If you haven’t noticed by now, I’ve become pretty engrossed in this whole researching and finding old railroad related stuff. I’ve apparently been referred to as a “closeted railfan” (and the “mascot of the Harlem Line”, but that is a different story). Honestly I have never thought of myself as a railfan. Railfans seem to have all this information tucked away in their brains about types of trains and how they function, and could probably tell you the model of whatever locomotive they’re looking at and a good portion of information about it too. I don’t know much about trains other than what I’ve visually observed. In fact sometimes I am a bit shy to post some of my train photography online, because all the railfans always identify their pictures with all that info they know. I am just sort of like, here is a picture. It is a train. The train says Metro-North on it, and I saw it at White Plains station. And thus ends my description of said train. I will admit that I like riding on trains, though I think for the most part it is more that I like watching people on trains. Or getting to know people on trains. I’ve met a lot of nice people on trains. And a lot of crazy ones too. But if you’ve been here before, you don’t need me to tell you that.

However, all this digging in the history books I’m doing may be enough to warrant the title of “railfan”. I assure you, I was not this way before I started writing this blog (nor did I take anything I said seriously at that point, but that too is another story). So I suppose this is my confession to the world. This is me coming out of the closet, if you will. I guess… well… I guess I am a railfan. Okay, I said it.

One thing that I did feel like sharing though, were some interesting postcard images that I encountered in my research. It is interesting to note that pigeons are such a nuisance today, and they certainly were a nuisance back in the late 1800′s for the New York and Harlem Railroad. Some things never change. Here is a postcard from Copake, which back in the day was part of the “Upper Harlem Line”. The Harlem Line no longer extends that far up.

I imagine the photographer there was attempting to get a picture of the station, when all of a sudden that one pigeon jumped up in the foreground. I do believe that is a historic example of what is known today as a photobomb.

One of the things you may not have known, however, is that when it started, the New York and Harlem Railroad operated streetcars in Manhattan. And some of these were in fact pulled by horses. A failed, not often talked about, alternate method was also tried, using specially-bred larger pigeons (of which were plentiful in the city). Here is a never before seen photograph of prototype streetcar #00, being pulled by one of the aforementioned large pigeons.

Pigeon-cars, as they were called never really seemed to “take off” in the city. I think the whole oversized bird thing turned off quite a few people. Plus the temperament of horses was a bit better than the birds. The pigeons’ downfall was an early outbreak of the Avian Flu, which led the city into a complete panic, and many helpless pigeons were “purged” for the sake of humanity. The year after an early version of the Swine Flu struck, leading New Yorkers to endeavor to purge another species, but the pigeons never came back into favor. It does seem that the larger variety of pigeon was driven to extinction, as we are familiar today only with their smaller brethren.

Well, I suppose that is it for today’s history lesson. It is at this time I must admit to you all that back in the day when I was a struggling graphic designer, I always figured that if I failed at design, I could always work in the photography department at the Weekly World News. I was quite heartbroken when they ceased print production in 2007, which led me to seek out “a regular job”.

If you’ve ever been to the White Plains train station a few times, it is highly likely that at some point you’ve encountered the guy that I’ve dubbed “The Crazy Coat Guy”. He’s a fixture of the station, and has been around long before I started commuting through the city of White Plains. He talks to himself, and he’s loud. Depending on the weather, he hangs out in the upstairs and downstairs waiting areas. He has some questionable taste in jewelry, and has been seen wearing big earrings up both sides of his ears. His taste in accessories isn’t much better, as he’s begun a love affair with womens’ purses. He has the craziest haircut, though due to the cold we haven’t seen it for a while. And now, it isn’t all that strange to be wearing a coat due to the temperatures. But come back in July on the hottest day of the year, and you’ll still see him wearing that coat, stalking around the station, and talking to himself.

Without the Coat Guy, I don’t think White Plains would be the same. But seriously, don’t you think he wears some of the craziest stuff? Wouldn’t it be awesome to dress him up yourself, in something more normal? Or something even more crazy? Guess what, now you can! You can dress up the Crazy Coat Guy in this spectacular flash game that I wasted quite a few hours of my life on! Every piece of clothing in the game (with the exception of the iridetheharlemline.com shirt) is something that I’ve actually seen him wear in real life (yes, even that leprechaun hat). So what are you waiting for? Get in there and dress up the Coat Guy! And when you’re done, click the button that says “Go Out” to see him stand on the platform!

