much that may not in fact be true, but none other fits the purpose here↑
5. See the previous footnote↑
6. The evening trains and all off-peak trains stop as far from the West End of the platform as they can in order to maximize the inconvenience to passengers. Everyone on those later trains has had to park in the East end car-parks and people traveling East need to use the ticket machines at the extreme West end of the platform and in inclement weather will be sheltering in the station building, also situated at the extreme West end of the platform. Each evening the platform becomes a jam of people walking West en masse while others sprint East over the icy platforms trying to catch the train before it leaves.↑