Johnny Trains
April 30th, 2003, 05:01 AM
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."
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."