Broken Rails/Broken Spirits

If you ask any person what railroad tracks are made of, I'm sure that over 95% of the responses would be for some kind of metal, most likely steel. But ask any daily commuter what they're made from and you'll probably get answers like, peanut brittle, glass, thin twigs, frozen tears of commuters, cancelled meetings or shattered dreams.

The reason why is because these things break allllll the fucking time. Broken rails are the new switch and signal problems.

I'm not even shitting you, this is what my inbox looks like at least 3 days a week

Today is the third day in the past month that the trains have been completely fucked up due to a broken rail. The first time it happened, I avoided Ronkonkoma like the plague and headed to Sayville. When I get on the Sayville train, somewhere around Bay Shore, they tell us due to a broken rail (HAHAHAHAHAHAHA) that the train is cancelled. They tell us we can wait onboard until the next westbound train comes which won't be for at least a half hour (HAHAHAHAHAHAHA).

This isn't funny, it's purely the laughter of sheer madness

About 40 minutes later, our train is magically uncanceled. We are going to proceed ahead slowly, because of the broken rail by Babylon. Oh, and one by Bay Shore which they're not telling us about until now.

Want to take a guess what happens next? If you guess that there is yet another broken rail then you are either a daily commuter or you understand the comedy rules of threes.

HehehehehehahahahahohohohohahhaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

Also, I appreciate heat being that it's winter and all, but sweet zombie Jesus, does it really need to be 90 degrees on this train? It's not like people are boarding in Bermuda shorts and tank tops. They're already dressed for the elements — I think we can turn it down a few degrees, Mephistopheles.

So all in, door to door, it took me over four hours to get to work that day — a new record for a non-blizzard commute.

Now, I'm no scientician, but if I were operating a railroad in a region that saw extremes in both summer and winter climates, wouldn't I want to make sure that all my equipment could operate in all types of weather? Wouldn't I fix the signals that fail whenever it rains or the switches that fail whenever it hits anything below 40 degrees? Sure, if I were a business that had any competition. But the fail road is a monopoly. And they know they have us by the short & curlys. We're going to take it because we have no other options. They won't update their equipment because then how will their crews get overtime every time they patch it back together with chewed up gum? I'm calling on someone like Elon Musk to come in and build a better railroad. One that runs smoothly and has robot ticket takers and automated messages and is, therefore, asshole-free.