New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has been dumping railcars into the ocean for more than a decade now. From 2000-2010, nearly 2500 subway cars have been shipped out and dumped into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
They call this project the “American Reclamation.”
It takes the MTA about one month to prepare the cars.
They remove the window seats, the motors, the wheels as well as the cooling and heating systems.
Once emptied, the cars are then shipped to the coasts of Delaware, Georgia, Long Island, Maryland, Virginia and South Carolina.
They’re then dumped into the waters.
Once the railcars are released, it takes just about a minute for the water to swallow them completely.
After a few months… the result?
These subway cars make perfect coral reef bases for sea life. Amazing, isn’t it!
“The fish seem to be happy!” said photographer Stephen Mallon. “They start moving in after a couple of months, and by five years there are complete colonies living there.”