The MTA’s armored money train that ran from 1951 to 2006 in NYC
untappedcities.com
untappedcities.com
I remember multiple times being annoyed by a short train that would block a station for 10 minutes in the late morning. Police would get off, go upstairs, then come back with presumably money. Maybe I was mistaken why they were there but that was always my impression.
I am sort of surprised they stopped picking up cash this way since it always struck me as smart because no one could necessarily know when they were coming, could vary pick up times, advantage of grabbing money and disappearing into the tunnel.
But a train is a big, unique thing, and it takes very predictable paths. There are so many ways to track a train. Insiders in the rail company giving you tips, lookouts reporting from the place where the train is parked usually or at trackside, disturbances in the timetable of other trains. Attaching tracking equipment by insiders or intruders.
> could vary pick up times
Why is that an advantage for trains? Can’t any armoured truck do the same?
This could even be done openly without attracting attention, since railfans hanging out next to tracks waiting for trains are common.
Disappointment at first because you saw a train coming, and then realized it was a no-passenger work train. And then it stopped and a couple of guys with long guns got off and stood guard while a couple of others would go and get the money from the booth. Totally cool to see.
I believe there was an attempted robbery sone time in the 80’s or 90’s. The train just pulled out of the station, leaving frustrated criminals, who then shot up the heavily reinforced token booth to no effect.
(Not mentioned in the article is that they collect garbage from platform trash bins the same way.)
Armed guards seem like overkill for collecting garbage.
an NYC resident "forced" to take the subway... smh
The car is driven by someone tired yet in a hurry, on busy roads with (usually) lots of turns. There's not much space.
Way outside the peak times, the train is spacious, brightly lit and there's almost zero risk of an accident. 10 minutes walking at either end is probably a good idea after N hours in a bar.
Lived there 5 years and eventually I came to the analogy that the buses were like red blood cells running through the streets distributing people. The metro trains and even taxis formed a sort of almost circulatory system for the city, with the humans being little cells being carried at varying speeds through different veins and vessels.
And I think the health of a city sort of depends on its circulatory system. Where I come from the system doesn’t cover the city adequately and that creates pockets of inequality, problems, low access to the centre. London is highly productive because of its excellent circulatory system.
In NYC the subway is filthy, urine soaked and at 3:30 AM there is higher than zero chance you will be harassed or assaulted.
??
The wee hours after a night out is one of my favorite times to ride the subway. More surreal, smaller crowds - feels like a movie.
I suppose it depends on which train and what the origin and destinations are.
Wesles Snipes: we're not going to rob the money train
Woody Harrelson: why not
Snipes: because, we're... we're cops
Edit: wrong one, this is the best one
I do wonder if armored trains might be part of special scenario plans related to high value visitors to the UN. Think of it as a modern track 61.
https://www.curbed.com/2021/04/al-putre-mta-money-room.html
Basically the money train was a dinosaur with operational issues. They moved to armored cars. My guess is that the transition reduced the number of station agents required and reduced shrink, but increased NYPD overtime. (MTA lost the transit police in the 90s)
> Once the MetroCard vending machines came into the picture, it took a lot longer to collect all the money from a given station than it had from just the token booths, and the money train would sit for long stretches as passenger trains backed up behind it. Also, you can’t do money-collection runs at night if you’re doing track maintenance, and these days the MTA is always doing track maintenance.
Also, those machines are being phased out this year in favour of OMNY machines: https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2022/09/06/omny-ma...
As more of the network moves cashless, there's also less money to collect. As a regular commuter, I haven’t used cash on the MTA for a couple of years.
When tokens were used, every subway fare resulted in a piece of metal that had to be picked up. At 4.7 g each and about 4 million rides a day, that's nearly 19 metric tons of metal daily for processing, which takes up a lot of space as well.
After tokens were phased out in 2003, then by 2006 you're only dealing with paper cash and coins in MetroCard and booths, mostly just picking up paper bills and spitting out coin change for larger transactions, from the small minority of people paying in cash instead of a credit card. So I'd expect the volume to have become comparatively tiny, and much less frequent than daily.
(Plus since you're dealing with standardized cash rather than bespoke tokens, it might use local banks distributed across the city, rather than a centralized hub.)
So the station management would count their tills, empty machines and prep the bags. They have a time deadline, and when the money train arrives they just roll the whole ensemble into the train. When the tokens went away the volume probably turned into a few sacks.
The volume is huge and the manpower for the armored cars would be nuts. You’re probably talking a detail of 200 police alone for a couple of dozen armored cars.
Cash operations work similar to this without the train. Usually there’s a regional depository bank with a contract with the Fed who centralizes money processing for many banks. I had family who worked in one in the 90s, it was pretty nuts. They would palletize the cash and ship out on tractor trailers. As the business has shrunk, the armored car companies have taken over and they are pretty bad at what they do as they aren’t as regulated.
Parking and tolls are great examples. EZPass and the various parking solutions are expensive, but they make it easier to boil the frog. That makes it easier to do one shot deals like sell revenue bonds.
The failure of the government to implement digital cash and establish a system where Visa/Mastercard/etc effectively tax all commerce is ridiculous.
For one year Ticketmaster sold Metrocards for the MTA. Ticketmaster didn't like the business because the MTA didn't allow them to overcharge the customers. Ticketmaster just got a 2%-3% commission, the MTA's bulk discount. They had to charge for shipping at their cost, and could not attach ads.
I will always remember a video about a bus driver who was robbed by an idiot with a shotgun. Risking years of jail time for a few hundred euro. Well no more robbery in the digital currency age.