In the underworld of the subway, it can be hard to tell day from night. The high and low tides of passengers are usually one clue of the time.

The PATH platform at Ninth Street in Manhattan at 2:30 in the morning can be a bit disorienting, then, looking more like midday than the middle of the night. As dozens of people waited at that hour on a recent weekday, the only real tipoffs to the time were the drowsy eyes and drooping heads.

As the New Jersey-bound train to Hoboken and Journal Square pulled in, 35 minutes after the previous one, it was standing room only.

“It’s like Tokyo sometimes: You have to push your way on, and then you’re stuck like a sardine,” Carlos Parada said. He was on his way home to Journal Square after his shift at Strip House, a steakhouse on East 12th Street in Manhattan.