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Motormanmark.com brings you this interesting entry from a transit worker who wishes to remain anonymous.  He calls himself, “Platform Guy:”

 

Assigned to the platform interminably for failing to give undeserved respect to my superiors, forced to wear a bright orange platform outfit, I recently found myself observing very suspicious activity.

 

At a location I shall not disclose, I noticed two fellows hanging out on the subway platform who would not take advantage of their chance to catch a train.  One was dressed in a ridiculously fake beard and the other wore a ski cap pulled low–well out of season.  The ski cap tried to watch the beard’s actions furtively, almost like he was tailing him from one end of the platform to the other.  Beard ignored Ski Cap, but it was clear they were in league.

 

Then, at the last second, just as a particularly packed train was closing its doors, Beard thrust himself between a pair of closing doors, and then, clumsily, Ski Cap did the same in the next doorway of the same train car, bashing a few passengers on his way in with his thickly-attired body.

 

I adroitly put two and two together and understood them to be pickpockets.  One would make a scene, while the other would make his move.

 

Sure enough, 20 minutes later they were back again.  But this time, they had, as Judas Priest would say, another thing coming.  Platform Guy was on the case!

 

First of all, I got on my radio to Control Center and reported my suspicions.  Control, busy with silly things like train movements, did not even reply.  On my own then, I boldly followed the thieves around the crowded plat.

 

Another jam-packed car, and there, sure enough, they struck again, just at the last possible moment, forcing their way in the closing doors.

 

This time, however, Platform Guy lept up behind the one closest, caught the door, and right past the side of the guy’s ski cap, over the crowded mass of commuters, I yelled, “Watch out for pickpockets, people!  One of ‘em diverts your attention, while the other one picks your pocket!”

 

With grateful looks from the passengers and a confused scowl from the not-artful-enough dodger, I let the doors go, sure the two bandits would not dare return to “my” plat.

 

Not 10 minutes later, believe it or not, I noticed another guy, just loitering there in the crowd.  He was a clean-cut, younger guy, reading a paperback book at first–a college student, maybe.  Then, as the plat got busier, he began milling as people gathered to board, and then mixing with the detraining passengers, instead, and making his way to the back of the crowd.  He let a few trains go, then, out of nowhere appeared another guy who muttered something in his ear, then the two of them leapt onto a car, each  taking a different doorway.

 

Egads!

 

Of course, I repeated my anti-crime strategy and caught the doors.  “Watch yer pockets!” hollered I, foiling another dastardly deed.

 

I bragged to my wife that evening about my Batmanian heroics, and she said she was glad it was the weekend or she’d be scared of me returning to work the next day.

 

My first day back after the weekend, they sent me to the same plat, which I’m sure they would not have done had they an inkling I was doing much more than giving directions to lost Germans.

 

Like a sheepdog, I watched over my commuting charges with pride in the role I had forged for myself out of a job invented only to punish me with boredom.

 

Like he was punching a clock, just as rush hour burgeoned, who should come shuffling loosely down my platform but Ski Cap!?  Only, he had fiendishly converted himself to sunglasses and a head scarf.

 

Not for a second fooled, I was on this devil like white on vanilla ice.  I couldn’t arrest him.  I couldn’t follow him, but I’d be damned if I wouldn’t make it clear to him he would have no hope if he planned on working my plat.

 

And there was the college student, now.  Ski Cap took a car by himself, and I hollered, “Watch your pockets!” and then I found College and trailed him for a bit before noticing two more Latin dudes who were hanging out the same devious way! 

 

I did sidle beside them, to make it clear I was onto their secret plans, but fear began rising in my chest.  I was in over my head.  I needed what Baretta used to refer to as “backup.”  Clearly.

 

With luck, all three decided to back off, mosying into a scarcely populated car, to find, I supposed, another busy platform to work.

 

It was at this moment my brain began working again, and, like clockwork, Ski Cap reappeared, and, turning away from him, like I knew now what would happen, I turned to face a short, stocky guy that looked like he needed a cigar.  My eyes dropped because I anticipated what he was about to do, and he opened his wallet, and I looked at the gold shield and I laughed and, though he didn’t need to at this point, he explained that these men were not pickpockets.

 

So.  The answer to the question, “Are you safe on a crowded subway car?” is “Yes!  Quite so!”

 

–Platform Guy