nycsubway.org is a site dedicated to the history of the New York City Subway system, including photos, maps, and documents. We don't attempt to keep track of up to the minute, accurate information about fares, schedules, service outages, etc. That kind of information is best left to official transit agencies, e.g. www.mta.info. The site is maintained and managed by David Pirmann.

When did the site go online?

The first pages went up around August 1995. The first sections were photo essays about a New York Transit Museum tour of City Hall Station and a ride on their BMT D-Type "Nostalgia Train". These photo essays were inspired by seeing some other rail-related travelogues and photos on the then-infant World Wide Web. Back in the old days, before search engines, new web sites were "announced" via a Usenet newsgroup called comp.infosystems.www.misc; a posting describing this site was submitted on 11 November 1995.

How is the site funded?

The site is funded using the Google Adwords ads that are run on the various pages of the site. In addition, items in the Subway Bibliography and Subway Movies and Documentaries are linked to Amazon.com, and if you purchase something by clicking thru from this site, Amazon contributes a small percentage back to us. We don't sell direct advertising but if you are interested in that, you can "target" nycsubway.org in Google Adwords. Visits to the site are anonymously tracked for statistical purposes using Google Analytics. This program has helped me focus the advertising to where it is most rewarding.

What does the site run on?

Prior to July 2001, the site ran on a variety of hand-me-down Sun hardware, including a Sparc 1+, a Sparc IPX, and a Sparc 20. From July 2001 to April 2002, the site ran on two servers, a Dell Poweredge 350 running RedHat Linux, and a dual processor Sun Sparcstation 20, running Solaris 8. In April 2002, the Dell server crashed and was replaced with a dual processor Sun Ultra 2. In May 2002 the database was converted from mSQL 2.x to MySQL. From 2002 to 2012, the site was hosted on a dedicated pair of Athlon 2200 machines running Linux, leased from a hosting facility. From July 2012, the site is mostly hosted out of the Amazon Web Services EC2 cloud.

What tools are used to run the site?

Here's a short list of tools that I like to use to support the site. Image manipulation: xv, ImageMagick, gimp, xpaint. Web services: apache, perl, mod_perl, php, MySQL database, and the MediaWiki content management system.

How can I contribute?

The web site always needs volunteers to continue to add new items to the site. Join a group of people who have given their time and talent to developing content for the largest NYC Subway web site around. You don't need to be proficient in web page coding or photo scanning or other technical aspects of developing web pages. I can do all that for you. What is most needed is development of new content, and that's where you come in to the picture. If you want to volunteer, please visit the Feedback Form and let us know!

To submit photos follow these simple guidelines: (1) Use the Feedback Form to initiate contact with the webmaster. (2) Photos should be in JPG format, around 1024x768 in size (anything larger will be scaled down before posting). (3) The image file names are not important, but you should prepare a listing matching the image filename to its important data, such as location, date, car type and number, etc. so that the captions can be prepared. (4) After hearing back from the webmaster, email the photos as single attachments or a zip file. (If you've contributed before you can skip the feedback form and go right to the emailing.)

For cities that are not represented on the site, contributed photos may be held aside until some introductory or explanatory text describing the transit in that city can be prepared. If you'd like to work on that, to go along with your photos, drop a line!

Who are the contributors to the site?

nycsubway.org wouldn't be what it is today without the valuable contributions and hard work of many people, and without whom the site would not be nearly as interesting! There are over 800 photographers represented on the site. (Here's a list of the the top 20 photographers by number of contributions. The list that follows is only a partial list of the many contributors to the site.

David Pirmann: From Hoboken, NJ, Dave is the webmaster and primary maintainer of the web pages in general. His full time work keeps him busy as a systems management consultant at a New York City financial firm. Besides running www.nycsubway.org some of his hobbies are traveling and photography. (contact)

---

Salaam Allah: Salaam lives in Pasadena, California, and is the primary contributor to our Los Angeles section of the site. He sent in many photos of the light rail lines, commuter rail, Red line subway, and the Angel's Flight funicular. (contact)

Duncan Allen: Duncan is a resident of Needham, MA, a professional transportation consultant, and an active member at Seashore Trolley Museum. He has contributed material on the Bombardier TVR applications in France and Boston's Silver Line BRT. (contact)

