Table of Contents
For Mom, Dad,
and Joe T. Moore
C.B.
SUBWAY MOTORMAN?
KERON THOMAS
SATURDAY, MAY 8, 1993
NEW YORK CITY
If there had been trains on the island of Trinidad, where you lived until you were twelve, you might have gotten your thing for them out of your system by now. But there werent, and you didnt, and thats why youre here at the 207th Street subway station carrying a bag of motormans tools and signing someone elses name.
If all goes well, theyll never know that your name is Keron Thomas and that youre sixteen. If all goes well, theyll believe you when you tell them that youre Regoberto Sabio, and theyll have no idea that hes supposed to be forty-four years old. Youre a six-footer, but you cant pass for forty-four. Twenty-four, maybe. But not forty-four.
You met Sabio while you were hanging out on the Franklin Avenue Shuttle he operates weekday afternoons and evenings back in Brooklyn. You knew so much about the subway already that you didnt come off as suspiciously eager to learn more. In fact, you told Sabio you were a motorman too, on another line. Obviously, you were a young, single motorman with time on his hands and a need for a mentor. Why else would you have ridden his four-stop route back and forth in the cab with him for several hours each week since last winter?
In addition to the tools, youd gotten your hands on this Transit Authority uniform shirt. You kept it in your bag at school, and youd throw it on before you got to the Franklin Avenue station. Between that T.A. shirt and your calm, mature demeanor, nobody would look at you and see a teenage train fanatic. That allowed you to observe Sabio up close and learn a lot more than you could have while watching a motorman through a closed cab door.
You paid close attention to everything Sabio did. As he ran his train down the line and back, you picked up on the lingo from his radio chats with the tower. You watched him brake when he came into a station, saw how he eased the train back out again. Hes a talkative guy, so there was a lot of conversation in there, a lot of advice. Dont stay out drinking the night before youve got a shift, hed tell you. Dont let management tell you how to wear your hair, Take notes on everything you do, and so forth. It was all professional advice, not technical, because he thought you already knew the mechanics of operating a train, right?
Somewhere along the way, you got the idea that you probably did know enough to drive the train. But you didnt want to just knowyou wanted to do. And this week when Sabio mentioned that vacation he had coming up, you saw your chance.
You asked some questions not too surprising coming from a rookie motorman: Whos going to take your shift while youre out? Can I do it? How do I go about getting some overtime, anyway?
He said, Call the crew office and see what they say.
Which you did.
Late last night.
In Sabios name.
But you didnt ask for his Franklin Shuttle route. You told them what train you really wanted. Come on in, they told you. 207th Street station, they said. And here you arewhere, most likely, nobody knows that the real Regoberto Sabio is not only much older than you but four inches shorter and forty pounds lighter. They probably dont know that he wears a beard or sports dreadlocks down past his waist.
Im the extra man, you tell the dispatcher. You have a train for me?
You sign in with Sabios nameno pass code needed, no Transit Authority I.D. required. You catch a little grief about the way youre dressedyouve got on your uniform shirt, but youre wearing jeans instead of the regulation blue trousers.
Hey, youre not in your uniform pants, he says.
Theyre at the cleaners, you say.
Ill let you go todayits the weekend.
He buys it. He believes you. Youre in.
He issues you a big, bulky radio, and now youve got a train to drive.
Youve studied hard for this day. Not in any classroomAutomotive High never has taught you what you most wanted to knowbut in the stations scattered beneath the streets of the city, and on the trains thundering through them.
All your life, youve wanted to know how things workthe mechanics of them. Whats inside a remote control that lets it run a toy car? The only way to find out is to open it up and see for yourself. And thats pretty much what youve done with the subway.
Long before you began hanging out with Sabio, you were riding the subway for fun on weekends, situated at the front of the train so you could get a peek at the tracks, see how the signals are working. Lots of kids do that, of course. But how many teenagers have train posters in their bedrooms? How many sing out Next stop, Franklin while pretending a piece of wood and a stapler are the controls? Or count Rules and Regulations Governing Employees Engaged in the Operation of the New York City Transit System among their favorite books?
Becoming one of those employees after you graduate would be greatbut youre impatient. Why wait until then to drive a train when you see a way you can do it now?
When the dispatcher told you to report way up at 207th, it could mean only one thing: You got the train you asked for. The A. Youve hit the jackpot. The A train is the longest line in the system. Youve heard its also one of the hardest lines for a beginning operator to learn on, because it involves lots of switching on and off different tracks. Thats good. You want a little challenge.
Youre not stealing the train, any more than someone can steal an escalatorits going to come right back to where you got it, isnt it? At least, thats how you see it as you walk out onto the platform with your bag containing a motormans two main toolsa brake handle and a reverser keyalong with a Day-Glo orange safety vest.
You do like youve seen Sabio docharge up the air compressors that power the brakes, walk through the train, make sure everythings in order. Then you step into the cab and wait for the conductor to give you two long buzzes. You give him two short ones in reply. Its 3:58 p.m.time to go.
Sabios shuttle is just two cars long, but the A has eightthats six hundred feet of train. The controls are also different from the ones youve watched Sabio operate, but thats all right. Youll figure them out. All you need to do is just
Uh-oh.
The train starts to move backward. Thats never supposed to happen. You put on the brake, but not before you feel the train nudge the bumping block behind it. Hoping nobody noticed, you reverse direction and pull out of the station.
You accelerate.
Youre in control. Youre used to the rattle and the clatter and the whine of the trains, but this power, this exhilarationthis feeling is new, and youve never known anything better. You knew you could do it. You feel like a pro.
This train is taking youno, youre taking itthe entire length of Manhattan, clear across Brooklyn, and all the way out to Lefferts Boulevard on the edge of Queens. Running time: about an hour fifteen. Youll haul hundreds of passengers, maybe thousandsnone of them with any idea whos behind this cab door. Theyre a trusting bunchnot trusting in
