InsideTransit

Seriously, sometimes I wonder what is going on here in NYC. Are they putting something wacky in our water? Here we have a person (I assume it’s a person) dressed up like a bird bouncing on a seat in the NYC subway. I think it’s a bird because of the beak. From what I understand this is on the L line — I’d love to see the bird on the 7 sometime!

You know what’s funny about this is that sometimes you just need to smile and laugh – and that’s what this bird did for me today. I’d go for a bouncy ride if I saw the bird.

The new Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 is just days away and railfans all across the world have started to lineup to be first to see the remake of the movie about a stolen subway train. Before you go to see the new 2009 version, you better watch the original version!

Below is the full movie – it seems there is only one short commercial at the beginning and then you can enjoy the full movie. It’s such a great movie – go pop some corn, grab a coke and enjoy.
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I am in Seattle this week and have really enjoyed the good bus service they have here. Next week I will publish a guide on riding the Seattle buses. Yesterday I decided to take a ride on the Seattle Monorail. This might have been one of the most exciting monorail rides I have ever been on! It’s just over 2 minutes, shakes and bumps around where you think “this is the end of my life” several times and the 2 minute ride costs $4.

To save you from spending the money on this very exciting trip, I filmed a ride from the Seattle Center to downtown as if you were riding. The display showed a top speed of just under 60mph. It was very noisy so please excuse the background sound.

Here we go – try walking from one end of this train to the next – I’ve seen 12 car trains but never a 15 car train. The train in the video below is from Tokyo and consists of 15 cars including 2 double decker cars. The video’s creator estimates the train at 300 meters long. The train has great pickup as well as it leaves the station very quickly.

In the video below, we see a train just doing its job being a train and yet some construction workers figured they would park their “little” earth mover next to the tracks. So guess who wins…

Found via the CTA Tattler, here’s a rap music video that talks about transit in Chicago. Bino White, aka, comedian Joe Hanson has put down the mad lyrics. Check ‘em out in the video below.

Here’s yet another reason why you should not leave your car on railroad tracks. Found via subchat, this video comes to us from a police officer dash camera in Greer, South Carolina.

I’ve been a BVE train simulator junkie for years. Sadly BVE does not work on the Microsoft Vista OS so my time driving the various routes has been non-existant the past few months. It’s certainly disappointing because there are so many passengers that are stuck on subway and train platforms just waiting for me to come pick them up and get them to their destinations!

Now I”ve learned that there is a new simulator coming soon named “World of Subways 2″ which looks freaking awesome. The trains are very realistic as is the movement and the stations. The example below is from the Berlin subway system and is so close to real, you can’t tell that you aren’t in Berlin! They even have real announcements on the subway along with flashing lights when the doors are closing. The trains look just like I remember them from my trip to Berlin.

Here’s an article discussing the U-Bahn-Simulator (it’s in German).

Here’s a sample of what the simulator will look like:

You know that we only bring you the best videos from around the world. Today I have one from my hometown of NYC. In the video you will get to experience what it is like to ride the A train from 145th and 59th street. The trip takes place on a subway car called R40 Slant – this set of cars is slowly being retired from the system. This is one of the favorite subway cars for railfans because you can actually look out the front.

You might want to pop a bag of corn and grab a large bottle of vodka to really enjoy this exciting video.

It seems pirates are all the craze lately after all of the very unfortunate events with pirates taking over ships around the world. Now all of us transit fans have been wondering when pirates will take a bus or a train. Well don’t wonder anymore! It seems that there are real bus pirates and this documentary series proves it.

The Bus Pirates series started a couple of years ago and you can now purchase a DVD of all of the exciting episodes for $10. Not sure if I found the episodes funny but I love that the guy gets on the bus, asks the driver if the bus stops at a specific location, bus driver says no and drives away anyway. I know that’s happened to me before!

Looks like fun to film in any case – here is one one of the episodes:
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