Ron Aryel: Ron is a physician living in Kansas City. He is a confirmed polymath whose varied hobbies include public transportation advocacy and board games. Ron has been busy updating various sections on this website; his first contribution related the story of the world's fastest subway car. (contact)

Adam J. Benjamin: Adam J. Benjamin has contributed photos and information on rail and transit systems in the Pacific Northwest, most notably Portland, OR and Vancouver, BC. His other interests include architecture, photography, and history. He currently resides in Portland, Oregon. (contact)

Simon Billis: From Swindon, England. One of our resident U.K. experts, Simon has contributed photos to our London pages as well as a full guide the Isle of Wight's "Island Line". (contact)

Brandon W. Bostian: Brendan recently contributed photos of the tourist/heritage trolley operation in Memphis, TN.

Daniel Boyar: Contributed a whole page of photos of the Newark City Subway's new shops and LRVs, and photos to the SIRT pages.

Alan Braunstein: Contributed photos to many sections, including the Washington, D.C. SubTalk Field Trip, New Jersey Transit Raritan Line, Brooklyn Waterfront field trip and Newark Subway field trips. And just about every other field trip!

Joe Brennan: From New York City. Joe is an expert about everything rail in New York City, especially about the subway's disused and abandoned stations. He contributed the photo essay "Tracks on Broadway" to the site. Be sure to visit Joe's own subway site: Abandoned Stations (contact)

Michael Calcagno: Michael contributed most of the route maps and historical maps on the site. He hand-draws most of them! (contact)

Richard Chase: A resident of suburban Philadelphia and one of our newer contributors, he is an avid rail (and aviation) fan and works for USAirways at PHL. Richard has contributed photos of SEPTA's rail and subways, Amtrak, NJT, LIRR & MetroNorth as well as the "T" in Boston and San Diego's Coaster, Trolley & Sprinter lines. His favorite place to be, however, is anywhere on the NY Subway system. (contact)

Bernard Chatreau: Bernard is one of our newest contributors. He lives in Montmorency, France, near Paris, and is a mathematician by trade. He has some knowledge about urban planning and urban transport. He likes to collect data and photos of subways, streetcars, light and commuter rail in the towns of the world. He is an administrator of the ASPCRF, an association which is fighting for the reopening of the Petite Ceinture, a disused circular rail line inside Paris. His first contribution to the site was a guide to the tram system of Lyon, France. (contact)

Thurston Clark: Thurston has coordinated several of our "SubTalk Field Trips", including a major weekend event in the Boston area. He frequently contributes photographs and writeups of field trip events.

Robert Clark: Robert is from Cardenden, Fife, Scotland, and is an administrative and sales assistant for Focus DIY. Mainly a bus enthusiast, Robert is writing a book about the 25 year history of the Tyne & Wear Metro. (contact)

David S. Cole: A Chicago resident, David contributed the line by line descriptions of the Chicago CTA system, and many photos. David runs a Chicago-based web site known as [http://www.nthward.com/ The Nth Ward]. (contact)

Ed Crew: Ed maintains a large collection of subway reference materials, from which we were able to cull a most of the information in the Dual Contracts portion of this site.

George Cuhaj: George Cuhaj lived for his first 34 years near the Broadway station of the Astoria Line. George got to see the transition from R-1/9s to R44s in the mid-70s while attending Brooklyn Tech on the INDs GG line. His dad, George, was an 'A' man at 207 Street Shops from 1967-93. In 1994 George relocated to Central Wisconsin where he edits books for World Coin and World Bank Note Collectors. He has also authored a book on U.S. Scouting Collectibles. (contact)

Peggy Darlington: From Edison, NJ. Subway fan and NYCT station agent, Peggy has contributed station-by-station rundowns of many of the lines of the subway system and of Philadelphia's rapid transit lines. Her current project is a station guide to the area's commuter railroads. Her other hobbies include computing, reading, video, and traveling. She has been a member of the Transit Museum for several years and has been to every active station in the system, and most of the closed ones too. (contact)

Tim Deakin: Tim has contributed photos and descriptions of the Manchester Metrolink in the United Kingdom and the Santa Teresa Tram in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Jason R. DeCesare: From Philadelphia, PA. Originated the "Grand Central: Commuter Rail in NY and Beyond" section and has contributed photos to just about every other section. He also created the excellent token graphic on the home page. Whereabouts currently unknown!

