Tuesday, June 04, 2013

Silence on the LIRR

At around 10:15 this morning the Long Island Rail Road decided to forestall problems with their Belmont Special this weekend by issuing an alcohol ban notice.

At 11:30 they began to bombard me with train cancellation notices because, and I quote, two work vehicles had "made contact".

In order for this to bring the LIRR to its knees it is reasonable to assume these "vehicles" are actually rail-mounted machines of considerable size. Some of these are longer than a two car multiple unit - the basic building block of the LIRR's commuter trains - one might reasonably call them trains in their own right.

So, to recap: Shortly after issuing a no alcohol notice, two railway maintenance trains crashed into each other.

One is forced to ponder, admittedly with no evidence to support that pondering, whether the no alcohol notice required issuing a) yesterday and 2) to a wider audience than just the passengers.