R Train

1 Feb

I don’t think it’s any secret that I form attachments to strange things. Like when I yawn, this weird creaking noise comes out of the deepest recesses of my throat. I just love it!

So I’ve fallen in love with a train. I guess the love has been there for a while, but it was a couple of drunken weekends ago that I professed my love to poor Gian. I believe I casually asked him what his favorite train was. He doesn’t have one. He asked me what mine was.

“The R! I love the R! It’s just the best! No train can beat it! I love its dirty floors. I love its horrible color scheme! I LOVE THE R!!”

And I do. Sometimes I will walk far out of my way so that I can get to an R train. On my return from Philadelphia this last weekend, my bus dropped me off right by the E train which would have quickly taken me home. Nope! I walked the extra 10 minutes to the R train. And after a weekend out of New York City, when I saw that yellow circle round the corner, my heart sprang to life. It’s my R.

The reasons I love this train are manifold:

The aforementioned color-scheme. Unlike the sterile blue of most MTA trains, the R train retains this orange/yellow/brown theme. Sound hideous? It kind of is. But those colors are warm, and it does my soul good to see them.
The seats are situated so that more people get a chance to sit down. Trust me, I’ve done the math. Also, some of the seats face forwards as opposed to sideways. Getting one of these seats on my morning commute brightens my entire day.
It goes through three boroughs. Queens, Manhattan, and Brooklyn. Typically wherever I am going, I can take the R. Sometimes it is out of the way or takes longer than other trains, but I simply don’t mind.
It goes local through Queen. Some people might consider this a draw-back, but to me I get some extra time with whatever book I’m reading.
The music is the best. There’s the group of small Mexican, mariachi men. There’s the couple that play the accordion and carry their baby for pity. Brian is writing an article about the girl in the following video. When he showed it to me, I immediately squealed with glee, because I knew it was the R train. This is what happens on the best train in NYC. I’ve ridden them all, and none come close to the R in my heart.