I once got on the wrong New Jersey Transit train.

I was leaving a seminar in New Brunswick, NJ and headed back home (in another state south of there). Because of the schedule, the best connection involved taking a NJ Transit train down to Trenton, then make an Amtrak connection.

Well, that's what it was supposed to do at any rate. I got on a train, but imagine my surprise when it pulled up one quarter mile1 down the line, and the conductor said "End of the line. everybody off." This was a train carrying people to New Brunswick from their jobs in New York City.

When I asked what I was supoposed to do now, he said, "Walk over to that shelter over by the main track. There'll be another train along." Of course the train I was supposed to get on roared by during the 300 yard2 or so walk over. Sometimes the gods mock me.

Someone was already there; I gathered he'd made the same mistake. He had a weird 1/8" wide 1/64" long muttonchop moustache. We waited for about 45 minutes, during which he lit up something suspicious and asked "Is this bothering you?" Of course, I'm wasn't about to say anything. He asked me what I did for a lving. When I told him, he said "Oh, I was going to do that, but I went into criminal justice instead."

At any rate, a train finally stopped at the little shelter (about the 5th or 6th train to go by). I got into Trenton about two hours late, and caught the last Amtrak train home.

Imagine what I felt when a few months later I saw someone with a wierd 1/8" wide 1/64" long muttonchop moustache on TV, being hauled away for opening up with an automatic rifle on a commuter train in Long Island. No, I don't think it was the same guy. But New Jersey has given me its share of the heebie-jeebies, I can assure you.
1one quarter mile = 402.336 meters
2300 yards = 274.32 meters

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