|
From SeeingBlack.com Literature Chapter Three
These were things that just never came to mind—things that would have instantly seemed logical if thought through. Subway riders think about the subway in only one way—a means to get from here to there and until recently I was a subway rider. But there are also train buffs, people who think about the subway and get to know it down to its finest detail. There are other people who live in the darkened tunnels, enclaves and abandoned unused rooms amid the filth, the foul odor, the rats, the cockroaches and the varied dangers. There are also people who see an oncoming train as a means to end their tortured mind and there are people whose tortured minds cause them to end other people’s lives by pushing them into an oncoming train. I had never thought about any of this. Then there are stray dogs—poor confused animals that happen down on the tracks of a darkened tunnel or more easily onto the exposed outdoor tracks. You don’t get this kind of knowledge simply being a passenger. I learned about this once I became a conductor. The most interesting assignment I had that exposed me to an unknown aspect of the subway system were the times I worked the revenue collector, we called it the money train. I had never given one thought to how all of the money accumulated at token booths throughout the system was collected. The first time I worked the money train I was astonished by the method they had to collect the money fares had generated. I met my motorman on the one-car train at 207th Street yard after signing in at the tower. I didn’t know this motorman who explained my responsibilities to me. It was plain and simple—I was to communicate with the motorman by the buzzer system, letting him know where to stop to let the collectors get off and buzz him again when they had all returned and were ready to proceed to the next station. The train itself was an old model R-9 equipped with a coin counter and a machine that stacked and counted paper money. All that was behind a cage at the end of the car and only the tellers were allowed in there. The money train was only allowed on the road after ten at night when the headway between passenger trains was longest. We left the yard and picked up the collection crew at the 125th Street station on the IND line. There were eight clerk collectors, two tellers, a supervisor and a transit policeman. Once we were ready to begin, the policeman issued holstered handguns to the collectors and they signed for them. As we pulled into a station, one of the clerks told me whether we were picking up at the north or south end of the station so I could properly buzz the motorman. When the car came to a complete stop, I had to pull the un-motorized sliding door open. The collectors would hurry up the stairs to gather sacks of cash from the token booth clerk. The policeman, the supervisor and the tellers remained with the train. I closed the door until I saw that the collectors were returning. Once they were all in the car, I buzzed the motorman and we left the station. The money bags were handed to the tellers behind the cage and they set the money counting machines to work as we traveled to the next station. Most of the time we were able to get in and out of a station without holding up the passenger train that was behind us, but it was inevitable that the road train would catch up to us. Sometimes we would be in a location where the area switchman could send us on an unused track to let the road train by us and then we would continue behind it. The money train often tied up night time passenger service. The money train had to move off the road before the start of the morning rush hour, so around five in the morning we headed to Jay Street in Brooklyn. We pulled up near a vaulted door on the local southbound track and the collectors wheeled the money off of the train in heavy vaulted carts on wheels. Then we took the car back to the yard. Another time during the morning rush hours, the A line was backed up with ten minute delays from 125th Street to 207th Street. During the height of the rush hours the trains run on a four-minute interval. This morning there hadn’t been an A train in the 125th Street station in eight minutes and the nearest A train was in the tunnel north of 135th Street. The train had been inching forward since it left the 145th Street station. The command center is on the third floor in room 300, at Jay Street in Brooklyn. In the command center there are electrical boards that display a schematic of the entire transit system—the TA’s version of the Pentagon’s War Room. When trains are at certain points on the tracks they connect electrical trips on the tracks that send a signal to light up a indicator bulb that represents that train on the board in the command center as well as the board of the switch man in the sector. The people at command could see from the board that there were no bulbs lit between 145th Street and 14th Street and that all the bulbs were lit between 145th Street and 207th Street. Trains were so backed up behind the train inching along as the cause of the problem that the platforms were becoming dangerously overcrowded. There is also the master communication console with the capacity to communicate throughout the system. A Desk Trainmaster operates from the master console. He has complete authority over train movement and he is directly responsible for the safe and orderly operation of trains in his division. There was a Desk Trainmaster who worked the morning shift at the command center desk in the IND division known only as Nick. It was his job to run the railroad by communicating with his “trains.” Nick’s voice was known by every motorman in the IND. They heard it instructing, informing, directing, chastising and demanding action