[HN Gopher] The MTA's armored money train that ran from 1951 to ...
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The MTA's armored money train that ran from 1951 to 2006 in NYC
Author : pseudolus
Score : 141 points
Date : 2023-01-14 12:32 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (untappedcities.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (untappedcities.com)
| speedplane wrote:
| Saw both the movie and the real thing multiple times. Subject of
| numerous a heist fantasy... even today though, the MTA guys
| collecting money from the machines are escorted by NYPD
| conspicuously showing their firearms while giving you the eye.
| The attitude remains.
| pjdemers wrote:
| The Boston MBTA had the same thing. I saw their armored train in
| the early 80's. The guards carried shotguns, just like in the old
| west.
| JackFr wrote:
| I never saw the movie, but I saw the actual money train in action
| two three times in my 20's. Probably about 3:30 AM - having spent
| all my money at a bar forced me to take the subway instead of a
| cab.
|
| 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.)
| listenallyall wrote:
| > having spent all my money at a bar forced me to take the
| subway instead of a cab
|
| an NYC resident "forced" to take the subway... smh
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| sbaiddn wrote:
| I mean you're going to shower in a few hours anyway. But
| until you do you have to sleep with that sticky smell.
| CrazyStat wrote:
| Can always shower before you go to bed.
| JackFr wrote:
| Please. I take the subway everyday twice a day. You must
| admit at 3:30 AM after a night at a bar, a cab would be
| preferable to the subway.
| jMyles wrote:
| > You must admit at 3:30 AM after a night at a bar, a cab
| would be preferable to the subway.
|
| ??
|
| 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.
| Symbiote wrote:
| In London I always prefer the underground to a cab after a
| night out.
|
| 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.
| i_am_proteus wrote:
| Depending on the line, graveyard hour subways in NYC can
| be a long wait before a train arrives.
| BayesianDice wrote:
| And in London, the Underground closes down altogether
| overnight, except for some lines running on Friday and
| Saturday nights. (And that Night Tube service is a
| relatively recent innovation, starting in 2016.)
| kranke155 wrote:
| The night tube is one of the best things that's ever
| happened to London.
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| >Way outside the peak times, the train is spacious,
| brightly lit and there's almost zero risk of an accident.
|
| 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.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| At 3AM drunk? That's called looking for trouble.
| [deleted]
| jallen_dot_dev wrote:
| > (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.
| whatshisface wrote:
| The incredibly strong selective pressures on city raccoons
| keep making them more intelligent.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| I read this in David Attenborough's voice.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| You know what they say; one man's trash is another man's
| treasure.
| helmsb wrote:
| Seems interesting but the ads and full screen modals ruined it.
| eric-hu wrote:
| My friend, ad blockers will make your life so much better. I
| recommend Ad Guard for Safari and uBlock origin for Chrome and
| FF.
| [deleted]
| NoToP wrote:
| Hold up. The metro card side of the story doesn't make sense. Why
| would it relocate to Maspeth Queens, a place that is right in the
| middle of the transit desert not reachable by subway at all. It's
| the exact opposite of 370 Jay. Nothing goes there. Is it just
| cheap parking for armored vehicle lot? Does it have anything to
| do with the MTA owned non passenger tracks which do go through
| there? And why was it considered so much more cumbersome to
| collect fares off the metro card machine compared to the booth
| sales? So many unanswered questions.
|
| 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.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| There's an article that does a better job describing it written
| when the guy who ran the operation retired.
|
| 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)
| scoopertrooper wrote:
| I think this explains why:
|
| > 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.
| madamelic wrote:
| Pretty sure PATH was doing something similar even in 2015 - 2017.
|
| 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.
| krisoft wrote:
| > struck me as smart because no one could necessarily know when
| they were coming
|
| 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?
| LarryMullins wrote:
| > _lookouts reporting from [...] trackside,_
|
| This could even be done openly without attracting attention,
| since railfans hanging out next to tracks waiting for trains
| are common.
| raldi wrote:
| How do they collect cash from all the MetroCard vending machines
| now?
| muglug wrote:
| With traditional armoured cars.
|
| 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.
| raldi wrote:
| Why didn't they use traditional armored cars when they were
| still using tokens? I don't understand why 2006 was a
| milestone in that regard.
| Animats wrote:
| Hauling all those coins and tokens up the stairs to street
| level by hand would have been a huge pain. Many MetroCards
| are sold in stores, so the MTA doesn't have to handle the
| cash at all.
|
| 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.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| You still need to count sort, pull damaged and counterfeit
| tokens and do cash operations.
|
| 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.
| ghaff wrote:
| All this really helps to highlight why municipalities are
| really trying to get away from cash for transit, parking,
| etc. It's not cheap or easy to handle at scale and, at
| some point, the answer to people who want to keep using
| cash is a shrug.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Ehh... once you have a process it isn't that expensive.
| The driver is similar to retail - you can charge more.
|
| 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.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I'm guessing something to do with weight/volume.
|
| 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.)
| ape4 wrote:
| Asking for a friend ;)
| chadlavi wrote:
| See also the charming but not especially good 1995 action flick
| Money Train: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113845
| itisit wrote:
| I recall renting this on laserdisc when I was teen and being
| thoroughly entertained. I'd be surprised if it doesn't hold up
| as the popcorn flick it's always been.
| chadlavi wrote:
| It's a fun watch but as an adult watching it you definitely
| notice a lot that could have been done better. The first hour
| or so is kind of a go-nowhere time waster relative to the
| main plot.
| e40 wrote:
| The Taking of Pelham 123 is far better.
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1111422/
|
| Edit: wrong one, this is the best one
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072251/
| plusminusplus wrote:
| Tarantino uh, _borrowed_ the idea of the criminals calling
| each other pseudonyms from the 1974 version for his film
| _Reservoir Dogs_
| ghaff wrote:
| It's been ages since I've seen either but thinking about it
| there is a certain sibling relationship between the two
| films.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| I remember seeing this when I was younger around the time it
| came out and being blown away. It didn't hold up so well on a
| rewatch a few years back.
| version_five wrote:
| This was my first thought as well! I've never seen it, but I
| had a VHS tape with a preview for it at the beginning that I
| watched regularly, which I still remember.
| Wesles Snipes: we're not going to rob the money train
| Woody Harrelson: why not Snipes: because, we're...
| we're cops
|
| It was a tantalizing preview
| SirLJ wrote:
| https://youtu.be/5Odo80-WFgM
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Atlanta, having a much smaller transit system, has (or had) what
| looked like an oversized airline food service cart that was moved
| by regular passenger service between stations. In K-Mart "Blue
| Light Special" fashion, it had an amber rotating light on top of
| a pole connected to the cart. IIRC, there were always two armed
| employees operating it but otherwise the whole operation seemed
| rather relaxed. Most stations only had kiosks to vend transit
| tickets. The ones with manned "Ride Stores" might have had a more
| secure procedure for moving cash in and out.
| itsmartapuntocm wrote:
| MARTA does have a pair of old cars converted into a "work
| train". Not sure what its purpose is though.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Probably useful for moving materials between stations and
| delivering supplies to worksites on the tracks (which they
| always seem to be repairing).
| dwightgunning wrote:
| Seems logical to move smaller sums more frequently.
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