http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/11/nyregion/metropolitan-diary-desperately-searching-for-track-16.html 2016-09-12 14:15:46 Desperately Searching for Track 16 A brother and sister agree to meet at Penn Station to catch a train on a holiday weekend. Then things get complicated. === Dear Diary: It’s Thursday night before the July 4 weekend. I text my sister about where to meet at Penn Station to take the train out to see our parents. “Have you been before?” she asks. “No,” I say. “First time.” “O.K., the station is complicated.” “I’ll be fine.” On Friday, I arrive 15 minutes early for a 4:06 train. Plenty of time. I get a text: “Track 16 by the wine store.” Piece of cake. I enter the Long Island Rail Road terminal. The place is swamped, a fog of pink shorts. After a minute, I find Track 16. I look around. No sister. No wine store. I squeeze through the crowd to the information desk. “Wine store’s two hallways down,” a man says, not pointing in any direction. “Which way?” He points behind me. Two hallways down there’s another entrance to Track 16. I glance in every direction. No sister. No wine store. It’s 4 p.m., six minutes to go. I run to a pretzel stand and ask again. “Two hallways down,” a woman says. “Which way?” I sprint and spot a third entrance to Track 16. Then an announcement: “The 4:06 will now be leaving the station.” I try to send a text. No service. I bump into a guy and ricochet off a wall. I look up and there it is: the wine store. I wait outside the doors. A sweaty man goes inside, muttering unprintable words to himself. He can’t find his brother. In the distance, by a fourth entrance to Track 16, I finally see a familiar face. “Where were you?” she asks. “Track 16.” “Which entrance?” “Great question.” She shakes her head. “I told you this place was complicated.”