Train-wreck reefs: how old subway cars are now home to marine life

Beneath the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of Delaware, lie 1,329 New York City subway cars, 75,000 tonnes of concrete, 8,100 tonnes of old tyres and 86 decommissioned military vehicles -- including the 172-metre-long Naval destroyer USS Arthur W Radford. But this is no environmental hazard -- it's a fish haven. "These structures encourage the kind of marine life you just wouldn't find along the bare sand of the Atlantic coast," explains reef programme manager Jeff Tinsman. "Invertebrates like the blue mussel need a solid structure to fix to."

Since the programme began in 1995, the total biomass of marine life in the area covered by Delaware's 14 artificial reefs has increased by a factor of 400, as the smaller invertebrates provide an attractive food source for sea bass, cod and other Atlantic fish. Delaware was the first state to accept New York's Redbird-class subway cars, which were originally offered up for donation by the city in 2001. Their success has since inspired other states, including New Jersey, Maryland, and South Carolina, which were initially wary about the environmental impacts. "If you were to deliberately design an object specifically for artificial reef building, it would probably look something like a subway car," Tinsman says. "They're durable, they've got lots of holes at the top and a heavy bottom, so they land straight up."

Unfortunately for Delaware, this ensuing popularity means all the available cars have now been used, but Tinsman already has big plans for the reef's next addition. The Tamaroa, a 62-metre-long ex-Navy cutter which was deployed at the battle of Iwo Jima, spent 47 years with the US Coastguard and famously rescued the crew of the yacht Satori during 1991's "Perfect Storm", will now end its days sheltering fish.

This article was originally published by WIRED UK