InsideTransit

Last weekend the blizzard of 2010 rolled into NYC. It was so bad that snowmen were driving buses! But did you ever wonder what happens when a brand new train runs outside over snow covered tracks? The video below comes from Sheepshead Bites, a blog from the southern section of Brooklyn. The video shows a train running on tracks in the Brighton line (either the B or Q train). As you can see, the train sure does put on some electrical display! Later in the day service was suspended on the line for electrical issues.
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This week brings new fare increases to the NYC subway and bus system. The base fare didn’t increase but riders will receive a smaller bonus and the price for monthly unlimited cards have increased. As a person who used to live in a two-fare zone, these increases don’t seem that high.

In any case, the NMA animation group out of Taiwan put together a video for their audience which apparently shows you what it is like to ride the NYC subway. My friend Mark would probably say this is accurate. The video explains that the entire system is in a state of disrepair, train operators drink (and carry stylish shopping bags) and sleep on the job, there are lots of perverts and sociopaths riding the subways and medieval battles break out daily. They also used a W train in the video which no longer operates.

Warning: This video could be considered NSFW.
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This guy makes hilarious videos – here’s his video about riding the Washington Metro – and he’s right – how long does it take to fix an escalator?

Here’s a neat “railfan window” video from photographer Tyler Freedman. I always enjoy watching these videos as they show you a full subway line in a couple of minutes. What I noticed from Tyler’s video is how clean the tracks and trackbeds are compared to NYC. I didn’t see any trash – you watch the video and see if you can find any trash.

Tyler notes, “A high-speed journey aboard a TTC train, as it travels from Downsview Station (NW terminus) to Finch Station (NE terminus), in the wee hours of the morn, on Toronto’s Yonge-University-Spadina line.”
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Ok this is pretty sweet. In 1953 the BBC in London made a point-of-view film of a train running from London to Brighton. In 1983, 30 years later, they did it again. You can watch the journey below – it’s almost like nothing changed! I will suggest you have a bottle of Pepto near you as the movement is very fast in this video.

This video is pretty neat – it is a railfan window video from the Long Island Rail Road in New York. You can watch a trip from Penn Station in NYC to Long Beach station in Long Island in just under 2 minutes. I guess this is an express because it skips a bunch of stations. You can also watch the reverse ride into NYC – the normal trip takes 49 minutes.

Make sure to watch this video in 1080 HD for the best quality.

This railfan seriously misses death by about one inch — check out the video below. The man with the camera can’t even seem to get out any words like “MOVE NOW IDIOT” or “YOU ARE ABOUT TO GET HIT AND DIE” — instead he lets out some sort of bird mating call.

Please, I beg of you – if you are planning to railfan and take photos of very fast moving trains, be careful and look both ways.

The Neatorama blog posted a pretty cool video today. It’s from Copenhagen and apparently the passengers on a bus sing happy birthday to the driver. The singing isn’t in English but eventually you will realize what the passengers are singing. It’s easy to gripe all the time about public transit – here’s a nice way to say thanks. If you are someone who cries easily, you might not want to watch this one

I wish I could say the video below is Photoshop’d but sadly it is not. It’s a video from India where the trains are so packed that people ride on top of the train. I assume there is no fare collection for those people. I wonder how the people get up there and how long they ride up top for.

Over my many years riding the NYC subway, I like to think I’ve seen it all. From having a gun pointed at me, to watching a man take a pee off the edge of the platform, to a woman changing her clothes between two cars as we crossed the Manhattan Bridge, nearly nothing could shock me.

But today I have a video that I never thought I would see. Below is a video of a man playing with his chicken on a Bronx-bound 6 subway train. The video shows a man on the floor playing with his chicken (yes a clucking chicken) while others look on. You see, most people probably weren’t pissed that a chicken was on the subway, but that they were missing some seats!

So leave a comment, what’s the weirdest thing you’ve seen on the subway or bus? Make sure to note your city as well.