The F I rode pulled into Delancey and waited there a minute, doors closed. Suddenly the conductor burst out of his cabin: "This train's out of service," he declared.

We piled onto the platform and waited morosely, lost in electronic realities. I wondered: If the train was out of service, didn't that mean it was stuck here? I imagined complicated, time-consuming arrangements being made to tow the train to a siding. Somewhere above us the sun would set, maybe come back up again. None of us the wiser.

But just then it creaked into motion. I looked back down to my audio-visual entertainment device. When I looked back up, a train was pulling in. Or was it the old one, departing still?