How Far Do You Think To The Next Gas Station?

Day 4 : 24th September 1996

“Weren't you just catching a train an hour ago?”

Always a great day back then.
GP38-2 LIRR 253 at Long Island City.

This was to be a more relaxed day and a later start found us Geep hauled into Jamaica and then onto LIC for breakfast (no beer again!). A quick shuffle back to Jamaica had us heading onto the Oyster Bay trains as these tended to be MP15s during the day. Sadly it was not to be as Morris Park had produced a Geep (all be it with an MP15 playing Ethel and driving trailer at the other end) but off we went anyway. Worse was to come, the line to Oyster Bay was shut outside the peaks for engineering and we came to a stop and flagged the bus forward at Locust Valley. A walk around this well heeled little town (it doesn’t even have a Bagel Mania, now that’s posh!) soon found us a pleasant little bar where the bar maid seemed quite shocked that three people from England had descended on her small patch of USA. A couple of beers and we bid her good day saying we were off for the train.

En-route South it dawned on us that, from the time table, there must be two sets working the branch so it was off at Minneola. This again turned up Geep propelled, all be it top and tail this time so there was nothing for it but back to Locust Valley and the bar. Our re-appearance bought some quizzical looks until the bar maid ventured “weren’t you just catching the train an hour ago?”. There being no rational explanation, some words were mumbled about missing trains and taking in the town which seemed to get us off the hook. At this point Barry informed us of an interesting feature of the toilets which proved to be somewhat odd. Now picture a long room with urinals on each side wall above which are large full width mirrors. This gives the bizarre prospect of being able to see yourself peeing from both ahead and behind apparently to infinity and, thanks to the angle of the mirrors, up hill too! Very 1970s BBC special effects and not a bit disconcerting after a few Brooklyn Brown ales!

Back again! GP38-2 270 waits to leave Locust Valley, Long Island.

Bidding the bar maid a very final farewell it was back to Jamaica and into to Manhattan for a bit of sight seeing and then a Subway back out to Hunterspoint Ave. A spin around in the rush to get some rare track in the book down to Babylon and back to Smithstown, beer and bed ZZZZZZZ!

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