hundreds of times during the day. There was always an agitated pitch in Nick’s voice so people hated to hear it—hearing Nick’s voice meant that there was a problem somewhere in the system. “Motorman on the Seven-ten out of Two/Seven, are you having train problems?” Nick asked on the system’s console. The motorman took a second before he answered. “No,” he replied. “Then what is the hold up—motorman you are holding up my railroad.” All the other motormen behind the near stalled train listened in closely because they too wanted to know what was causing the back up. “Motorman, what’s the problem?” Nick shouted. “There’s a dog on the tracks in front of me,” the motorman said reluctantly. “And you’re letting this dog decide if the people of New York City will get to work on time this morning. Motorman run that dog over.” These were words the motorman didn’t want to hear and knew that he couldn’t comply with although he didn’t want to create a problem for himself. He blew the train horn some more as he had been doing all along the way trying to scare the dog away from his tracks. He wasn’t concerned for the dog’s safety; he just didn’t want to be the person who killed it. He blew the horn some more but the dog just took a few quick steps ahead. “Motorman, you are holding up my railroad.” The motorman turned off his running lights and gave a loud blast on the horn as he pushed his control handles forward to increase the train speed. It was dark before him with the running lights out and he couldn’t see the dog. He was expecting the train to go into emergency when it hit the dog, but nothing happened. As he traveled forward, he estimated the cars that had passed where he last saw the dog and when he got to ten, he breathed a sigh of puzzled relief. Now sure that all his cars had passed the spot where the dog was, the motorman resumed normal speed. When he turned the lights out the dog lost its orientation to the lights and moved to the side and onto the north bound tracks where later, a north bound train ran it over and killed it. When the train that held up Nick’s railroad pulled into 125th Street, the platform was packed with people and there was Road Car Inspector Whittier and a motorman instructor waiting at the front of the train. “You need an RCI?” Whittier asked. “No.” “What was your problem?” the motor instructor asked. “There was a dog on the tracks.” “Well, I gotta ride with you to observe your operation and give you any reinstruction you might need.” The passengers on the platform were all trying to squeeze into the door as they closed. There was one platform conductor trying to get the doors closed. Whittier looked down the platform and saw the hard time the platform conductor was having, “There’s another train right behind this one,” he shouted out to the passengers, and he went to help the platform conductor push people into the cars and away from the doors. “There’s another train coming into the station,” he said, pointing to the lights of the following train. In those days, motormen were allowed to key pass a caution signal by traveling at a crawl speed until the trip-arm when down—this allowed them to move right up next to the train in front of them. This practice was later suspended because it made the danger of crashing possible. On another occasion I was on a work train that was behind a train that was stalled out in the Rockaway flats. We sat there for an unusually long time. When I went up to the diesel engine where my two motormen sat, they told me that they had heard over the radio that there was a dog in front of the train that was holding service up. The dog was up against the third rail. The train was partially in the station so they were going to unload the passengers and move the empty train past the point where the dog lay. Then they were going to turn the third rail power off so that the policemen on the scene could safely decide a course of action. As the train moved out of the station and passed the point where the dog was, we were instructed to move up to that point to pick up the police once they had rescued the dog. When we got to where the policemen stood, I saw that the dog was leaning up against the third rail, its tongue hanging out and bewilderment on its face. There were three transit policemen who arrived on the scene from a southbound train then walked over the tracks to the site. One of the policemen was on his radio making sure that his department had gotten word from our department that the power was off. He was assured that the power was off and was instructed to shoot the dog and remove it from the tracks. When I heard the policemen telling his partners what was to be done and one of them took his gun from its holster I went back to the rider car—I didn’t want to see it happen. I looked out of a window of the rider car where I could see the shooter, but not the dog. The cop took aim and put his hand up in front of his face. Then the gun went off twice. They moved the dog to the roadbed and called their department to send Animal Control to pick up the body. They boarded the diesel powered work train and we took off from the scene of the shooting. The policeman who shot the dog seemed animated; his adrenalin was running so high I expected him to blow smoke from the muzzle of his gun the way Tom Mix did. He told us that he would have to go to Headquarters the next day. “Why,” I asked. “Whenever you discharge your weapon you have to go downtown to make a full report and give a transcribed briefing. It’s like getting a day off with pay.” “But you shot a dog.” “Doesn’t matter—procedures are procedures.” “I was looking at you,” I said. “You had your hand up before your face. You didn’t want to see the dog get it in the head?” “No, that’s not it. He was up against the third rail and I wanted to