Kevin Bress, the senior director of Track Infrastructure and Maintenance Support Training for N.Y.C.T., said, the other day, at the agency’s headquarters, at 2 Broadway. The class, he explained, takes eight hours and is mandatory for anyone working on N.Y.C.T. property. Of the curriculum, he said, “The main theme of the class is teaching people how not to get hit by a train.”

René Corcino, a course instructor, added, “We also identify areas that the homeless may tend to get comfortable in before the police chase them out.” Other topics: the third rail, tripping hazards, how to scoot up the platform ladder from the tracks. “You have to kind of put your foot sideways,” another instructor, Joseph Lupo, said.

. . .

Lupo continued, “[Nicolas] Cage was especially interested in the third rail. He had this big thing about the mystical power of electricity.”

Sullenberger said that when both engines on the Charlotte, NC-bound jet conked out after takeoff from La Guardia Airport — investigators say a double bird strike caused both engines to shut down — the feeling of total silence was “shocking.”

“It was very quiet as we worked, my co-pilot and I,” he said, slowly relating the heart-pounding moments.

“We were a team. But to have zero thrust coming out of those engines was shocking — the silence.”

Then prodded to relate his feelings as he dealt with zero power and a split-second decision about how and where to land, Sully said simply:

“Calm on the outside, turmoil inside.”

. . .

Of the entire experience, Sully kept telling ESPN it was simply “surreal.”

But his poise under pressure earned him a telephone call from President Obama — who invited him to his Jan. 20 inauguration and offered to fly him aboard Air Force One — a trip to the Super Bowl, and even a job offer from Virgin Air.

And he hasn’t ruled anything out.

“I will be happy to entertain all the things that are coming my way,” he told Britain’s Daily Mail when contacted at his home in Danville, Calif.

The indomitable pilot will give his first full interview about the Miracle on the Hudson to CBS’s “60 Minutes” Sunday.

Yes, one of the passengers on US Airways Flight 1549 bore a striking resemblance to Jeremy Piven — at least on some TV shots — but the “Entourage” actor was not on the plane.

Video footage of Piven’s doppelganger surfaced, spurring Internet rumors and calls to all the Golden Globe nominee’s own entourage.

“He’s totally fine,” the star’s rep confirmed. “He’s in New York, and he did ‘Good Morning America’.”

The traders at the New York Stock Exchange went berserk on Tuesday over the hottest commodity at the Beijing Olympics, circling Michael Phelps like sharks.

There was barely room to breathe on the floor as people pushed to get close to Phelps, who won a record eight gold medals and set seven world records.

Phelps rang the opening bell, or at least that was the original plan. On the platform alongside his fellow United States Olympic swimming champions Ryan Lochte and Natalie Coughlin, Phelps was so tired that he was tottering, so Coughlin discreetly did the honors.

“Michael was just kind of jet-lagged,” Coughlin said.

On the floor, he was besieged by autograph seekers. One trader held up a magazine with Phelps on the cover for him to sign and said, “My wife wants to marry you.” When told that Phelps, who was in the middle of a television interview, would not be signing anything more, the trader said, indignantly, “Is his hand broken?”

Or was that Las Vegas trip a little draining?

Pint-size actress Mary-Kate Olsen has refused to be interviewed by federal investigators probing the accidental drug death of her close friend Heath Ledger unless she receives immunity from prosecution, The Post has learned.

The actress’ lawyer has repeatedly rebuffed attempts by the feds to question Olsen, who was the first person called after her masseuse discovered Ledger’s body in his SoHo apartment in January.

Frustrated federal officials could obtain a grand-jury subpoena to compel the funky “Full House” actress to tell them whatever she knows about the “Dark Knight” star’s behavior, his possible drug use and the events of that fateful morning, according to sources.

About two years ago, Steve Guttenberg walked into the showbiz haunt Crustacean on Santa Monica Boulevard in Beverly Hills.

“I walked in and the maitre d’ made a big deal for me,” said Mr. Guttenberg. The Goot — as he’s known to his friends — appreciated the show. To hear him tell it, eating in public in Los Angeles is a dangerous business for an actor whose last box office hit was Three Men and a Baby in 1987.

“All of a sudden, the maitre d’ says, ‘Get out of the way!’” said Mr. Guttenberg. “And they literally threw me to the side and Tom Cruise came in. And he sat Tom Cruise and said, ‘I’m so sorry, but you know, Tom Cruise.’ And I’m like, ‘Holy fuck.’”

