Funny Moments on the LIRR

Yesterday was quite the interesting commute for me on the LIRR.  It wasn't nowhere near as crazy as it would have been if I lived along the New Haven Line, but it was much more comical.

Since it's been pretty slow on the LIRR lately with no real interesting news coming out or meltdowns happening (thank goodness!) I figured I'd share my musings with you.

First off, I took my normal Montauk Branch train as far as Babylon in the morning.  I had to be someplace in Downtown Manhattan at 10:30, so I figured I would go visit some old friends that lived along the Babylon Branch to kill some time.  At Babylon, I hopped off and switched to train 47 (one of Babylon semi-locals--if you follow me on Twitter I might've originally said train 27, I must've gotten the numbers switched around).  That train comes in a 15-20 minutes after 2703 leaves.  There's a good bit of action at Babylon around this time in the morning, there's a Patchouge scoot that terminates at Babylon, 2703 passes through, and there's a semi-express or two that leave all around the same time.  And it's always interesting to watch the people scurry from train to train depending on where they want to go, because  all within the span of a few moments you could go to Brooklyn, New York, Long Island City, or even Hicksville/Mineola.

After all those trains pulled out I went downstairs and moseyed around the station area seeing what there was to see and things like that.  Nontheless, shortly before 8:03am, train 47 pulls in, loads, and we leave without incident.

We're moving along the branch, and after we leave Copaigue, I begin to smell the strong aroma of coffee.  At first I figured it was just someone with a big cup of it letting its aromas fill the train for all to smell.

But when I was about to get off, I made my way to the door and saw something I've never seen before.

Now I've been riding the rails for quite a while and I've seen my fair share of crazy things on the train (especially those summer Hamptons runs), but I've never seen this before.

To my amazement, I saw someone sitting in  the very last row adjacent to the vestibule with a full blown coffee maker plugged into the outlet.  A full coffee maker.

Now this wasn't your tiny Keurig or anything like that.  This thing had a pot and coffee filters and everything (I'm not a big coffee drinker, so I'm not down with all that terminology, so forgive me).  The train had just arrived at my destination so I didn't have time to snap a picture, but I was in disbelief.

I'm not sure if this person does this all the time or what, and I was sitting towards the middle of the car so I wouldn't really hear if the conductor said anything over those horribly squeaky trucks, but I at least hope someone said something!

But thinking about it, I can't quite figure out one way or another if that would technically be allowed or not.  The M7 outlets are technically not for passenger use, but people plug things into them all the time without getting harassed.  After that, where do we draw the line?  Is just laptops and phones okay or can we go up to mild kitchen appliances?  I kinda admire this guy in a way, but then again, a coffee maker?

But my comical commute didn't end there.  On my way back into the city I figured I would go via Brooklyn.  Since most Babylon Branch trains go to New York in the off-peak I had to do the obligatory change in Jamaica.

While I was waiting for my Brooklyn connection to show up, a non-passenger train came through.  Now in Jamaica, whenever a non-passenger train comes through, the destination signs usually switch to read "NO PASSENGERS" while the train is coming through.

Now in all seriousness, shortly after the destination sign on the platform switched to "No Passengers" this lady came up to me on the platform, tapped me on the shoulder, and politely asked where on Long Island the town of No Passengers was.  (she must have figured it was an actual place with a train actually going to No Passengers).

I'm not sure if she was actually serious or was a tourist (I sure hope she was a tourist), but I proceeded to politely inform her that "No Passengers" meant that the train wasn't taking any passengers at this station, not that the train was actually going to a town called No Passengers. 

Anyways, hopefully this little tale from the "People of the LIRR" files brightens your morning a little bit, I knew I got a good chuckle or two out of it yesterday!