Kiss 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.