protect my face in case the bullet ricocheted.” I smiled at that, but I was laughing inside. I didn’t want to ridicule the cop who brought down John Dillinger in a hail of gunfire. By the time we reached the next station, the power was restored and the policemen got off to await the next passenger train. I learned that dogs generally have a bad time in the subway. My first winter at the TA, I worked from the extra list and most of that work was on the AA line. One very cold morning when we left the station, I closed my train doors down from my north car. The next two stations would be on that same side. After I made those two stops it was time to move to the south car for the 145th Street stop. I move through the train bulk doors and took my keys out to open the south car cab door. I unlocked the door, but was unable to push it in to enter the cab. The cab door swing both ways, so I pulled it open to see what was obstructing the door. Soon as I got it open, the funk hit me and there was a startled man huddled up against the radiator. He may have spent the night sitting on the floor next to the radiator—the odor suggested it. I was as startled as he was and my heart thumped. “What are you doing in here,” was all I could think to say. “Get out.” The man picked up a dirty coat and slowly walked from the cab. I opened the doors from that position and gave my motorman a long buzzer. I went back one car to set the drum switch that controls where the conductor operates the doors from and returned to the old position to reset that drum switch and lock the cab door. After this incidence I did what other conductors did—I carried a bottle of Lysol spray. At the north end of the station at 168th Street, the southbound tracks go back in the tunnel far enough to house two layup trains. The morning train crews assigned to those runs have to walk the gangway back to those two trains to make them up. Along the gangway there are cutouts and enclaves and room size alleys. Sometimes there are tunnel people living in these secluded quarters. The man in my cab may have been one of them who wanted to be near the heat of the cab radiator. There are dozens of tunnel people living in varied parts of the system, but never have I heard of one of them being harmed by a train. There are lots of things one needs to know about getting around underground. Trains can go by with such speed that it creates a suction that can pull you into it. If you got caught on the tracks of an on-coming train and you had to lie in the roadbed, it’s best to lay facing the train so as nothing underneath the train can hook on to your coat or clothing. Tunnel people must know the system as well as train buffs. I met my first train buff during my first year on the job. He was a high school aged black fellow. He sat across from me and watched my every movement. He was a short boy with a sad face that longed for attention. After a few stations stops he struck up a train conversation with me and it became clear that this fellow knew more about the train and train lines then I did at that time. That day he rode up and down with me on each of my trips, he even tried to come into the crew room with me. I had to tell him that the crew room was for employees only. I mentioned him to the guys in the crew room and everyone seemed to know him. “That guy is a real pain in the ass,” someone said and everyone else agreed. Over the years, I’ve met several other train buffs, but I seldom saw any of them more than once. This fellow, his name was Jeff, roamed the IND, Bronx and Manhattan lines long enough to have earned a pension if he was on the payroll. It was clear that he never went to school. Years later he became so obsessed with the trains that he started carrying a black toiletry bag like the motor instructors used to carry their tools. He walked through the cars of a train with an intensive look on his face; looking at car numbers and sometimes he’d jot car numbers down on a small writing pad. If there was a brand new conductor on a train that was having a door problem, he barked out orders to him and disappeared before the conductor got wise. Late one night at 207th Street, a disabled train came into the station, the dispatcher was asking that everyone in the crew room to go out on the platform to quickly clear the train out. Get all the sleepers off so that the disabled train could be taken to the yard and the replacement train could come into the station keeping as close to the schedule as possible. Jeff was out there already, he had been sitting on a bench half way down the platform. About five motormen and conductors went out taking a few cars each to rouse the sleepers. The motorman who was to take out the next train walked through the first two cars banging a shoe slipper on the seats and asking people to get off of the train. Everyone in the first car except a bagwoman complied. The motorman continued on through the second car and got the people there off. When he returned to the first car, the woman still sat sprawled out on a seat. All the other helpers stood by their positions watching to make sure that no one got back on to the train. They closed the doors and a yard motorman charged the train up to take it to the yard. The yard motorman keyed open one door on the lead car where the woman sat. By then all the workers had assembled by the lead car and they were shouting for the woman to please get off of the train. It was going to the yard; they tried to explain to her. Another train was coming in and she could get on that one, they pleaded with her. Finally a motorman walked over to the woman in a threatening fashion. The woman gathered her things and as she got to the door she looked up at the motorman, “You didn’t want to kick me out last night when you had me in bed,” she