InsideTransit

Many of you have heard of snakes on a plane,  but have you heard of snakes on a bus? Our man on the street in Berlin, Mark, sent in the photos below of a bus that has a wrap promoting the zoo. We’ve seen tons of transit ad wraps here at InsideTransit – for both buses and trains – and this is the best looking wrap I’ve ever seen.

I don’t know about you but I would be a bit nervous if that bus showed up at my stop in the morning.

We’ve written about odd buses before including the Fucker Bus. Here in NYC there is a bus called the Duck which can float around in the water and then become an open-top bus. The Duck bus is for tourists coming to NYC.

Today our reporter in Berlin, Mark, has found us a new type of bus. It’s a bus that can transform into a boat and head into the water.

Check out the full story on Spiegel Online. The boat part of the bus is powered by two massive engines and the bus can carry 45 passengers across the river.

All I can say is that I want this water bus. You could easily live inside this bus and slap an Internet connection on the roof and go anywhere! I wonder how long a trip on this boat-bus would take from NYC to London. Place your bets in the comments.

Last week I watched a show about those capsule hotels in Tokyo. Those are the hotels where your “room” is basically the size of a large clothes dryer. Apparently there is a space issue in Tokyo. Found via Subchat, Joseph shows us how buses are stored in Tokyo. I’m not talking about small 10-person buses but instead these are large coach buses!

Have a look below and just pray nobody accidentally hits the down button!

This might be the cutest thing you will see today – scratch that – this year! NewYorkSh*tty has a set of photos of a hamster on the number 4 subway. There are several very interesting points about these photos:

• the train is empty – I’ve never seen an empty 4 train
• the destination sign is blank – I guess this train just goes on forever!
• the hamster appears to be posing for some of the pics – he probably thinks the photos will be placed on Facebook

NewYorkSh*tty has an interview with the person behind the photoshoot and notes that the models come from usage in courts when cases involve trains or buses. The models look pretty damn awesome – I want!

Vodkaster has put together a subway map that includes the best movies of all time. Subway lines on the map are organized by film type. Some of the movies on the map include: Godfather, Casablanca, To Kill a Mockingbird and Die Hard.

Download the full movies map here.

Earlier this week, riders of the L subway line in NYC got an eyeful when 19 year-old Jocelyn Saldana stripped down naked and started riding the pole. The NY Post has a story about the event which took riders by surprise – they probably thought the heat got to them and they were hallucinating. I can tell you this, I’d rather see a naked woman on my subway rides home than listen to the (mostly) horrible music that so-called musicians try to play. Even more I’d just prefer a quiet train with good air conditioning.

From the Post, “…That free show in mid-June — as well as similar ones from Times Square to Chinatown — were the creation of photographer Zach Hyman, 22, whose portraits are never under-exposed. The photographer and his volunteer models don’t spend much time on location. The model quickly disrobes and Hyman gives himself only 30 seconds to fire off 10 shots with his Hasselblad 500 film camera.”

Apparently Hyman carries a lot of bail money should cops find him while he is shooting the nudes.

And here you thought the Metrocard was just for paying your fare. Below is a photo from the “shoot” but I’ve blurred the bits – if you want to see the full image (NOT SAFE FOR WORK) – Swiss site Blick has it for you.

The bus company we love to think of as first-class all the way (note sarcasm), Greyhound, is moving across the ocean to the UK. You can see an example of the buses that Greyhound will roll with below – it’s a pretty nice looking bus from the outside.

From the announcement:

• The first UK Greyhound coaches will run between London Victoria and Portsmouth and Southampton with services scheduled to launch on September 14.
• The Greyhound UK coaches will have leather seating, free wi-fi, power sockets, air-conditioning and complimentary newspapers.
• First says the Scania Irizar coaches will have up to 20% more legroom than rivals’ vehicles while traffic light displays on the coach dashboards will inform drivers how well they are driving their vehicle. (LOL – “attention passengers, the driver of this coach is going well past the speed limit”)
• All Greyhound UK coaches will be named after women from popular American songs such as Sweet Caroline, Barbara Ann, Jolene and Peggy Sue. (will there be a britney spears – probably not since it would be prone to crashes)

I thought it was us Americans that wanted to be like the Brits not the other way around. There will be an online marketing campaign when the buses roll out targeting the young Internet audience. I sure hope the drivers remember that in the UK they drive on the left.

As a side note, why do buses in Europe all have those huge ass mirrors – I’ve never seen them state-side but on my European trips, they are everywhere. They remind me of the sticks used in cricket.

Here at InsideTransit, we are always on the lookout for people wearing subway and transit-related clothing. This morning one of my friends sent me the image below. As you can see, it’s a woman wearing a NYC subway map as a dress!

It appears to be a map from the 70s. Even the straps on the dress have some subway writing on them (I can’t make out what it says).  The top of her dress is actually most of manhattan which is duplicated from the bottom left of the dress.

The dress is available at Nordstrom for $250! Just get some subway maps at a station and paste them together – then it will cost $0 (but don’t go out when it is raining!

Found via German railfan Till, here’s a link to an excellent photoblog from Germany. The text is in German but you can navigate and view all of the photos. I love the angle of all of the photos – this guy takes time to create awesome photographs.

Here’s the latest photo:

Today’s photo comes from Sydney, Australia. Here we see a very crowded rush-hour train – interestingly people are holding on to the ceiling of the train car. It’s rare to see that here in the states – maybe less deodorant is used here. I think at least another dozen people could easily fit – that mean on the left is taking a lot of extra space.

Here’s what it looks like from the inside: