Bite My Shiny Metal—SUSPEND TRAIN SERVICE!
A child's abandoned school project led the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) to suspend service on Metro-North, a commuter rail line that serves New York and Connecticut, for part of early Friday morning. The middle school student fashioned a cardboard box to look like head of Bender, a character in the animated series Futurama. The child said he accidentally left the project near the Unquowa Road bridge in Fairfield, Connecticut and meant to pick it up later.
Instead, it was spotted by a Department of Public Works employee who called police. Cops agreed the object was suspicious and called the MTA and a bomb squad from the state police. MTA then suspended service or, as Connecticut News put it, "the box forced Metro-North to suspend service." The paper didn't seem to understand why not everyone would blame the box:
While Metro-North didn't have anything to do with the box, some commuters still blamed the railroad.
"I don't defend Metro-North any more," Joe Clyne, a Fairfield commuter for 16 years, said as he sat on the steps of Tomlinson Middle School overlooking the chaotic scene on the Unquowa Road bridge. "I used to say that Metro-North was better than the Long Island Railroad – not anymore."
Service was suspended for two hours while the cardboard box was checked out. Land of the free, home of the brave.