For nearly a decade, hundreds of retired New York City subway cars left rail yards not for scrapyards, but for the Atlantic Ocean. Between 2001 and 2010, Delaware deliberately sank 997 decommissioned stainless-steel subway cars several miles off its coast, placing them on the seafloor as part of the state’s artificial reef programme. The project transformed obsolete transit equipment into underwater habitat, adding structure to stretches of relatively featureless seabed where marine life could settle, feed and reproduce. Divers soon began exploring the unusual site, while recreational anglers discovered that fish were increasingly congregating around the submerged train cars. Today the location is widely known as Redbird Reef, a name borrowed from the bright red paint once carried by many of the city’s subway trains. According to the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) , the reef now contains 997 retired New York City subway cars, making them the dominant feature of one of Delaware’s largest artificial reef complexes.
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