raffertyesque

Show me an executive on Wall Street who’s taken a pay cut in the past five years and I’ll show you a New Yorker who likes the MTA.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority runs the subways here in New York. And the buses. And the Metro-North Railroad. And the Long Island Rail Road. (Which is inexplicably two words, “Rail Road,” instead of “Railroad.” Don’t ask me, and don’t ask them, they’re incompetent.) The MTA also runs the Staten Island Railway, the Long Island Bus system, and the AirTrain to JFK. And the Roosevelt Island Tram when it isn’t busy trapping Roosevelt Islanders in its gondola of death.

Point is, the MTA runs all these things, and if you ask a random New Yorker what they think of the job the MTA is doing they’ll laugh and say they’re doing a terrible job. And then they’ll either talk about how the escalators haven’t worked at their stop in months or how they don’t leave their apartment on the weekends anymore because of track construction. Or about the time they got stuck on the Roosevelt Island Tram of Death.

Ask them what they think once they’re actually on a train and you’ll get different responses. Probably something along the lines of “Leave me the fuck alone.” This is because you’re attempting to talk to a New Yorker while they’re on the subway. Don’t do that. That’s a terrible idea.

If you do manage to get someone to talk to you though, if you get past the earbuds and the cold glances, they’ll probably complain about the price hikes. Or the service cuts. Or both. Or about how the Roosevelt Island Tram killed their parents.

The MTA is lousy. To New Yorkers this is a fact. Are there worse transit authorities in other cities? Of course there are. I mean, there have to be, right? Probably? Maybe? I don’t know. Let’s just say it’s a possibility.

That doesn’t matter, though. This is New York. This isn’t Cincinnati. People are in a hurry and they have places to be. Uptown, downtown, midtown, middleuppertown, lowerdowndowntowntown, Momofuku Noodle Bar. Town. Place.

These people are in a lousy mood because by and large the trains suck. Once in a while though, once in a long while, you’ll see New Yorkers smiling on the subway. There are two possible explanations for this: 1) hallucinogens, or 2) the Nostalgia Train!

The Nostalgia Train is the MTA’s name for the vintage subway train they bust out every December. It’s an amalgam of subway cars of yore, spanning the decades, from the R1s of the early 1900s all the way to the trains of today. It’s 100 years condensed down to a 10 car subway train, with all the little quirks you’d expect: vintage advertisements, horribly loud open-ended cars, exposed fan blades, and flickering light bulbs. So pretty much just like the MTA’s normal trains!

Oh, MTA burn!

Normally the Nostalgia Train is parked in the MTA Museum in Brooklyn, but for four days every year, it gets to become a real boy and bring smiles to New Yorkers. Ones who aren’t on mushrooms.

I’ve seen this phenomenon. It happens. Otherwise stoic New Yorkers light up when they’re on the Nostalgia Train.

Every November, you see posters advertising the Nostalgia Train, but until I actually saw it, I just assumed it was another lie being spread by the MTA. Like “track improvements” or “there’s another train right behind this one.” The legend of the Nostalgia Train was just that. A legend. Like Sasquatch, or the Zombie Yeti in Plants Vs Zombies.

One day at the Bleecker and Houston stop, the legend came to life, though.

(The Nostalgia Train, I mean, not Sasquatch.) (Or the Zombie Yeti.)

I was in a hurry and I saw a bunch of people walking up the stairs so I knew there was a train at the platform. So I bobbed and weaved between the people walking up and ran across the platform, not even realizing what I was running towards until I was already on board.

What is this? Where am I? What’s that smell?

(As you know, ever since my uncle played “got your nose” but for real, my sense of smell has been lacking. But this train, man, I was smelling this train loud and clear. Like motor oil and grandparents. I guess being cooped up in the MTA Museum all year will lead to some ripeness.)

After diving aboard the Nostalgia Train and grabbing my fedora from the closing doors and smelling all the smells, I surveyed my fellow passengers. And what did I find? Everyone was all smiles. Gone was the typical New York gaze. People weren’t looking down at their iPhones, they were looking around— at other people! Talking to each other, asking to take pictures for each other, like normal, friendly people do! These bizarre circumstances gave us something to share, a common bond. We were all surprised to find ourselves in this weird retro New York. (Which I guess just makes it regular York?)

That was a few years ago. I have sought out the Nostalgia Train every year since. Turns out there’s a schedule and everything. Crazy. And the MTA actually sort of adheres to it. Even crazier. Every year, it’s the same, though. It’s a train full of genuine New Yorkers having a good time. Some even get dressed up for the occasion. It’s truly bizarre.

It serves the MTA well, I think. The Nostalgia Train. It humanizes the MTA. Personality is hard to come by as a transit authority. You’re never going to please everybody, you’ll never do a good enough job, so the best you can hope for is for people not to hate you once in a while. Say, four days out of the year.

I’m not saying that they should run the Nostalgia Train year round. That would be retartar. Then it would just be a crappy train with no air conditioning and ads for War Bonds. Or hats. But I think it would serve the MTA well to try and find some more personality in other ways. Anything to get the public on their side once in a while.

Let’s not have a Nostalgia Gondola to Roosevelt Island though. That will just lead to more bloodshed.