InsideTransit

My favorite place in the world is Grand Central Terminal. It’s my favorite place for so many reasons – watching the people go to work, leave work to head home to their families, the smell of the trains, the shops, the great black and white cookies at Zaros, the transit museum shop and being able to watch the place go from such a pile of crap to one of the most beautiful pieces of architecture out there.

With the hurricane named Irene heading into NYC, there has been a suspension of all rail and subway service so GCT is empty. The MTA took some photos and below is one of them. Just amazing to see the place empty – just think of what it would normally be like on a Saturday afternoon.

So the big Snow Blizzard of 2010 in NYC continues into another day. I sure wish I had not moved from NYC — it would be awesome to be part of the action! Here are two photos from Heather – she was able to catch a bus that is stuck in Brooklyn. The bus appears to be driven by a snowman – it’s a cute photo

Here is a side shot of the bus – you can see that the bus will be there for quite a while with all of that snow around it…poor bus – it wishes it was back in the bus barn with all of its other bus friends

Here’s the new bus driver – MTA Employee #42682609:

Two years ago, the mayor of London announced a competition to create a new design for the iconic Routemaster bus.

Last week the first photos of a life-size full-scale model was displayed to the public. BBC News has a great slideshow of photos of the new bus. As much as I normally dislike new bus designs as they try to be over-the-top modern while usually ending up looking like crap, this new Routemaster bus actually looks good!

The bus will carry only 87 persons versus about 150 on a bendy bus. The bus won’t have air conditioning (a mistake in my opinion) and frankly I don’t know why there is a need for the hop-on, hop-off from the old days.

The first new Routemaster bus should hit the streets in 2012. The arrival of the new bus is a great reason for me to come visit London!

Back in March we took a look at snakes on a bus. Now thanks to our main street reporter Mark, you can see below a bus eat a lady. Mark noted that the woman appeared unaware as she entered the bus that it was about to eat her.

We were able to grab a few minutes with the lady inside of the bus after being eaten. She said that she will be using her car from now on and appeared very upset and frazzled. I guess I can understand her mood after the bus ate her!

OK, tell me…when you look at the photo below, do you see one bus or two? Look closely…

It’s one bus with a full bus wrap – the old bus is actually wrapped into the new bus! This is the coolest bus wrap I have ever seen and would probably freak out drivers who are driving on the side of this new bus.

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.

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.

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!

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:

Now this is something…how many times have you stood at a bus stand in the middle of the summer sweating like crazy in your fancy business suit and then you realize the bus will be late? Check out this photo from Dubai where they have been installing air-conditioned bus stands. I want this everywhere I travel!

I wonder if there are TVs in there or perhaps a snack or beverage machine – that’d be even hotter! Of course here in NYC the transit agency has gone from a huge surplus to a billion-dollar deficit – so I doubt we will see these anytime soon.