Jason DeCesare's token logo.

Doug Diamond: Also known as the "BMT Man", Doug has organized several field trips on behalf of the site and contributed the writeup of his Brooklyn Waterfront rail tour.

Peter Dougherty: Recently moved to New York City after many years in Toronto, Peter is the author/self-publisher of a book, Tracks of the New York City Subway. Peter has also contributed a large amount of photographs to the Disused and Abandoned Stations section, and from around the subway. Peter is a fan of science-fiction, ham radio (VE3-THX), private aviation, and has been both a movie projectionist and a conductor/foreman on the St. Lawrence & Hudson railway in former lives. (contact)

Peter Ehrlich: Peter, who grew up on the New York subways, is an F-Line streetcar operator for the San Francisco Municipal Railway. Since that system also runs former Milan, Italy trams, he has also become quite interested in, and knowledgeable of, the Milan tramway system. He has written the overviews of Milan, Blackpool, and the Pasadena, California, Gold Line for NYCSubway.org. (contact)

Hank Eisenstein: Contributed the SIRT section of our Line by Line guide.

Mike Farrell: A resident of Chicago, Mike has contributed many photos to the Chicago "L" section, photos of the new PCC operation in Kenosha, WI, and behind the scenes photos from the St. Louis Metrolink operation. (contact)

Mark S. Feinman: From upstate NY. Provided great assistance in preparing to the guides of the former BMT lines, and also the major work "History of the Independent Subway". Also, contributed photos from the R-30 farewell fan trip, the Chicago El, and the Singapore metro. (contact)

Robert Ferreira: Contributed the station-by-station guides to and most of our photographs of the Atlanta MARTA system. Robert is a college student in Atlanta, and some of his other interests are: traveling, racquetball, and break dancing.

Howard Finkel: Howard has been contributing photos of the modern-day remains of the New York Westchester & Boston Railroad. (contact)

Christoph Franke: Christoph is located in Cologne, Germany, and has contributed photos and a description of Cologne's transit. He welcomes any comments and queries about Cologne's transit system! (contact)

Matthias and Jonas Frey: Matthias' interest in rail transit goes back 20 years and has now been passed on to his son Jonas. They live near Stuttgart in southern Germany. Together they contributed photos and descriptions of every station of the Munich U-bahn and will continue with the light rail systems of Stuttgart, Fankfurt am Main and Karlsruhe. (contact)

Sanford Gardner: Now in New Jersey; he grew up in Williamsburg and downtown sections Brooklyn and used the NYC transit system to get around the city. He commuted on the GG (R1/9's) to Brooklyn Tech before relocating to a new apartment complex near the Navy St. Station of the Myrtle Ave. El, a 4 block walk to the school. He rode some of the old el's before they were torn down (3rd Ave; Lex) and many of the old cars on their regular routes before they were taken out of service (MUDC's, Lo & Hi V's, BUs, Multis, Triplexes and Standards). Having been a front window rider on all the NYC subway lines and now retired from the telecommunications industry, he reviews photos and where possible, identifies locations where the photographer didn't submit the information.

Slade Gellin: Slade is our Buffalo, NY correspondant. He contributed the station by station guide to the Buffalo light rail system. (contact)

Todd Glickman: Todd grew up in The Bronx, then Howard Beach Queens, and then Roslyn Heights, NY, and he now lives in Boston. He commutes to NYC one weekend a month when working as on-air meteorologist for WCBS Newsradio-88. A life-long subway fan, Todd volunteers as an Instructor at the Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport, Maine. Todd's contributions include insight regarding the New York cars at Seashore and other museums, and he also organized the first SubTalk field trip. His most recent addition to the site is a photo tour of Boston's North Station and some photos of the Amtrak Acela in Boston. (contact)

Bernard S. Greenberg: Grew up in New York City, now lives in Boston, MA. Bernard authored our section on NYC Subway Signalling and is also the author of a railroad interlocking/signal simulation known as NXSYS, Signalling and Interlocking Simulator. (contact)

Mark Greenwald: Mark helped develop our guide to the Washington D.C. Metro.