So after three decades in L.A., he bought a place on the Upper West Side. “I came to New York to find a better life,” he said. Uprooting took some time. The 15-year-old golden retriever he loved dearly was old and sick; the golden died a month ago. So two weeks ago, the wavy-haired, Brooklyn-born 49-year-old actor, who describes his career as a “32-year-overnight success,” finally made it back to New York City.

. . .

Mr. Guttenberg was wearing a starched white V-neck, a pair of black aviators hooked at the V, distressed jeans ripped at the knee, and some Wallabees. Textbook Hollywood-casual.

“I turned around, and took a good look at myself, and I didn’t like what I saw,” he continued. “I started to lose some of my values. Hollywood is a place where people spend more than they make to impress people they don’t like, who don’t care anyway. And I have a certain weakness of character, and I’m at this point in my life, I’m not strong enough to live there.

“I pop out of bed at 6:30. And I say my prayers, and every day have a little hot water and lemon, that’s my start,” he said. “And I go take a run in Central Park.” The other day, he met an attractive female jogger. Got her digits. They went on a date. Didn’t work out, but last Thursday he took a blond Cornell grad to the Water Club.

“Nothing sexier than a smart woman,” he said. “The Goot is on the loose.”

. . .

The Goot does have his vices.

“I indulge in wine, and I love vodka, I do,” he said. “And I love scotch, you know. And I love weed. And I love women. And I do have, you know, those … Addiction is such an overused word. Addiction is just someone famous walking around the street. It’s so whacked out, but I think that there are certainly times that I use money to make me feel better.” A couple years ago, he got in a big fight with his mom, and he bought her a $25,000 diamond necklace.

“If I feel lousy, I’ll do what the next president of the United States did: smoke a joint,” he said. “It’s documented in his book. I’ll go into a bar and down two beers. I’ll go out with women, because it’ll make me feel better. Women that I shouldn’t be around, but maybe they’ll make me feel better.”

At this moment, 30 Rock-star and SNL alum Tina Fey is speaking at the Fieldston School’s graduation ceremonies.

. . .

How did Fieldston manage to snag the movie star for the high school commencement assignment? No one’s saying, but it seems worth noting that Upper West Side Fey’s daughter, Alice Zenobia Richmond, turns 3 in September, putting her theoretically in line for a spot at one of New York’s prestigious private schools.

She may be an international movie star, but this impudent pooch can’t tell the difference between Natalie Portman and a fire hydrant.

The “Star Wars” cutie was the unfortunate victim of a surprise soaking as she dropped by a downtown dog run.

Portman, who has been spotted in the West Village in recent days with her bearded boyfriend, Venezuelan-born folk singer Devendra Banhart, was walking her dog with him yesterday when the brazen piddling took place.

While she was getting a pup’s-eye view of the surroundings from ground level, another stroller’s frisky pet raised its hind leg, relieved itself right on her shoes — and then ambled on its way.

On Sunday, March 2, the Russian & Turkish Baths on East 10th Street in the East Village was living up to its history of hosting damp celebrities such as Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, Jennifer Lopez and John Belushi. . . .

. . .

. . . Sean Lennon, two topless young women and Mr. Lennon’s mother, Yoko Ono, stole the show. They were in the Russian Room, sweating it up.

“Sean was pouring water over Yoko’s head,” reported a witness, who was sitting among the packed crowd in the room, which is essentially a giant oven. “She recoiled momentarily when he poured the ice cold water, but soon began enjoying it. She was sitting down with a towel around her head. She was wearing one of the bath-issue togas.”

Mr. Lennon and his two female friends were standing in the middle of the room.

“They were massaging each other’s boobs suggestively,” the source said of the young ladies. “Sean was sweating like crazy. The two girls he was with were like 19, pretty hot, and he was making out with one of them.” Mama Ono did not seem to notice.

He wore a trilby, Ray-Bans, a multicolored scarf, gray stovepipe jeans, and running shoes, and a skeptical expression that belied an affable mood. “The first time I came to New York, with the Kinks, in 1965, we stayed in the Hilton,” he said, heading north on Broadway, toward Columbus Circle. “I was too intimidated to go out. Everybody went out and partied, but I stayed in. I got my six-pack — well, they weren’t six-packs in those days — I got my crate of beer and just drank.”

The Time Warner Center was news to him — “This went up really quickly” — but of little interest. As he walked uptown he pointed out landmarks: the homes or offices of various collaborators or friends — the remastering man, the press agent, the Broadway arranger, the actress from “The Edge of Night” whose story of the cast’s singing its lines in rehearsals (out of boredom) inspired Davies to make the not-so-well-received concept album “The Kinks Present a Soap Opera.”

*Oh, OK, you really got me: “Your Mama And Your Papa And Fat Old Uncle Charlie Out Cruising With Their Friends”.