Most other operators look at me like I’m crazy when I talk about the Zero shift. But I know a few others who worked the shift. At least a couple here have done it at least once. They admitted it to me. Won’t tell anyone else, though. And outside the system? We got a group online, with guys from all over the world. All operators, of course.
I know it sounds crazy. The numbers make it crazier, because the scope of all of it, for one shift on one line, makes it like winning the lottery. But scary, you know?
The MTA has 472 stations connected by more than 600 miles of track across a dozen lines. To run the trains up and down those lines, the city employs thousands of operators and conductors. It’s the biggest subway system on the continent, but it’s just one system. I’m talking about every system.
It’s gotta be hundreds of thousands, at least. And we’re talking 1,095 eight-hour shifts a year. One train on one line. At least I hope it’s just one train, one line. But it’s like lottery numbers.
I’ve been a train operator for two years, and I’ve worked the Zero shift three times so far. Maybe it just likes me. And that scares the crap out of me.
When you’re taken for the Zero shift, there’s no sign of it until you’re in it. It starts like any other shift. You clock in at the terminal or holding pin, get your assignment, meet with your conductor, go to your train, do your checks, get going. You do the job a month, you have the steps memorized.
But everything’s just a little bit off, and you only realize it’s off when you’re on the train and rolling out. First the CR seems a little out of it, the conversation feels hazy when you’re shooting the shit on the way to the train. It’s not like you have any kind of deep talks with whoever you’re paired with for the shift anyway, but looking back you wonder if you were even saying words to each other.
Then the train number slides out of your mind. The platform, the line, none of those details that you need to do your shift seem clear. They don’t form, like trying to remember a phone number in a dream.
But you don’t stop. You don’t feel lost or confused. You just keep walking, you and your CR, towards the train. And you go down stairs you’ve never gone down before, stairs you’d swear you’ve never even seen before. You keep walking, down a corridor, through a gate, the path is never the same and you can never find it again after the shift, but the two of you walk it like you’ve done it a million times, without thought.
None of it’s weird at the time. Fuzzy, different, but it doesn’t stand out. This path is the same kind of stairs and hallways, the same kind of metal, the same kind of tile, the same kind of cracking paint. It looks familiar, feels familiar, even smells familiar. It’s the same station, but you’re going a different way through it.
And you get to the train. And it’s just a train, same as any on any shift. It’s an R160, R179, R188, nothing weird about it. Standard train on a standard platform in a standard station. You get in the seat, your CR gets in their compartment, you do your checks and you roll out.
Then you make your first stop, and that’s when you realize you’re on the Zero line. Because that’s the last stop you’ll be making in the city on that shift. And it’s never the station connected to your terminal or pin. It might not even be the same borough. The second time I got the Zero shift we rolled out of Mott straight into freaking Woodhaven.
It’s whatever station the Zero line feels like using. Whichever one it is, it’s never a familiar platform. It’s a Zero platform. It matches the style of the station with all the same tiling, paint, supports, benches, station signs. But it’s pristine, more than pristine. No matter what a mess you know the rest of the station is, the Zero platform is completely untouched. Bright, clean, fresh and intact like it just opened. But the placards say it’s the Zero line, with the number in white in the middle of a big black circle.
You stop at the platform and the CR opens the doors. A few people get on the train. It’s always just a few. The Zero line’s never crowded. I barely see them in the mirror or through the window from my chair. But I can feel them.
It isn’t just people who ride the Zero line.
The last two times I’ve finished a Zero shift, I’ve stuck with my CR for a few hours. They have their own compartment, so they’re supposed to be as safe as me. But they see who and what get on the train. They open the doors for them.
Shit. Give me a second. Just- they open the doors for them. You gotta know what that means. You heard what happened to my conductor the first time I got a Zero shift.
I always take a few hours to talk them down after it now. I just drive the train, man, but they open the doors.
You know why no conductors are willing to talk to you about the Zero shift. It isn’t you. They want to pretend it never happened and let the details just fade like a weird nightmare. Let them. Because if they aren’t terrified of the Zero line after a shift on it?