said as she stepped out of the train. Everyone laughed and teased the motorman although they knew that there was absolutely no truth to what this clever homeless woman had asserted. There was the birth of yet another story that had legs years long. The yard motorman took the train down to 200th Street to change ends to take the train to the yard. As he was walking though the train he saw Jeff sitting in the fifth car. “Ooh shit,” he said. What are you doing on this train?” “I need to get to the yard to check on some shopped cars in the barn.” “What in the hell are you talking about.” “I need to get the numbers off the shopped cars in the barn,” Jeff said. “Numbers my ass.” “It’s for Jay Street.” The motorman grabbed Jeff by his arm and forced him to the front of the train with him. He sat Jeff down in the seat across from his cab. “If you run and I catch you I’m gonna break your head,” the motorman said. Then he called the dispatcher to tell him that they had to bring the train back into the station to let a passenger off. Another overlooked fact about the transit system is the vast number of people it takes to make the system work. When people think about transit workers, they think conductor and motorman, but of the thirty-six thousand transit workers only six thousand are conductors and motormen. Subway conductors and to a lesser extent, subway motormen, are the visible icons of the system, but they have a supporting cast of thirty thousand. These people go unseen and their roles in making the New York City transit system work goes unheralded. Thousands of these workers spend their whole working careers keeping the tracks in the miles of darkened tunnels under the city in safe working order. Thousands of other workers work in the train barns and repair shops in every borough of the city keeping the rolling stock—rolling. There are people who walk the track to remove major debris that could endanger safe travel. There are schedule makers, researchers, administrators, timekeepers, towermen, trainmasters, dispatchers, personnel trainers, superintendents, booth clerks and a maze of other jobs that comprise the job force of thirty-six thousand transit employees. Then there are the handful of people who are appointed by politicians to run the system and even they go unnoticed until there is a crisis. The Associated Transit Guild was established in 1952 as a fraternal organization of black transit workers. It was an organization out of public view. Even many transit workers didn’t know of its existence, although the Guild existed to help many of them advance in their careers. The Guild began with the idea of getting more blacks into transit and giving training and classes to help those already in transit pass promotional test. It also helped black workers navigate the complex civil service system. In the early years when blacks entered the civil service system, there was what was called the three-in-one rule that was often used to keep blacks from being hired or promoted. The three-in-one rule gave the civil service system the ability to reject one of every three applicant without explanation—this rule was used most often on black applicants as was the case with Trainmaster Tom Stewart. The Guild helped black applicants in successful appeals of the three-in-one rule and this success grew its numbers and made it better known. The membership fee for joining the Guild was nominal. For ten dollars a year transit workers could attend classes to prepare for test for every position in open competitive examinations. Jim Hinson who attended Fordham University while I did and graduated with a degree in Industrial Psychiatry was now a motor instructor. Hinson also went on to pursue a master’s degree at Long Island University. He worked in the Transit Authority’s training program. He was also Training Coordinator for the Guild. Hinson solicited classroom space from churches, schools, community centers and any institution that had space where classes could be taught. He also recruited volunteers from among the TA’s middle managers to teach in the Guild’s training program. The classes were taught by people who worked at the position being taught or had expert knowledge about the position. The Guild also monitored the Equal Employment Office of the TA to ensure that no worker was being discriminated against and it consulted with TA officials and union officials concerning working conditions and work rules. The Guild lobbied City, State and Federal officials on matters connected to all phases of transportation. It was in large part due to the classes conducted by the Guild that the number of black tower men, dispatchers, motor instructors, trainmasters and superintendents increased. In a decade, the Guild had nurtured an entire cadre of black transit middle managers. These managers in turn filled the ranks of the Guild with appreciative officers and staffers to carry on its proud tradition. On the other side of the fence, the Guild had connections to black elected officials and black civic and political organizations to booster its reputation. The Transit Guild remains a competent promoter of black transit workers—their concerns and their future—while it remains in the background away from the public spotlight. With this kind of knowledge under my belt I knew that I was becoming a subway conductor. I was gaining practical work experience and becoming exposed to the weird and wonderful occurrences that took place underground in the subway. www.hmunginbooks.com Read and search book reviews and excerpts on SeeingBlack.com's Literature channel and archive. Click here to post a comment on this excerpt or your own literature, reviews or news. Do you shop at Amazon? Well shop through our link and support SeeingBlack.com! © Copyright by SeeingBlack.com |
