If I’m here much later, I may just get to share SEPTA Watch’s cool sighting:

A BSL train sat parked on the tracks.  It hadn’t pulled up all the way.  No one was getting on or off.  And as I walked towards it, I noticed that most of the windows were covered.

I had stumbled upon the elusive money train.

There were two or three cars.  The front ones were piled with trash bags.  The back one held stacked black boxes filled, I presume, with the loot from the turnstiles north of City Hall.

Not the BSL money train, but you get the picture. By Flickr user 18brumaire

In fact, I have seen the money train before and it’s just as impressive a process as SEPTA Watch describes.  Back in my campaign days, when work nights routinely ended at 11:30 or so, I had multiple occasions to be on the Market Frankford line’s 15th Street platform waiting for the last train to come through.  The pattern I detected was that the money train came through right before the last train.

It pulls up to the station, a pair of absolutely massive, black clothed, black boot wearing, heavily armed men steps out, walks briskly up the stairs to the booths, retrieves the fares and walks just as briskly back to the train.  They seem to walk in unison with footfalls that echo throughout the entire complex.  These gentlemen are not to be messed with.

From the other end of the train, the custodial staff jumps out, grabs all of the trash bags from public cans, tosses them into one of the cars and hops back onto the train.  The train itself is a vintage model, like the El trains I used to ride in high school, with the windows covered by plates of steel and the doors permanently open.

Have you ever seen the money trains?  If so, share your story in the comments.