Nostyle

Wow, not a single post from this season?

Go Sabres.

If anyone is up for it, the skyline from the train's Tyvola Station is phenomenal, if you can get just a bit higher than platform level.

^Why? I wouldn't mind.

This has been discussed before. If you make the stops too cozy then you get homeless people taking shelter there. Either way there's an excuse for people to feel uncomfortable at the station, whether it be the extreme heat/cold and lack of shelter or the smelly, hairy guy with the shopping cart full of cans that just asked you for change. Can't please everyone.

^I used to do the same thing...park in South End. But eventually I found myself jumping on a Gold Rush anyways. For me, the bigger motivation is the money I'm saving (averaging $1.80 round trip versus paying $3 in parking, not to mention gas) and the ease of the commute (daydreaming on a train rather than being stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic).

I don't think anyone actually opened their beer on the train. Most people only grabbed them to be polite, although one gentleman sitting at the back definitely sounded eager to get a beer as they were being handed out. The guy almost shattered a bottle on one of the handrails while trying to distribute them. But no, I didn't hear the distinct sound of a bottle being opened while on the train. A woman standing near me who had gotten a bottle said that it felt very warm. Who knows where that beer had come from. One time I saw an inspector actually check tickets on a packed rush hour single train. It was an outbound train. The inspector was that short, white, mildly crater-faced rent-a-cop, if any of you know who I'm talking about. On the topic of checking tickets, I haven't been checked at all for the entire month of June, and I am a daily rider.

^He wasn't drunk. He actually seemed quite with it, and in a good mood. The only time he showed any hostility was when the conductor used the p/a to ask him to hurry up when unloading at New Bern, to which the guy replied by yelling "this would've been a lot faster if I could've brought my damn cart on!"

I gotta tell you guys what happened on the train this morning. It was the 7:52 train heading inbound. I got on at 485 and stood in the back. At I believe Archdale a man tried getting on the train with a shopping cart full of big boxes and some bags. The conductor got on the p/a and told the guy he couldn't bring the cart onboard, so the guy started unloading these boxes from the cart and putting them on the train. We all watched in disbelief. There must've been 10 or more big boxes, maybe 10 small boxes, and some bags of something. As it turned out, the bigger boxes were cases of beer, the smaller boxes were cases of cigarettes, and the bags were full of raw shrimp. This guy planned to take these somewhere to sell them. It took him maybe 2-3 minutes to load everything on the train. We couldn't believe it. Finally we started moving again and this guy stood there with his boxes, smiling and asking at least twice why everyone was in a bad mood and nobody was smiling. "It's Friday," he said, "cheer up and smile!" So at New Bern he decided it was time to get off the train. Of course, New Bern's stations are on the outside of the train, so he had to unload all of these boxes from the far side of the traincar. More than one fellow passenger helped him get his boxes out, for the sake of speeding up the process. When he was finally done he cheerfully thanked those that helped and asked if anyone wanted a beer on him. We all politely smiled and chuckled at what we thought was a joke...until he broke open a case of Budweiser, grabbed a bottle in each hand, and ran back to the open train door, offering the beer to anyone that would take it. At first everyone resisted but then people started taking the beer, probably just hoping it would help get rid of this guy quicker...BUT...he went back to the case of beer, grabbed a couple more, came back to the train, and offered them up. By the time he was done he had probably passed out 8 beers. He then ran to the next train door up, and did the same thing. Finally the conductor managed to close the doors, and as we pulled away from the station we could see this guy giving a couple of beers to some Pepsi employees, through the barbed wire fence. It was crazy. And there we were, all laughing and smiling about it, with a train full of people holding beers. But I thought the funniest part of the whole thing was that there was this older woman not far from me on the train who was riding for the first time. She wasn't even sure which stop was hers but she knew she had to get to BofA Corporate Center. As this whole crazy event unfolded she was asking "I've never been on here before...is it like this all the time???" Could you imagine something like this being your first impression of the light rail?

^That's based on the original design with spire.

I thought CATS did a great job. I got out of work at 5. I knew the situation wouldn't be pretty but I was willing to deal with it. My train was a bit later than usual (showed up around 5:15 instead of 5:10), but no worries. It was a double train but it was already PACKED at 3rd street. The incident caused the "train sensing system" to be deactivated, so the train had to go very slow through South End. We then jumped on a bus for 5 minutes to get us to New Bern. Another double train showed up within a minute of getting there. It was also packed with people heading northbound, so they got off and we got on. We continued our journey and luckily the train could go full speed the rest of the way. The whole thing probably slowed me down by maybe 20 minutes. I can't complain at all. I thought it was handled very well.

I haven't driven on 77 much recently but last night I did, and Catalyst is already making its presence felt in the skyline from the highway.

A new sub/sandwich shop opened up today on South Tryon near Latta Arcade. To celebrate the grande opening of Jimmy Johns, they offered $1 subs. Everywhere you looked people were having subs for lunch today.

Just thought I'd mention that today (Valentine's Day) the inspector on my train gave a 'free pass' to anyone who was carrying flowers for Valentine's Day.

Day Two: I saw the inspector give a man a citation today. He bought a one-way ticket and thought it was good in both directions. It took the inspector several minutes to complete the citation, so the guy actually missed his stop at Tyvola and had to take a northbound train back. I asked the inspector how many citations he had given out today and he answered "more than 1, less than 100".