Oren H.: Oren is the webmaster of orenstransitpage.com and a contributor to nycsubway.org, writing overviews for the Haifa Carmelit and Disney World sections, and contributing photos to the Washington, DC section (among others). He currently splits his time between the Washington, DC area and Ithaca, NY. (contact)

Eric Haas: Contributed many photos to the San Francisco section, including the Muni Metro guide, BART, etc. More recently he contributed a number of photos of the Los Angeles rail lines and full guides to the light rail systems in Sacramento, San Jose and San Diego. (contact)

Phil Hom: Grew up in Manhattan on the Lower East side. Became interested in the subway during the Worlds' Fair (Half of the fun at the Worlds' Fair is the Subway Special that will take you there!). Attended Brooklyn Tech, and then served with the US Air Force for 21 years. Now employed by the Air Force in the computer technology field. Contributed the Dallas DART and Tandy Subway photos, and the Second Ave Subway timeline, as well as numerous bus photos from the Avenue B and East Broadway and NYCTA operations. Lives in the Washington DC area. (contact)

Steve Hoskins: Steve generously contributed our first set of "historical" photos from the late 60's and 70's, helping get this site off the ground when it was new.

Rob Hutchinson: From Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Our resident Canadian correspondent has provided us with a full line by line guide to Toronto's streetcar system. He also sent along some photos of streetcar operations in Istanbul, San Francisco and Buffalo. (contact)

Daniel G. Jennings: Daniel G. Jennings is a professional writer and former journalist who lives and works in Denver Colorado. A life long fan of trains and rail transit, Jennings takes RTD's light rail to work everyday. Contributed photos to the Denver section of world.nycsubway.org.

Chris Jones: From England, Chris contributed photos to the U.K. preserved railway tour and to the Croydon Tramlink section.

Gregory Jordan-Detamore: From Philadelphia, PA. Has contributed updates to all the Philadelphia pages and rides SEPTA on a daily basis. Has a collection of hundreds of schedules, maps, timetables, etc. (mostly from Philadelphia). (contact)

Sidney Keyles: Contributed many photos of Coney Island Yards and the 1999 Busfest, as well as our first photos of the Hudson/Bergen Light Rail. Sid also coordinated our 2nd Field Trip to the Newark City Subway.

Thierry Leleu: Thierry Leleu was born in 1953 in Paris. He is a pharmacist in Toulouse, France, where he manages two pharmacies. He has also been a railway photographer since 1969 and has taken more than 150,000 photos across Europe. He contributes to several European railway magazines. (contact)

John Leung: John is a resident of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and naturally enough, contributed the station by station guide to the Calgary LRV system. (contact)

C.K. Leverett: a.k.a. Anon_e_mouse, calls both Bunn, North Carolina and Eatontown, New Jersey home nowadays, although he grew up in the shadow of the Poughkeepsie RR bridge. A project manager by profession and a historian by training, he is a regular volunteer at the Shore Line Trolley Museum. Other hobbies include N scale modeling, old Fords (especially his '65 Ranchero), and photography - naturally, as he has contributed a number of photographs to this site. (contact)

Ed Levine: Ed is a longtime teacher and administrator in NYC, who rides the subway to work every day. His first transit experience was riding the Q27 in 1952, from Bayside en route to the Flushing subway. He is an avid collector of subway memorabilia, particularly vintage postcards and paper collectibles from the early IRT era. (contact)

Trevor Logan: From Cliffside Park, NJ. Trevor was born and raised in the Morrisania section of the Bronx and works as a bus operator for New Jersey Transit. Besides transit photography, his hobbies are web site design and songwriting. Trevor has contributed photographs to many sections of the site. Recently he created some new graphics for SubTalk, BusTalk, and other sections of the site.

