In June, 2008, 44 retired New York City subway cars were submerged into the Atlantic Ocean off Virginia’s Eastern Shore. With this, the subway cars began a new chapter as part of an artificial fishing reef. The Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC) carried out the deployment near Chincoteague in an operation that carried on for the whole day, designed to expand Blackfish Bank Reef. New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority had donated the stainless-steel cars, and they were placed in a grid pattern on the seabed. The commission reported that each car measured 50 feet and that the cars weighed 17 tons combined. Instead of creating a new reef, the operation expanded an established site that already contained retired subway cars and surplus military vehicles.
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