Being the face of public transit in New York City is no easy job. Conductors have to deal with drunks, grumps, deadbeats and anyone else upset about the latest fare hikes. But when these conductors say “tickets, please!” riders line up to hand them over. With a mix of humor, charm and old-fashioned kindness, they are the ones who turn even the darkest early morning commute into a community. They’ve been invited to dinners, comforted the laid-off and navigated riders through constant service changes. New York City’s favorite conductors talk to us about their philosophies, their on-the-job patter and why they feel they were born to ride the rails.
CONDUCTOR: Donna Radmann, 40, of Port Jefferson, LI
Rails she rides: The 5:44 a.m. train from Port Jefferson to Penn Station.
Even in the predawn dark of a sleepy Friday morning, everyone on the train was worried Donna Radmann had abandoned them.
“Where were you?” one rider asks.
Radmann, turning on a bright smile that could disarm the crankiest of commuters, assures him that she was just at training classes. Her passengers breathe a collective sigh of relief.
“When she returns, it’s like somebody coming home again,” says Joe Kankula, 65, who’s been commuting to his finance job in NYC for 40 years.
Radmann originally applied to be an LIRR police officer, but was instead offered the job of assistant conductor. She’s rarely hadabad day in the 16 years since: The nearly two-hour ride from end-of-the line Port Jefferson to the city makes the train like a “second family,” she says.
She’s got a knack for returning lost items, including cellphones and, once, an eggshaped purse that containedadry-cleaning receipt and a white envelope stuffed with cash.
“I stopped counting after $1,100 dollars,” she recalls. “I started sweating. I thought it was an integrity test.” (She returned the purse later that day to the owner, who was incredibly grateful.)
One time working a late shift a few years ago, she spotted a regular looking sad on the train. Radmann knew it was the passenger’s birthday, and asked her if she was OK. The rider told Radmann she was having a hard time going through a divorce, and her kids were with her ex. That’s when Radmann stepped in, telling the rider, “You’re having meatloaf at my house.
“My husband [also an LIRR conductor] said, ‘What are you doing?You don’t bring these people home.’ But she was so nice.”
And her riders look out for her in return: When she took off after her father died, she came back to cards and hugs. When she was pregnant with each of her two kids (now 8 and 7 years old), people asked to see pictures.
“When you give people a chance, you see a lot goodness,” she says. Construction worker Sal DiSanto, 53, has been riding the train formore than 20 years, and says Radmann stands out from other conductors because she truly cares about people.
“She should be in public relations instead,” says DiSanto. “Every conductor should be like her.”
CONDUCTOR: Mike Shaw, 47, of North Haven, Conn.
Rails he rides: The New Haven line on Metro-North, leaving at 5:38 a.m. and arriving at Grand Central at 7:15 a.m.
The new monthly Metro-North cards are out, which means it’s time for conductor Mike Shaw to explain the matching fashion show on the train.
“Don’t forget: April 1 will be the ‘match the monthly’ contest. April’s monthly ticket is a light-blue pastel. You have four days to shop for something to match. No excuses. The contest will be judged on outer garments only,” Shaw instructs over the PA system on a recent Wednesday morning.
“No undergarments, please. You can’t show off your undergarments.”
The early morning commuters gathering their bags can’t help but laugh and smile.
“He’s silly,” says Meghan Ryan, 31, a special-education teacher from New Rochelle, NY, one of the regulars Mike makes a point to stop and chat with while collecting tickets. “When we don’t have him, we miss him.”
Her husband Adam Ryan, 32, says even when the trains are delayed, Shaw sweeps through the aisles cheering everyone up like a refreshing spring breeze.
“I don’t think I’ve ever known a conductor’s name before Mike,” he says.
Maybe that’s because Shaw has railroad grease in his blood: His father was a conductor until he died in 1983; his two brothers are also conductors, and his sister had the job for a while, too.
He started at 18 as a porter in Grand Central, sweeping the terminal from midnight until 8 a.m. Then, he was a coach cleaner on the trains; he’d arrive in the city at 1 a.m., and find an empty train to sleep on before his 5 a.m. shift.
Shaw’s a genteel old-school railroad man, the kind who wouldn’t look out of place ushering children on the Polar Express. (He’s had to disappoint a few children around the holidays by explaining that his train is not, in fact, going to the North Pole. He makes up for it by punching smiley faces into their tickets.)
“The first thing I say to [other conductors] is you have to treat these customers as your clients, because they are your job,” he says. “I will probably volunteer to do this when I retire.”
In the 10 years he’s been working the same train, he’s made no shortage of friends: Shaw has been invited to barbecues and invited riders to his own parties. Once, a rider donated 200 pairs of Ralph Lauren socks for a golf tournament Shaw was taking part in.
“Some of my best friends now are actually commuters,” he says. “Other conductors, some of them think I’m a little over the top.”
The secret to the job, Shaw says, is taking pride in your work, and having a little bit of fun whenever possible, even when commuters are grumpy over a price hike.
“I know your fares are going up,” he’ll say on the PA. “Just remember the time we spend together is priceless.”
CONDUCTOR: Ricardo Gonzalez, 47, of Astoria, Queens
Rails he rides: The No. 1 train, Monday through Friday
Ricardo Gonzalez might be your best friend when you’re running late to work.
He gets to know his riders’ habits so well that, if he doesn’t see them waiting on the platform at 242nd Street at 10:14 am, he’ll hold for a few beats before closing the doors.
“I’ll wait a few seconds,” he says. “Boom — sometimes they pop up there, or they just got off the bus.”
It’s tricky to build up customer loyalty on the subways; conductors get little chance to interact with riders, and clever or creative announcements over the PA system, even the ones that make you laugh, are technically against MTA rules. But even in the rush of the subway hustle, Gonzalez has found a fan base.
“I’ve had people actually wait for me,” says Gonzalez, who’s been on the job for 20 years. “They just didn’t want to ride with anybody else but me. ”
Gonzalez wins over customers by helping them navigate the sometimes Byzantine rerouting system, offering insider tips since he knows which trains run most frequently.
“They ask me, ‘Ricky, what do you think I can do?’ ” he says.
But his biggest help is sometimes not train-related at all: He’s an ace at helping passengers, particularly women, pick winners in their workplace football pools.
“[When] they win their pool, they’re like, ‘How did you know Ole Miss would win?’ ”
Gonzalez’s father and brother worked as conductors, too (“It’s more or less like a family thing,” he says). His family’s love of trains doesn’t end there: His 24-year-old daughter is a singer in a rock band called “L Train.”
On his day off, you can find him playing softball with other MTA crew members at a field in Corona Park, Queens, where employees have gathered for years.
Or you might find him on the subway — yes, he rides the trains on his off days, too, because he says the system runs better than ever.
And his bosses agree that he’s the kind of person they want riders seeing first thing in the morning.
“He has a great attitude and he cares about his customers,” says John Hoban, MTA general superintendent. “He is truly a good will ambassador for transit.”
tdonnelly2@nypost.com