Strangely enough, the railroad also played a part in the establishment of various cemeteries. As the city itself grew larger, not only did some former rural cemeteries get displaced, people with money wished to be interred in an attractive rural setting. Woodlawn Cemetery was established in 1863, and took in the remains of cemeteries displaced in the city proper, and grew to become a venerable place of final rest for thousands. Such growth was undoubtedly assisted by the nearby railroad, easily allowing loved ones to visit the graves of their friends and family. Further north along the Harlem Division, the Kensico Cemetery was also established as a beautiful, rural final resting place. Truly appealing to the wealthy of the city, Kensico offered a private railcar for rent for funerals which would transport people directly from Grand Central to the cemetery’s very own train station.

Though Woodlawn and Kensico may be the two most commonly known cemeteries that owe their growth to the Harlem Railroad, there is another slightly more unique cemetery that also falls into that category – the Hartsdale Pet Cemetery. Just like its brethren, the Hartsdale cemetery has seen gun salutes, bagpipers, and is the final resting place for thousands of friends – however the majority of them just happen to not be human. Buried within its grounds you’ll find the graves of war dogs, police dogs (including at least one MTAPD K9), a search and rescue dog that lost its life on September 11th, thousands of other cats and dogs, humans that opted for their cremains to be interred together with their beloved pets, and even a lion. It is also home to the War Dog Memorial, celebrating the animals that fought alongside their human handlers in the Great War.

Established in 1896, the Hartsdale Pet Cemetery (originally called the Hartsdale Canine Cemetery) was simply an apple orchard at summer home of New York City veterinarian Samuel Johnson. After a distraught patron’s animal passed, he offered a spot for the animal to be buried on his land. After a newspaper got wind of the story and wrote about it, calls came in from many more distraught pet owners, and Johnson established a three acre section of his orchard for further pets to be buried. The usual arrangement entailed a deceased pet being delivered to Johnson’s office in New York, and from there the animal would be fitted into a casket and taken to Grand Central, where they would be loaded onto a Harlem Division train to Hartsdale. As news of the cemetery spread far and wide, one canine was even shipped by rail from Kalamazoo, Michigan, to be laid to rest at Hartsdale. Though the cemetery has grown since then, it is remains an idyllic place for a furry loved one to be buried.

Recognizing the cemetery’s long history, it was recently placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Though it may not be as close to the railroad as Woodlawn or Kensico, today’s Harlem Line played an integral part of the Hartsdale Pet Cemetery’s history. It is, however, within walking distance of Hartsdale station, and worth a visit to anyone in the area.

For those interested, the cemetery will be holding its annual Tree Lighting Ceremony on Saturday, December 6th at 4 PM, along with a “four legged” food drive to help local animal shelters and rescue groups.

                       

People have been debating who should get the nomination to replace Lhota, and if you ask me, it should totally go to Sadie the subway cat! A few weeks ago I updated you on Sadie, who formerly worked at the New York Transit Museum, but has since retired. I had a chance to talk to the wonderful museum employee who has adopted Sadie, and it seems that she is certainly enjoying retired life…

 
  
 
The subway kitty is now an apartment kitty, and with a nice view!

I bet we could convince Miss Sadie to take the post as chief of the MTA, though. Think about it, we’d just have to pay for her cat food, litter and vet care, and that can’t be more than $1,000 a year, right? That is a bargain compared to the $350,000 that Jay Walder got paid in 2010 as MTA chief. And it wouldn’t be the first time a feline was in an executive position at a transportation company – just ask Japanese cat Tama, who worked herself up from the position of Stationmaster, to Super Stationmaster, and now Chief Operating Officer at the Wakayama Electric Railway. Apparently putting animals in executive positions at railroad companies seems to be a perfectly acceptable business practice in Japan. So why not hire a cat and get ridership up?

In other news, when it comes to the cuteness factor, Sadie beats Joe Lhota hands down. Jay Walder, too.

Sorry, Joe Lhota.

In all seriousness, it will be interesting to see who will be replacing Lhota. And a little bit of a shame, as I thought he seemed pretty competent. (And yes, I admit, I always thought he was pretty cool for actually starting and maintaining a twitter account.) The likelihood of a cat getting the position is probably less than the world ending tonight, so we certainly wish Sadie the best, and to keep enjoying her retirement. But on the off chance that she does get the job, I know who Sadie can hire as her deputy!

The trains aren’t running? GOOD!

Anyone who is employed by Metro-North’s customer relations department is bound to have quite the experience in being asked some pretty crazy questions. I know that in my short stint as a phone tech in a computer service center I was asked (and told) some pretty crazy things. Thankfully, I’ve been on the opposite side of customer service questions for quite a few years. I am the stupid customer. Or perhaps more apt – the trickster.

Trouble always seems to be two steps behind me, and I can’t resist playing a little joke every now and again. In this case, I couldn’t resist messing around with @MetroNorthTweet – Metro-North’s presence on the social-media site Twitter. I will not lie – I was aware that Ted, the normal person behind @MetroNorthTweet, was not around and another person would be monitoring the account. Yeah, that probably played a little part…

First, I had to set the stage. I’m so proud of myself, I thought of this on the train platform.

Now, I assure you, I had no intentions of messing with @MetroNorthTweet solely to post it here. Just the fact that other people started chiming in made me decide later on that I should post this. In fact, it was probably the highlight of my day! Thanks Metro-North, and Chamelle for being such a good sport!