A few of my spectacular creations…

When I encounter people that I consider creepy on the train, especially the ones that attempt to talk to me, I really try not to be rude (at least to their face. Because then I end up going and writing about them, which I suppose could be construed as a rude act). In recent days, this has been difficult. When someone sticks out their hand for a handshake, though you really don’t want to shake it, what exactly do you do? Hand shaking is an important part of our culture of meeting people. Articles get written about how people perceive you based on how firm your handshake is. So really, what do you do? If you don’t shake it, you’re just an asshole. And so, in an effort to not be an asshole, I reluctantly shake their hand. And they prolong it as much as possible. And I wonder when the hell I am going to get my hand back. So thus, I am now armed with this:

This morning was one of those times. There is a man at Goldens Bridge I see every once and a while. He always carries a bag, and he never walks properly, he always scuffs his feet on the ground. He reminds me significantly of a friend of my father’s, which may be the only reason why I end up talking to him each time. He very well could be the long lost brother that was dropped on his head as a baby of my father’s friend. Last week I saw him and he did the handshake thing. Oh and he prolonged it as much as possible. But I think you’d also be considered an asshole if you asked for your hand back. Anyways, today we had a conversation on the platform, it went something like this (He’s in bold):

“Hi!”
“Hello, how are you?”
“I got a new jacket”
He then proceeded to stroke the sleeve of the new jacket. At that point, he was about to walk away, but something brought him back.

“So where is your laptop? You don’t have your laptop today?”
“Oh I have it, it is in my bag.”
“So where do you work in White Plains?”
“At FUJIFILM.”
“Oh nice!” At this point he sounded very impressed.
“Let me guess, you file papers there?”
Wait… what? I file papers? That is so wrong. Are you saying that because I am female? Because I look young? Shit. At this point the train is coming, and so I get on. And he disappeared in the crowd of people. I’ll see him again, I know I will. I just hope the next encounter will not be quite as awkward.

I just happened to be looking through my photos on my cell phone, and I came across one that I had forgotten about. It is above. There had been a storm raging that day, but on the ride home it had begun to clear up. I snapped that photo when we were at Mount Kisco station. I was sitting near the door, and the train conductor, Guy, said to me, “come out and look here,” as he was standing on the platform. I ducked out of the train for about two seconds to gaze at it. Then engineer was wondering if he could go, and the conductor in the back, Dave, was like, “Wait, I think they’re looking at the rainbow. Isn’t that nice?” The whole thing took a matter of seconds, and my recollection of the dialogue is probably pretty off, but I smile when I remember that time. And really, I wish it was a nice day with a rainbow outside, instead of the cold and the snow.

I know a lot of people would agree with me. And a few of my avian friends. That would be the pigeons in White Plains. They of course are sick of the cold, and have begun hiding inside the station again. Apparently a recent addition in the past few weeks to the station were spikes added to the inside windows, a former popular spot for the pigeons. Now the pigeons have taken to some other spots, one being the ticket kiosks. I bet the machinery keeps those nice and toasty for the birds. I work for FUJIFILM, and we have photo printing kiosks in places like Walmart and RiteAid. And I’ve heard horror stories from techs that have to go out to service those machines, and have found animals that have made homes inside the machines because of the warmth. I can only imagine, and feel sorry for the poor chap that is going to have to service or clean those ticket machines at some point in the future.

I even have video, hooray!

I was amused though, on the MTA’s new site, they have a list of Frequently Asked Questions. One of which is how they are working to deter pigeons from roosting inside trains and stations. Their answer?

To address the problem of pigeons in our stations, we are testing a new system that drives away pigeons by sending a harmless, low-voltage electric shock through wires installed in areas where they perch.

Yeah, I wonder how that is working out for them… zap.

Search engines are amazing, magical things. You type stuff in that box, and wow, it just miraculously finds what you need! Provided you type in something relatively normal, that is. Like cats. You can find a crapload of stuff on the internet about cats. Normal people might search for something like that. Even people that are more or less outliers in the whole scheme of “normality” might search for cats. But if you are typing into google, her panties get wet on the train ride, you are a sick bastard.

