Artificial Reef

• Redbird Reef
In late 2000, The MTA New York City Transit decided to phase out its outdated fleet of subway cars to make room for the R142 & R142A trains. These subway cars, commonly referred to as Redbirds, ran on the IRT lines in the New York City Subway system for over 40 years. Each car was sold, stripped, decontaminated, loaded on a barge, and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean. In some cases, a few of the cars had their number plates removed because of rust. Over 1,200 subway cars were sunk.
In September 2007, the MTA approved a contract, worth over $6 million, that would send more than 1,600 of its retired subway cars to be used as artificial reefs. Most of these trains ran on The BMT/IND lines. The trains include the R32, R38, R40 and R42. These models are made of stainless steel. The MTA will replace them with the R160A & R160B trains. Workers removed the plastic front ends found on most of the cars before sinking. The retired fleet also included old work trains and cars damaged beyond repair.