by Aimee Custis • November 3, 2015
Ride Metro long enough and you'll see plenty of non-passenger carrying vehicles on the rails, from The Pickle, to maintenance vehicles, to... The Money Train! Reader Sarah writes in with a question about what, exactly, that is.
Sarah writes,
"I was waiting for a Silver, Orange, or Blue train at Federal Center SW around noon yesterday, and a no passenger train went through. The first car was very bizarre looking and I'm almost certain was #8003. What is this mystery car?"
Our Metro-expert-in-chief, Matt Johnson, had the answer.
Cars 8000, 8001, 8002, and 8003 (formerly 1010, 1011, 1044, and 1045) are the "money train" cars.
WMATA collects coins and bills from the ticket vending machines (TVMs) around the system using railcars modified for that purpose. Throughout the day, Metro employees escorted by MTPD officers use special carts to empty fare revenue from the TVMs and store the carts in rooms in the station until time to put them aboard the Money Train. The Money Train makes two sweeps through the system each weekday.
There are two pairs of Money Train cars. It is not clear to me whether they use both each day or whether they rotate them. Regardless, two Money Train cars are paired with two regular cars and run through the system as a 4-car train. The Money Train cars are used for the carts. The other cars are just backup power and to make sure the train doesn't get caught in any third rail gaps longer than 150 feet.
The Money Train cars are specially modified in a few ways. First, they have extra tinted windows, making it nearly impossible to see inside. All seats have been removed to make way for the carts. The floors are also reinforced to hold the weight of the carts. They also apparently have shotgun racks for MTPD officers to defend the train as necessary. On the exterior of the train, the cars still have plastic mylar rollsigns (as opposed to flipdot (1000 & 4000) or LED (2/3000, 5000, 6000, 7000) signs on revenue cars).
These four cars will be the last 1000 cars running in the system for regular service, though without passengers. Metro's plans call for replacing the Money Train cars with specially-built cars as part of the 8000-series order, which will likely be executed in the early 2020s. That order will replace the Money Train cars, the 2/3000 cars, and may be used to expand the fleet size beyond 50% 8-car operation.
I used to encounter this train frequently. Seems it's schedule to National AP station pretty much coincided with my arrival on the platform from the flight in. Sort of scared me the first time, dark cars, guns etc. soon came to expect it and was disappointed if I missed it.
The NYCTA has them, too. They are classified as Revenue Collection Cars.
http://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/R-95_Revenue_Collector_Cars
Wasn't there a movie called "Money Train" a while back? Might be useful for some ideas.
Now what would be interesting is for a complete listing of all systems that run money trains. There are probably some systems that pick bus routes as well.
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