The Z Train

Tomorrow morning I'm going to see my co-worker for her son's 1 year old birthday party.

They are moving to LA, but he was born here which means a teeny part of him will always be a New Yorker.

So today I popped over to the Transit Museum store at Grand Central.

(I LOVE Grand Central as much as I HATE Penn Station)

Anyhow, I got him a book and a 1 train tshirt.

His name begins with a K and there is no K train, but he also has a z in his name and I thought how cool would it be to get a Z train shirt, because we do have a Z train.

There is no Z train tshirt available.

As in they don't make it.  

But, inexplicably, there is a T train tshirt AND WE DO NOT HAVE A T TRAIN.

12 years ago or thereabouts, before they ran the Q up Second Ave, the T was going to be the 2nd ave line.

But it's the Q.

THERE IS NO T TRAIN and yet there is T train merch 12-13 years later from a plan that never happened.

And there is NO Z Train merch even though we have had a Z train for decades.

And "Z isn't a popular letter" doesn't cut it because 1) it is a VERY cool letter and 2) you can say the same thing about the Q and there is Q merch.

All New Yorkers should be really bothered by this like I am.

Well, except that apparently people hate the Z which is really unfair.

Here is an excerpt from a real Z Train Story: (by Anne Kadet)

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Last week, I left my home in Brooklyn Heights at 4:30 pm so I could catch the first Z train heading from Manhattan to Queens. To fortify myself, I stopped at Drip for a cappuccino. Raina, the barista, asked what I was up to.

"Oh," I said, affecting a blasé air. "Just, you know, heading out for my first ride on the Z train."

Raina, it turns out, was a former Z train regular. She took it to Fulton Street, back when she worked a retail job. "I'd ride the J or the Z depending on whether the J was f— up," she said.

"Some people say the Z does not exist," I remarked.

"Who's that?"

"People on the internet.”

"Well, it does," said Raina. "That's like saying the Q doesn't exist because it runs on the B line. It does! I don't know what to say about that."

I actually had some questions prepared for Z-train passengers, so I sprang one on her: "If you had to chose between your first-born child and the Z train, which would you choose?"
Raina did not hesitate. "My first-born child, for sure," she said. "I hated the J and the Z! It was always f-ing late. Always!"

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Well, even though the Z is actually a pretty stupid train (I have taken it a few times but not for years) it still is a train line and should have a tshirt instead of a train line that doesn't even actually exist.

You can get a lame magnet, which is not the same thing as a tshirt.