The Invisible Train, the Two Breakfasts, and the Phantom Bus

[pyat]

I arrived at the Hamilton GO Train Station this morning, and there was no train. The platform was empty. A switching problem meant the 7:04 AM train service from Hamilton was canceled. Bus services was being offered to the Aldershot station, but a quick examination of the bus platforms revealed a great many people and a scarcity of buses. Rather than battle the crowds, I elected to take the 7:20 bus.

To pass the time, I ducked into the Time Out cafe in the station and ordered a bagel and tea from Renee Luffman, the charmingly optimistic author of Fairy Kisses. I say that about her because she self-published a children's book about where freckles come from, and sells it from behind the counter while working at a bus station coffee shop.

7:15 rolled around, and I finished off the tea and ambled back to the platform. It was still packed with people, and not packed with buses, and visible clouds of commuter rage were rising here and there. So, I studied the schedules and decided to take the 8:05 bus to Aldershot. Please note that the 7:20 AM was the last scheduled direct bus to Toronto, or certain facts that arise later in my tale will not seem wonderful or strange at all.


To fill the gap in time, I directed my steps outward once again to downtown Hamilton. Downtown Hamilton at 7:30 AM in late December is not a very exciting or hospitable place. There are perhaps four or five establishments open at that hour downtown, and one of them is a peep show.


There are a few spots of light and warmth and nourishment for respectable sorts, and one of them is Christopher's, an all-night (last I checked) diner. Once the haunt of bus drivers and cops, it is now mainly frequented by middle-aged people on social assistance. The interior is battleship grey and the cutlery is plastic.


But, the coffee is hot, and the food is perfectly edible.

I got back to the bus station around 7:50 AM, and found a bus sitting at the Toronto platform. I assumed it must be the 8:05 shuttle to Aldershot and hopped aboard. I thought it odd that it pulled out before 8:00, but didn't really care. I fell asleep shortly after, and awoke to find myself on the 407, well past Aldershot, and en route for Toronto.

This express bus exists on no schedule... a mystery!

Comments

[bodhifox.livejournal.com]

[amarafox.livejournal.com]

That breakfast looks yummy! And ooOoOo phantom express bus!

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Narrator: You are entering the realm which is unusual. Maybe it's magic or contains some kind of monster. The second one. Prepare to enter... The Scary Door.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I was hoping for a Phantom Tollboth, but the 407 is autopay...

[zenten.livejournal.com]

Is the schedule something electronic that gets updated frequently due to emergency changes in service, or is it something like a preprinted one?

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Preprinted. I suspect they just put on some extra express ones cause the shuttle buses to Aldershot weren't cutting it, and I wasn't around for the announcement.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

That's what I'd assume.

[paka.livejournal.com]

So what you're saying is that Hamilton is the DC universe; at daytime, it's Metropolis, and at night it's Gotham, except this is all through the Canadian filter so day is more politely Edwardian and night, no matter how bad it looks, has a lot of social assistance stuff in evidence and very few people are actually murdered.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Hamilton is always sort of Gotham - albeit a low-crime Gotham with lots of social programs and low unemployment. It's mostly used as a stand-in for Detroit or Harlem when movies film here.

Also, the Resident Evil and Silent Hill movies are filmed here!

The bright shiny towers and similar pics you see are actually Toronto. I should go out in the day and get shots of Hamilton, though.

[thebitterguy]

Yeah, but I prefer it being a genie bus.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Totally! Curse zenten and his "reasonable" explanations. I say I made the bus appear with positive thinking.

[thebitterguy]

"And when I turned to thank the driver, he had vanished!"

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

See, isn't that way, way better than driving to work? Where would whimsy, mystery and spontaneity enter your life if it weren't for mass transit? ;) It only gets better when the most heavily trafficked parts of a system are literally a century old (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tremont_Street_Subway), I assure you.

All-Nite Diner

[ankhorite.livejournal.com]

But the placemats are crisp, with a nice Greek key design done in an oh-so-apropos Aegean blue.

Icon LOVE! Techy Rat

[ankhorite.livejournal.com]

I must send my partner, my dearest savant_da_rat, to see your oh-so-cool techrat.

I assume from your profile you made it yourself?

Nice work!

Re: Icon LOVE! Techy Rat

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

Thanks, you're very kind! I'm not sure I can say with a straight face that I made it myself, though. I did the work and came up with the idea on my own, but I definitely have to credit others in its creation. I rendered a rat in Poser, using Zygote Media's rat model ($20 about eight years ago -- you can kind of see the model in an earlier version (http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/601824/312190) of this icon) and then used photoshop and a gif from the internet to fill in the outline. I wish I knew the name of the person who drew this cool circuit pattern. Anyway, savant_da_rat or anyone else is free to borrow this icon -- although he already has some pretty great icons of his own. :)

[commanderteddog.livejournal.com]

... are you sure about the lack of express bus bit? Were there massive cutbacks?

Because I remember the buses being every 30 minutes or something.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

You are correct, I think. Ah well. I like my story better.

Re: All-Nite Diner

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I think the new owners were dying to run a Gyros place, but the weight of history and the clientele forced them to continue as a generic greasy spoon. They have lots of signs for falafels and whatnot, but never seem to sell any.

[shadow-maze.livejournal.com]

Why would you think 7:20 was the last scheduled direct bus to Toronto? Express buses run all day both ways, every 20 minutes for most of the morning, slowing to every 1/2 hour for the rest of the day till midnight or something. Toronto to Hamilton is backwards, every half hour all day, picking up to every 15 minutes during rush hour, and they also continue to midnight. There is actually very little time you CANNOT get a direct bus one way or the other.

Trains, on the other hand, sucks, with only three out in the morning and 3 or 4 back in the afternoon, but the bus service is excellent.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was looking at the wrong schedule.

[mrs-dm.livejournal.com]

Does that mean you get to sleep in a bit and take a bus to work instead?

[relee.livejournal.com]

I didn't know the Silent Hill movie was filmed in Hamilton! Golly.

Re: All-Nite Diner

[relee.livejournal.com]

I'm terrified to ask for gyros at any of the greek restaurants here, in case I do it wrong. Ethnic food is scary.

[hossblacksilver.livejournal.com]

I need transportation to Aldershot for myself, my apprentice, two druids and no imperial entanglements.

[thebitterguy]

Actually, I hear there are express buses every thirty minutes.

[thebitterguy]

Man, druid tickets are never cheap.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

And love is just a chemical reaction. I want my genie bus, darn yoU!