= new reply since forum marked as read
the ED KOCH bridge? WHY DOES EVERYONE HATE QUEENS? 
Seriously though, my parents still call Metro North the NY Central. I don’t want to be the old lady going “fer fuck’s sake it’s the Boston Post Road, not Route 1!"
and how widely a failure can ripple through the system.
Last time I was on the East Coast, we were delayed because a radar installation (of some sort) caught on fire, and the time before that the entire airline sat for a while because the pilots (system-wide) couldn't download maps to their iPads.
(Those were the explanations we were given, anyway... 
)
There was one day when I was working in Grand Rapids where various delays operated together against me. My standard Monday was to take a 920AM flight on Northwest from Philly to Detroit and change planes to get to GRR. After several months I got kind of friendly with the gate supervisor. She walked over that morning and asked if I wanted to volunteer to take a later flight in return for a free ticket to be used in the future. I accepted and thanked her and took the breakfast passes she also offered and headed off to eat.
I returned about 1015, plenty early enough to board my new flight at 1105 but when the desk was still vacant at 1045 I began think maybe this was a mistake. It seems there was a minor maintenance issue on that second plane and work was proceeding but taking a bit. We did started boarding about 1120......as the sky darkened and rain began.
After pushing from the gate a bit before noon, we parked out by the de-ice pad for next 2 hours and 50 minutes. When the storm cleared and we got airborne I was just glad to be moving. The flight to DTW is a bit under 1 hour actually in the air. We landed and pulled into the gate. I still remember it was gate A-47. I was craving getting out of that plane and, when the seat belt sign went dark, we stood and waited... and waited.... almost 25 minutes until the pilot announced that the jetway was broken. I started thinking that I was beginning to experience the airline version of groundhog day.
They wheeled steps over the far end of the airplane. I was just about the last one off that plane.
About 435PM I was finally inside the terminal and searching the departures list for the next flight to Grand Rapids. It was about 45 minutes later so I stopped for a hot dog at Nathan's and then down to the far end of the terminal. It was a shock when that second flight was on time. I had to check to make sure Peter Graves wasn't the pilot and that Sam Jackson wasn't on board.
The plane landed and took I took a taxi the short 1.5 miles to work. I sat my desk for 20 minutes and read my email. Everyone had left; it was after 7PM. Seemed like a long day's work for 30 actual minutes on the clock but at least I wasn't marooned in Detroit.