Like I said, you know what happened to my conductor that first time.
But yeah, back to the shift. Train’s in the station, the doors are open, the passengers are coming in. Then you hear that chime and the computer voice speaks.
“Station name. This is the outward bound Zero line. The next stop is station name. Stand clear of the closing doors, please.”
There are two crazy things about that voice. First, the next station is in another subway system. In another city. Usually in another country. Second, the message is in every language, and you can hear it perfectly. Comes through crystal clear in English and Spanish, and I know from my CRs and the other guys I’ve talked to that it’s also Russian, Filipino, Vietnamese, and Haitian Creole. All at once, but you can always understand it in the languages you know.
If you really focus on the announcements, you can hear other things, too. Whistles, clicks, little tickling feelings in your ears, I swear each announcement even has its own smell.
Then the conductor closes the doors and you roll out. The train goes into the tunnel, and you hit the dark. It’s always dark, darker than any normal line. No safety lights, not maintenance or emergency lights showing where an exit or access tunnel might be. No pillars. No walls. Just the track ahead.
After a few minutes, you finally see a signal light and the computer voice makes an announcement. “Now approaching station name. This is the outward bound Zero line.” And it’s like reality forms around the tunnel again. You can see the walls, the ceiling, the platform coming up. You follow the signals, pull back the throttle, and coast into the station.
That station is whatever the voice says it is. Maybe it’s Washington/Wabash in Chicago. Maybe it’s Covent Garden in London. Maybe it’s Ueno in Tokyo. Every station on the Zero line is part of its own subway system, like the line is just a big global commuter rail loaded with transfers.
The Zero line doesn’t have any consistent map or station list. It goes where it wants to go, but only to one station per city per shift.
And from there it’s almost like a normal shift, besides that feeling of horror and pressure you sometimes get stopping at a station. It’s nothing compared to what the conductor sees, anyway.
At least through the shift there’s a kind of numbness you both have. It’s like you’re running through it half-asleep, going through the motions you would for any other shift, not letting any of the weirdness get to you. It wears off when you’re done and you remember what you saw, but at least you can keep your shit together during the shift itself. I wish it let us forget more. Just have us be meat robots while the line uses us and let us go home like it never happened.
Just let us forget about Terminus.
If the Zero line was just some spooky train taking creepy monsters between cities through impossible tunnels that would be bad enough, but at least it would be something we could handle. But the Zero line doesn’t just go through those normal subway systems, normal stations. It goes through Terminus.
“The next stop is Terminus. Transfer is available to the Alpha and Aleph lines. Mind all gaps.” And that announcement is always louder, in more languages, and I can always hear it in my teeth and behind my eyes.
I’ve only seen the Terminus platform slide by when I’m running the train. But the conductor always gets a full look. Because they open the doors.
I don’t know what Terminus station is. It’s where the Zero line came from or goes to or both. What I’ve seen through the window and the mirror doesn’t seem like anything but a normal subway platform. At first.
Then you think about what you saw. That half-remembered, barely seen picture gets filled with little details that you can’t describe as anything besides wrong. The angles of the surfaces seem off, the light falls across them in ways that don’t make sense, and they all seem to be moving even when the train is still.
And you don’t see anyone on the platform. But it’s never empty. Terminus is never empty, and something always gets on the train at that stop.
But you hold on, and the CR holds on, and you hear the chime and the doors close and you take the train out of Terminus and toward the next station on the list only the Zero line itself knows. And you pray, and you try not to throw up.
The rest of the shift is easy. Just do what you’re supposed to do for eight hours, and when that’s done the next stop will be the terminal or holding pin in the MTA you would have ended your shift at if it was a normal line. And you get off the train, and you clock out.
And you stick around your CR for a few hours after that. A few drinks, puffs, pulls, whatever will help them calm down from their shift. Because you were freaked out by what you saw from the front. But they got a better look at the passengers. They got a better look at Terminus.
And they had to open the doors.