Winter Woes: Tales of Treacherous Travels via Trains

Well, this certainly has been a wild winter and a bunch of wild transportation.

Polar Vortex anyone? 

Sometimes a photographic mistake is a surrealistic truth.

 There's been too many nights of travel that looks like this:

Not to mention, platforms that look like this:

Views from the platforms look like this:

It really starts to get to you.

You start to think about alternate transportation options.

Forget the train. One day - maybe this could be my ride.

Innocuous debris in the subway begins to remind you of

Frosty the Snowman.

Frosty RIP 2013-2013

If he had a REALLY bad night.

You rejoice in empty train cars, even if they are wrapped in the yucky competitor's cola*,

 and even if it is for some Sportsball Cup Event Thingy (TM).

You trudge to the train, only to be lulled out of the trudge 

by the dulcet sounds of a classical guitar wafting up an almost empty corridor.

Thank you traveling troubadour.

The guitar music totally was a graceful note that I try to remember, and NOT the night I spent three hours on the floor of Grand Central with thousands of people because Metro-North lost power to their control room - grinding the train wheels of transportation to a complete standstill.

This was my limited view. I did not venture forth from my spot by the Eastern staircase at the foot of the Apple Store very often. It was a mob scene.

I looked at this ... a lot for three hours.

Did I say three hours? Did both my phone and my iTouch almost die because all I did was send out updates and try to figure out if I was staying in the City overnight, even though I didn't have an overnight bag? Yes.

Some notes from my phones from that evening:

* Missing Grand Central's grand waiting rooms and bench seats in scenarios like this. And walls of power outlets to recharge devices.

* I bet the iFruit store, FrozenDrinkHut & FrostedSITCtreat places at Grand Central rake in the $$$ tonight with stranded crowds. [Ed. Note: Apple Store, Shake Shake, Magnolia Bakery]

* Today's #momentsofgrace: being acutely grateful to be stuck in Grand Central & not on a train in ParkAve tunnel or cold rails.

* LOOK Mr Announcer Dude. "Temporarily" is the wrong word if it has been more than an hr. "temporarily suspended" is code, right? [Ed. Note: they said "temporarily" for over 2 hours. SERIOUSLY!]

* And the NYC media has arrived. I see shoulder cams. Time for 10 & 11pm news clips. (Like that is going to help us one damn bit). [Ed. Note: It didn't.]

* People at my old job used to mock the fact that I kept a "go bag" under my desk with change of clothes, etc. Regretting I don't have 1 now. [Ed. Note: I prepped and packed one the next weekend. It still has yet to get to the new job. A fact that was regrettable given the weather the first 2 weeks of the new job.]

* Trying to remain positive. Standing &\or sitting on cold marble in the Terminal is better than being stuck on a cold dark train.

* Just declined giving a quote to traditional print media re: situation. Because, you know, "privacy" & all that. I do appreciate the "irony." [Ed. Note: Also invited to do a phone interview with television. Didn't get message. Declined follow-up later. Because, you know, "privacy" and all that.]

* Karma is a wonderful thing. I charged an old lady's phone when stuck in Salt Lake. A nice businessman is charging my phone in Grand Central.

* Phone battery dead. Nice business man had to go. News later. Signing off to save.

* I also think I will be "experiencing considerable residual delays" for my inbound NYC commute tomorrow.

* On the 11:13 local on track 27, packed to bursting, when conductor tells the entire train to move to track 28.

* The kicker of tonight's commute from heck? If I had just worked until 10:30 on my 6th to last day, like usual, I would have missed the mess.

* I beg to differ. We were NOT "bemused." Not 1 tiny bit. MT @nytimes Metro-North Grinds to a Halt W/ Computer Trouble http://nyti.ms/1c8ZFSZ


I am ever so grateful to be heading in the opposite direction now, where I can stay with friends, or stay in guest quarters.

If we all survive the winter and don't get stuck somewhere en route to somewhere ... it will be a miracle.



*I will drink it, if it's free.