And You Thought Your Vacuum Found Oddities Under the Sofa April 29, 2003 By RANDY KENNEDY NEW YORK TIMES Very early yesterday morning while you were sleeping, a group of generally large men got up, got dressed and did some vacuuming for you. Being generally large, they did not use a small vacuum cleaner: it was 225 feet long, weighed several tons, cost $15 million, sat atop four Detroit Diesel engines and was capable of moving 55 miles per hour. When cranked up, it did not sound much like a Hoover. It sounded more like the end of the world. Despite the fact that this vacuum had no special hose attachments, it was quite effective in getting at those hard-to-reach places, like the subway tunnel between Jay Street and High Street on the A line. In fact, over the last two years, since it arrived from France - that nation of progressive vacuumers - this particular vacuum cleaner and an identical counterpart have reached almost every unclean spot in the underground portion of the subway and have a lot to show for it, none of which you would want to be in the same borough with. Together, they have sucked up almost five million pounds of the gunk and junk deposited daily in the system by subway riders and by the trains themselves, whose wheels leave behind a fine, black steel dust that coats everything - from the garbage to the rats to the track workers - with what looks like dark-chocolate frosting. It is difficult to tell whether the following analogy makes them Mets fans or demonstrates a special hatred of the team, but the men who operate the subway vacuum trains like to calculate that all the trash they have suctioned out of the system since they began in 1997 would cover the infield at Shea Stadium to a depth of 27 feet. Most of the more sizable, interesting and frightening things left on the tracks - umbrellas, cellphones, tennis shoes, hypodermic needles, folding chairs, for example - are usually picked up by advance track crews who walk out ahead of the train with garbage bags and flashlights. But sometimes, as when your home vacuum cleaner accidentally inhales a sock, the vacuum train also stumbles across the occasional mistake. "You wouldn't believe what we've had," said John J. Doherty, a superintendent. "We've had a wedding dress. We've had mattresses. We've had things I couldn't even identify." Mattresses? He quickly clarified: "Not a queen-sized. Oh, no, it couldn't do a queen-sized. I'm talking more like a - what do you call it? - a single bed." After the five-car train thundered into the High Street station yesterday morning just after midnight, Michael Sullivan, another superintendent, opened a door on the side of one bright yellow car to show where these larger incidental items were trapped so that they would not clog the train's filters. He invited a reporter to put his head into the opening and look around. There were no wedding dresses or mattresses inside. Instead, it appeared as if a small delicatessen had imploded. "You want to take a sample of that home for breakfast?" Mr. Sullivan asked, smiling wickedly. Basically the only items the train will not pick up, he said, are AA batteries and wet newspapers, because they are very dense for their size. Although the train sucks 70,000 cubic feet of air per minute, creating a violent foot-high dust storm below it, it is designed to leave small, heavy objects behind so that it will not extract the small ballast rocks from the track beds. Rats, he said, have become very adept at not being extracted, scurrying out of the way just ahead of the lethal suction. "If Ben don't run fast enough, then that's his problem," he said, referring to the long-tailed star of the 1972 horror film "Ben," which seems to be a favorite among the members of the vacuum train team. About 1:15, after unsticking a stubborn suction hood, everyone climbed aboard and the vacuuming of the subway began, in a methodical two-mile-per-hour crawl south toward Jay Street. The train then reversed and headed north, slowly sucking its way under the width of the East River, a particularly ticklish spot in the system because trash fires could trap riders in the under-river tube, far from any station. While there are all kinds of special cars that ply the rails of the subway in the dead of night - pump cars, crane cars, tank cars, wash cars and cars that apply a strange, toothpaste-like goo to the rails to keep trains' wheels from slipping - the vacuum cars probably draw the most attention in subway stations. In part, this is because riders find it almost impossible to discern the purpose of the gargantuan yellow train, and because the noise that attends a cleaner, safer subway is truly brain rattling. Very early yesterday morning at High Street, one homeless man, sprawled on a bench, somehow managed to sleep through the din. Two other men sat with their hands over their ears, looking oppressed. A fourth removed his shirt, pulled out a rag and began to wash himself. "When we first pulled in," said Richard Cardiello, a subway general superintendent, "he was doing push-ups and sit-ups."
No alligators!? Very disappointing! LOL (They did catch one in Alley Pond Park yesterday though!) Russ
Russ, that was a two foot gauge gator. Last year they caught a four footer somewhere else in the City! And people thought they were only in the sewers. Cheeze.
thanks for the interesting story johnny. i never would have thought a vaccum train would exsist, i guess i was wrong lol
Thanks Steve. I wish a of mine friend still worked for the MTA, but he retired and moved to Florida. He might have been able to get me in to where they keep it. I might someday see the big machine, but I tend to stay out of the subway at the wee hours of the morning! With 5 million people a day riding the trains, the subway takes a beating. With the big "sucker" and cleaning crews, it's never enough to keep it clean. Now, on an opposite note, the MTA'S Metro North RR uses a jet powered snow blower. It's blows instead of sucks (maybe I could put that another way.....) snow off of the tracks. It's an actual airplane jet engine mounted onto a car! Both of them must be deafening!!!!!!!
i can imagine that they'd both be quite loud, id like to see both of them, do you know where there are any picutres of this beast?
I don't know about MTA, but I have a picture of the jet powered snow blower in Albany NY at the AMtrak Station. Wish I'd gotten to see it in use, but I was there in May. Oh well.
Only $10 Million each? That seems remarkably cheap for this sort of equipment. I did notice that the article used the term "engine". Are these diesel powered or do they run on the traction current in the tunnels?
Very good question, and I would assume it is diesel powered because if the power goes out it can still get itself out of there. Diesels are used in almost all their MOW operations. It's interesting to see diesels pulling 40-50 year old ex-subway cars painted in MOW yellow. Some old cars have different, larger shop installed doors and other interesting things in them. One in a MOW train usually has the seats still in it so the guys can ride in style from the yard into the tunnels and up onto the els. Last Memorial Day, the gang and I saw a very delapadated yellow WOODEN (!) MOW car in the South Brooklyn RR yard!!!!!! It must have been stored away somewhere and used for storage. I can't imagine that has been used even in non-revenue service in 50 years! (It's being in the SBRR yard means one thing.....bye bye). [ 05. May 2003, 22:30: Message edited by: Johnny Trains ]
it dosent quite look the way i expected either... i guess i was expecting it too look more like a vaccum cleaner
