Michael Cumberbatch Recalls 32 Years of Moving New York

JULY 1 -- Your Train Operator glides to a smooth stop. You make your connection to the next train. Your mind is on anything beside the trip because you know you’re in good hands. The best subway ride is the one you don’t even notice.

Without fanfare or drama (except for his just concluded retirement party) Train Operator Michael Cumberbatch, 55, is cruising to the end of 32 years with New York City Transit. Once he brings that final train into Corona Yard, it’s time for another cruise. Along with his wife, he’ll first head to Mexico in July, then to Honduras, before ending up in the Bahamas. Next comes a trip to St. Kitts. And then there’s a flight to his home town in Barbados for three weeks of well-deserved rest.

In his 32 years Michael has run the bases on the experiences that mark the routine of a TWU Train Operator. There was the blackout of August 14, 2003, when he recalls pulling into Times Square driving a 7 Train just as the lights started to flicker.

 “The station went pitch black,” he remembers. “It was hot. Seven of us – me and my Conductor, 2 or 3 other crews, and the Dispatcher, made our way up to street level to get fresh air.” They ended up staying up all night, waiting for power to be restored.

There was a 12-9, where Michael remembers a man on the railing at Grand Central as his train was pulling in. “His back was to the railing. When I got a car and a half from the station, he turned to the right…then jumped up in the air and into the path of the train. There were two RCI’s in the station who responded. He landed between the third and fourth cars. You think you can handle it until it happens to you, and everybody reacts to it differently. I was traumatized. You keep seeing that image in your mind.” 

Cumberbatch was off for several months with post traumatic stress.

“I know another Train Operator who had two 12-9’s in succession,” Michael says, “and he went right back to work. Then he had a third one, and then he took time off.”

Careful and with the attention to detail the job demands, he never spent time in the street on discipline – he just got the job done. Cumberbatch started with transit in 1993. “I think it was my mother that brought the application back to the house,” he remembers. He was called as a Cleaner, and did that job for five years. He moved to Conductor for another year, then took the promotional to Train Operator.

He was eager to retire as soon as his age allowed. “I wanted to get out while I still have good health,” he says. Once the cruises are over, he’ll get back to his hobbies of exercising and tinkering around the house and garden while he waits for his wife – who has seven years to make her full pension to join him in retirement. Like many transit workers, he’s grateful that the job allowed him to raise three children – one son who works in HVAC, a daughter completing her Master’s, and a young son still in High School.

“I made a lot of friends in Transit,” he says as he contemplates retirement. One of those friends is a retired Train Operator gettingmarried for a second time this summer on St. Kitts, and Michael Cumberbatch plans to be there to cheer him on.