The Classroom in Penn Station

By any standard I'm aware of, Penn Station is an atrocity, especially when compared to the temple of trains across midtown and to its former self (below). Chopped up spaces, low ceilings, every junk food outlet on the planet crowding its corridors, public areas apparently uncleaned since the Giuliani years...the list goes on. I read on line that Thomas Wolfe ("Look Homeward, Angel") called the original Penn the only man-made space that was large enough to “hold the sound of time." And today even Brangelina could walk through the place and look crushed in spirit.



But tonight, heading through the Long Island Railroad (LIRR) space to the subway after the Rangers exciting shootout win over the Penguins, I learned something. On the electronic message board, LIRR announced that in autumn trains on the lines sometimes travel at less than maximum speed because of the "slip-slide" (no Paul Simon reference here) effect. It seems that falling or windswept leaves when they land on the tracks and get crushed by trains slick the tracks with a substance called pectin and cause less adhesion between the train wheel and the rail during braking. The LIRR noted that "slip-slide" is very similar to a car's wheels skidding on an icy road and that it is taking a three-pronged, pro-active approach to resolving the problem.

Ah, "pro-active prongs"-- this decade's "synergy" or "parameters."