Video: Turtle Takes the 7 Train

There's something endlessly fascinating about subway cars retiring in the deep seas and transforming into artificial reefs. The MTA's fleet of Redbird cars have been underwater since 2001, in New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia. Coming up next Monday Bob Martore, the Artificial Reef Manager from South Carolina’s Department of Natural Resources, will be in town to explain how subway cars help provide homes for marine life (tickets), and the organizers of the event just sent us over this video of a sea turtle and some of his friends taking the 7 train! (Warning: watching this video leaves you at risk of having that song from The Little Mermaid stuck in your head all day.)

We're told the reef program continues (even though subway cars were reportedly falling apart underwater in New Jersey), but has slowed down—Georgia just received 44 cars in January.

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By Jen Carlson in Arts & Entertainment on May 11, 2010 12:22 PM

Comments [rss]

Trilby16

That's surreal, and pretty cool.

There's a station (I forget which) that has a bunch of mosaics showing subway cars filled with water and dolphins and octopi and whatnot. They were made before the subway car reef, I think. Prescient!

BrianW

The reef program actually just ended. The crane that was used for many years to load the subway cars onto the barge was floated away. I don't believe any more New York City Subway cars will be reefed in the next few years. Here are some photos of the crane leaving:

http://www.railfanwindow.com/blog/2010/05/photos-of-weeks-marine-crane-552-under-broadway-bridge/