Apparently I do have readers that are in fact sick bastards. Every few weeks I fire up my statistics log of the site, and I can view what people type into search engines in order to find this blog. And many people find it by typing in Harlem Line. But apparently the number one thing people want to know about is about drinking beer on the trains. Yes, you can drink beer on Metro-North. But it would also be great if instead of leaving your empty bottles/cans on the train, you dispose of them when you get off. I mean, that is a perfectly relevant query. If you are the type of person that wants to get drunk on your way to the city to get drunk. Or to drown your sorrows after work. If you ask google about drinking beer, I don’t think anything bad of you. But if you search google for free videos of asses groped on buses or trains, you are a sick bastard.

The other big thing that people search for and end up finding my site, are about dogs riding Metro-North. They want to know if dogs can ride, and if they are charged a fee in order to ride. Yes, small dogs can ride Metro-North. We do ask that you keep the dog on a leash, or in a crate, as to not disturb other passengers. Service animals are of course, always accepted. There is no fee for a dog to ride, but it is always up to the conductor as to whether your animal is bothering other passengers. I suppose animals riding the train is a valid query. Maybe you were heading down to the ASPCA in the city and were going to adopt a new family member? Certainly you would want said family member to be able to ride the train back home. But if you wanted to know can fat people ride the train?, well, you aren’t a sick bastard, but you are an asshole.

Honest to god, do you think I am kidding? My stats are even arranged into spectacular graphs.

Are you ready to lose a few IQ points? Because I can lead you down into the bowels of civilization, beyond the darkness, beyond the subway rats. These are the layers of hell. And what do people in hell search for on the internet?

i shit trains – You may want to have a doctor look at that
why man places hand down pants while sleeping – I don’t know, but you may want to have a doctor look at that too.
guy shows his butt on the hudson line - Was this man mooning your train as it sped by? Were you hoping there would be pictures?
the fattest guy to show his butt crack on a metro north train seat – were you hoping there would be pictures of that too?
pictures of pee puddles – Please, seriously, please tell me why you would want to see that?
smelly water on mta trains – Yes, I believe that is found in a place that most people call the bathroom. If you have any sense, you don’t even sit anywhere near that car
i saw a pigeon get run over by a bus and i like it – What do you mean by “like”? If you fapped to it, not only are you a sick bastard, but you also are going to straight hell. Would you prefer the aisle or window seat?
get rid of metro north conductor – Were you looking for a how-to book? How to get rid of your conductor in three easy steps, so you can ride the fucking train and not have to pay, currently available for preorder on Amazon.com.
lady pilot fucking lady passengers – Well we do know that some guys have fantasies of doing it with female train conductors on trains. It would be quite logical for people to feel the same way about pilots, right? Though currently I do think there is a general moratorium on joining the mile-high club, because if you are in the plane bathroom for anything more than five minutes, there may be an emergency landing, and you’re going to get cavity searched to determine whether you have any dynamite stuck up your ass. So please folks, stick to trains. But not my train, thanks.

So tell me now… do you feel more stupid than you were five minutes ago? I certainly do. Tell all your friends to google I ride the harlem line, and preferably not other complete bits of sick nonsense. Otherwise I may be forced to inform them that they are a fricken sick bastard.

Alright, let me just say it now, but I love it when people from the MTA read my blog. Alright, alright, I don’t really know if anyone from there or Metro-North read my blog. What I do know, is that a lot of people found my blog the past few days, specifically searching for a phrase. And what phrase is that, do you ask? Goldens Bridge vandalism, and Goldens Bridge graffiti.

The other thing that I know is that today somebody was busy over at Goldens Bridge. Replacing every broken pane of glass, and covering over all of the graffiti. Now that graffiti had been there a few days shy of a month. Though exactly a week after posting embarrasing (for the MTA) photos of the destruction, it is now fixed. What service! Of course it is possible that nobody important read this blog at all, but I prefer to believe my delusions of grandeur.

Unfortunately, I now have no further excuse for putting up crazy posters in the train station. I have nothing ugly to cover up! Maybe some day, the posters will come back. But until then, enjoy a little sound clip. Somebody did in fact call the telephone number on one of the Waldo posters, and left me a message. Perhaps that whole “Operation Cover Up Graffiti & Broken Glass” was not as much of a failure as I thought it to be.

