Junk Trains and Money Trains

Some nights, you’ll wait a good long time for those headlights on the track, but when the train finally hits the station, the windows are blackened, and it doesn’t even slow down, or else it’s a ramshackle wooden contraption filled with tools and bins. What are these not-regular trains? They are the trash train and the money train.

The ramshackle trains pulling the rusty yellow wooden flatbeds full of green bins is the trash train. Late at night when most people are already asleep, subway workers move from station to station, removing the trash bins from the closets at the end of some subway stations and replacing them with empty green bins pulled from off the cattle car. This is truly a fascinating thing to watch, especially because you can get real close to the train and peek around inside at all the assorted detritus of city living.

The money train is another matter altogether. Officially, this train was retired in 2006; the advent of Metrocards made its late night runs as obsolete as the Wesley Snipes/Woody Harrelson movie of the same name. The money train was the yellow and black striped train with the blacked-out windows that transported the daily MTA take to the King Midas money counting chamber. It was heavily guarded, so riders wouldn’t get any ideas about hijacking it… this wasn’t The Taking of Pelham One Two Three here….although I did hear they are releasing a remake of this classic in June ’09, starring John Travolta, Denzel Washington, and John Turturro.

My karate sensei, who works for the MTA, told a story of being a young man in Brooklyn and running to catch the train. He leapt over the staircase railing and into the train just as the doors closed, only to find a cadre of police officers with their firearms trained on him. Having jumped unawares into the money train, he threw his arms up in surrender, saying, “I’m just a kid!” Eventually they let him go.

If you’re interested in how the money train works, the MTA Transit Museum offers a “Show Me The Money” exhibit for kids 4 and older at the end of May, in which participants can help collect fares on a route through the museum. Click here for more info.