Now why would an entire commuter-rail car be empty at rush hour?

This happened a few weeks ago on the Orange Line, except the car wasn't completely empty, just a tiny smattering of passengers compared to the other full cars.

Yours truly was dumb enough to figure what the heck, why not get a seat, and then kept the gloves on all the way from State St to Stony Brook.

It could be worse: In NYC, an empty subway car often means there's one really, really smelly person in there or what hospital nurses might call a Code Brown.