I personally thought that last week’s Cat Found poster was pretty funny. They were slowly taken down one by one, but at least one of the posters survived the entire week. My goal was to again, cover up the graffiti, and now the broken glass, with something a bit more amusing. The poster I hung last night was somewhat more subtle.

The name Waldo should give it away. Don’t fix that glass Metro North, it looks sexy as-is.

Cover up that graffiti!

Well, let’s just say it was a miserable failure. The signs did not last 24 hours in the station. By morning time, six of the seven were gone, and one was moved in the corner and partially crumpled. If an MTA worker did this, I could understand. But then that means that they employ workers to go into stations and pull down posters. And do only that. Because they sure as hell didn’t clean the station. The same immature penis drawings in the dirt that have been there for months are still there. The graffiti is still there, the broken glass on the floor is still there. I will just assume that I pissed off the graffiti artist. And they certainly didn’t want their handiwork covered up.

The cat girl was out and causing mischief this week in Goldens Bridge. I’ve been told by some people I see on my commute that seeing me with my cat hat every morning makes them smile. But what of every person at the station that I don’t see? I figured I’d make them smile a bit too, and maybe have a bit of a laugh. So if you hang out around Goldens Bridge, you may have seen this poster:

Monday night I hung six of these posters. By Tuesday morning two were missing, and by this morning there were only three remaining, on the south side platform and the south vestibule stairwell. I was hoping that someone would call the number on the poster and say something amusing, but thus far I’ve received no calls. Yes, the number is in fact a real voicemail number. If you call it, any message you leave will be emailed to me.

Part of the motivation for the poster was to cover up the graffiti that the MTA will never clean

Don’t mess with the ticket machines. One of the first signs to disappear.

So last week I posted my brilliant idea of what I would do the next time someone came to me in White Plains begging for money… that was, make them work for it. If they wanted money, I’d give it to them, if and only if they sand or danced on camera. In fact the same man returned, the one I was referring to in that post, again asking for dollars. And thus began my evening in White Plains yesterday.

Dollar man was looking for a dollar, and I said that I would give him one if he danced or sang. I even pulled the dollar out of my pocket. I later said that I’d give it for doing just about anything, including telling a joke. So I turned on the camera, and told him to tell his joke. But he got shy, pulled his hat over his eyes. I said oh well, turned off the camera, and put the dollar back in my pocket.

Certainly by now everyone in the train station was watching this exchange between the man and my friends and I. So the man tried a different tact: “Miss? Did I say that you look very pretty?” Unfortunately I wasn’t giving out dollars for compliments, but it certainly got the room to burst into laughter. But of course, he wanted that dollar bad. And so he finally agreed to “tell a joke” on camera. I put that in quotes because he claimed that he said something funny, but I certainly didn’t hear it. But I told him I was feeling generous and that he could have the dollar. After all, I did get something semi-amusing to write about.

Later on before I got on my train, the man, who told me his name was John, wanted to thank me and shook my hand. He also wanted to know what my name was, and if I was single. In retrospect the idea of asking beggars to perform on camera was rather amusing. In practice however, I don’t think I’ll be doing it again. Either way though, I am probably going to hell.

The more I post in this blog, the more I find myself split between posting pictures and stories of the crazy people I see, and relevant news regarding the Harlem Line. I think that I have come to a compromise of doing half and half. However, today is certainly a pictures of crazy people day. Oh, and remember, if you see some crazy people around the MTA trains, subways or buses be sure to take a picture and send it to me. :D

This funny guy kept trying to read, failing, and then falling asleep. I seriously thought he was going to fall out of his seat and onto the floor. There were a lot of sleepy people today, that is until one of the other crazies came upstairs and started shouting at them, “WAKE UP!”

I just thought this woman was funny, she was carrying this small rocking horse around on the platform, and then onto the train.

The other day I mentioned a girl with crazy hair carrying a mannequin torso… apparently she visited the train station again last night, this time she chose to carry a halloween pumpkin bucket. But this time I did take her picture. My coworker that saw her said that the tattoo on her face is probably real as well.

Also for amusement, here are some of the pictures that I was mailed today from the Christmas Carol Train Tour that was in Grand Central two weekends ago. On the train they took your photo, and then did a few “face morphs” to make you look like some of the characters from the movie.