Saturday, April 26, 2008

Keep on Truckin' - Underground


While we spend a lot of time talking about microcars and minicars, there are an awful lot of mini-trucks out there, working hard and earning their keep.

Grand Central Terminal in New York City is a huge complex. Although it no longer services long-distance passenger trains, GCT is the New York terminus of Metro-North Railroad, a commuter system that services Westchester, Putnam and Duchess counties in New York State, and Fairfield and New Haven counties in Connecticut. If measured in terms of train platforms, GCT is the largest train station in the world (44 platforms).

With a place this big, it's not surprising that GCT has a fleet of trucks to get workers from one place to another. And since the workers need to travel indoors, and on train platforms, the trucks are electric minitrucks. Some are Cushman trucks, some are Taylor-Dunn trucks, and others are E-Z-GO. Some of the trucks are virtually indistinguishable from one-another -- and that may be because Cushman and E-Z-GO are both owned by Textron.

Grand Central also has its own Transit Authority Police Office, and MTA Police officers patrol the station in two GEM electric cars.

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