One of the subjects I did manage to get up a while ago were the photos and video of the Tama Densha train. That would be the train that was modeled after the famous Stationmaster Cat, Tama. But I never mentioned my visit across various prefectures to get to see this little feline. I had hoped to get some special treatment, even got a Japanese coworker to call and attempt to arrange it for me, but unfortunately their reply was that the railroad had no one available that spoke English to meet with me. So I, like everyone else, saw little Tama inside her temporary cage, as Kishi station at the time was under construction. The new station, which is complete with a cat-faced roof, has since opened. I am also pretty sure that Tama has received a promotion to vice-president of the railroad company.

The Wakayama Electric Railway itself is pretty small. I didn’t realize that the Kishigawa Line, the one that went from Wakayama city to the final station of Kishi, was the company’s only line. Although I am sure that there are plenty of people that might use the short, 9 mile line for commuting, it mostly has reinvented itself as a tourist line… which of course happened by accident after they assigned a little cat to become a stationmaster. The company only has six sets of two EMU railcars, three sets of which are themed: there is the Tama train, a strawberry-themed train, and a toy-themed train. The trains only have an engineer and no conductors, run on narrow gauge rails, and are powered by overhead catenary. But I can assure you that most people riding that train could care less about that – they just want to see the cat!

  
   
  
   
 
  
  
  
 

Being the person I am, and going to just about anywhere cute animals may be, I also visited the city of Nara. I write about plenty of history on this site, but it feels slightly amusing for me to say that Nara was Japan’s capital in the year 710 (sometimes American history just feels like a children’s-sized book). According to mythology, the god Takemikazuchi arrived to protect the capital on the back of a white deer. The deer there have been regarded as almost sacred, and you’ll find them rather tame and wandering all over in the vicinity of Nara Park. Vendors sell little crackers to feed the deer… and yes, some of the deer even have polite Japanese manners and bow to you.

  
   
    
   
  
  

Me, I like to read. One of my goals in life was always to read 50 books in a year. In school there was never enough time for me to read that much, but while riding the train every day, it is a quite achievable goal. Sometimes when I get bored of reading I’ll listen to music, and if I’m tired, sleep. Occasionally I bring my netbook, and most rarely do I draw. I did sew once, and that certainly got me some odd looks from folks… well, mostly because I was sewing 8-fingered gloves for my 8-fingered mother.

Even more rarely then the aforementioned activities, I make seat check animals. It started quite a while ago… kids were on vacation from school, and a few of them wound up on the train with their parents, heading for the city. A conductor I know started making seat check animals for the kids when he had a free moment. I watched and was then like, hey, give me some of those seat checks. He says I cheat though, since I use scissors and glue, which is probably true. But it is one more thing to pass the time… Anyways, here is a little collection of silly things I made, all from recycled Metro-North seat checks and tickets (there are even some old tickets in there – a retiring conductor found them while cleaning out his locker and gave them to me). I call it my Metro-North Zoo.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

In addition to the exhibit, there were also a couple tours through the museum to see some of the Arts for Transit works. A few weeks ago I went on one of those tours, we went to see Departures and Arrivals, by artist Ben Snead, in Jay Street-Borough Hall station. The tour ended with a trip to Ben’s studio, where we got to see some of his previous work, and the things he is currently working on.

Departures and Arrivals is a glass mosaic, based on original paintings by Snead (these paintings are actually at the Transit Museum for the exhibit). Snead’s work often pictures insects, reptiles and fish, and with this mosaic that theme carries through. On the tour Snead discussed why he chose the various animals displayed on the wall, and perfect for a train station where people come and go every day, the underlying theme is the migration of these animals. All of those displayed in mosaic form – sparrow, lion fish, koi, parakeet – are all animals not native to the city, they were introduced by people, or migrated on their own. The beetle, which is screened onto the larger white tiles, is a species native to this area – though it is disappearing due to humans encroaching on its habitat.

Mosaics always amaze me, as I figure they aren’t the easiest thing to create, and rather labor intensive. Although Snead created the initial design, it was from his paintings that the mosaic was fabricated by Franz Mayer of Munich. Snead mentioned that there was a bit of color shifting from his original designs, but it came out very well. If you look closely the piece is not entirely created from many small tiles, there are some larger pieces of glass used for feathers, and for beaks. This was partially done to save money, I remember hearing during the tour, but I don’t see it as hurting the piece, I rather like the effect.

Meet Berta, who is quite the cutie. I had a short chat with Berta’s handler while waiting for my train this evening (me being the moron I am, forgot to ask him his name!). Ever since reading an article in the New York Times about the MTA’s dogs, I had a question. What is up with the price gap? The NYT stated that male dogs were more expensive than females. I had to ask Berta’s handler. Are the females… less effective?

He laughed at the question. “Definitely not,” he said. The two dogs he works with, Berta, and a German Shepherd, are both female. He was also skeptical that there exists any price difference between the male and female dogs. Although Berta’s job is to sniff out explosives, her handler jokes that she really excels at sniffing out chocolate chip cookies. Shame on you, Berta, dogs aren’t supposed to eat chocolate!

And there you have it. Dog themed posts two days in a row. I do think I need to clean myself up now… I seem to have dog fur all over my shirt…