Rob Morel: Rob is another correspondant from the United Kingdom, where he is employed as a towerman/signaller for England's national rail network. He's contributed many London transport photographs and also worked on the guide to the Isle of Wight line. (contact)

Seth Morgan: Seth is a college student in Springfield, OH who primarily contributes updated and new transit system maps to nycsubway.org. Originally from Washington, DC, Seth has particular knowledge of transit systems in that region, and has worked as a transportation planning intern at Alexandria Transit Company. He has long intended to enter the field of city planning after finishing his education. (contact)

Theo Neutelings: Theo lives in the Netherlands and has enjoyed a life-long passion for transit photography. He has contributed hundreds of photographs to our European transit sections, and also of a recent visit to New Orleans. (contact)

Gerry O'Regan: Gerry is our resident Boston expert. He contributed the line by line descriptions of the Boston rapid transit lines. (contact)

Rich Panse: Rich is a frequent contribtor of photos to nycsubway.org. (contact)

Paul Pesante: Paul works as conductor for MTA Metro-North Railroad, and for NYCT prior to that. He has more than 12 years experience in railroading, and has been an avid rail enthusiast since his youth. He currently resides in Parkchester, Bronx.

Steffen Petrasch: Steffen is an electrical engineer who resides in Berlin, Germany. He's been fascinated about trains all his life, and also a big fan of New York City (he even got married in NYC!). While he was there, he fell in love with the NYC subway and wants to thank his wife for supporting his time contributing to nycsubway.org. Some hobbies are photography and his pets. He wants to finish the line by line guides for the Berlin U-Bahn and S-Bahn and then contribute more cities, starting in the metropolitan area of Berlin, next year. (contact)

Frank Pfuhler: Frank is from Flushing N. Y. and retired from the Steamship Industry arter 47 years. He started taking photos in the early 1950's. He also filmed various transit properties using a 16mm Bolex Camera. Thirty years after filming 10,000 feet of film he worked with Sunday River Productions and produced 12 videos. There are several each taken in the New York, Chicago and Philadelphia areas. He is a member of the Electric Railroaders Assoc. where he has taken the Sprague Library Photo Collection and produced 47 Photo CDs covering most States and Canada. He is also an active member of the Shore Line Trolley Museum where he works to repair old electric cars. At present he is working on Kings County Elevated Co. trailer coach # 197. At 119 years young (car #197, not Frank!), the project is coming along fine. (contact)

Aaron Philipson: Aaron contributed some of the LIRR line by line guides. (contact)

Bob Pickering: Contributed the station-by-station writeups of the Boston MBTA Red, Green, Orange, and Blue lines, as well as numerous photos. Also wrote the description of the Jacksonville people mover and contributed to the Miami and Atlanta pages.

Marc Pitanza: Marc Pitanza is a photographer who was born on Staten Island and is now based in Central Queens. His work has appeared in numerous railroad publications including RAILPACE, The Railroad Press and the B&O historical society publication, The Sentinel. He models The SIRT in n-scale and HO. He contributes mostly to the SIRT page in hopes of promoting interest in the history of this once important B&O branchline. (contact)

Paul Polischuk: Contributed photos of his field trip to Corona Yard, as well as a visit to the Brooklyn Trolley Museum. Also contributed to the Miami rail page. (contact)

Matt Richman: Matt contributed the section about the Roosevelt Island Tramway as well as updates and corrections elsewhere on the site. (contact)

Robbie Rosenfeld: Robbie has contributed a huge number of photos detailing the artwork and other station decoration of NYC subway stations. (contact)

David M. Rosenthal: Contributed the section about the IND World's Fair Railroad, IRT Substation #21, and subway power generation. Also some photos of yards and signal equipment. Currently resides near Atlanta, GA.

Ed Sachs: Ed's primary contributions so far have been photos of the Denver LRV system and a large amount of photos from the 2001 SubTalk field trip to Chicago.

Chris Sattler: Chris has contributed the write-up and some photos for the New Orleans section of the site, in addition to a few other photos, including some current photos of the Broadway El in Brooklyn.

Paul Schlienz: From Kirkland, WA. Our Seattle, WA, correspondent, Paul is a Brooklyn native and former resident of Flushing, Queens. He became a subway fan early in life. Also a former New Orleans, LA, resident, Paul is an aficionado of that city's streetcars. Paul is a proofer for Microsoft's Encarta encyclopedia division. He has written for newspapers and magazines throughout Washington. (contact)

David Shanske: David sent along some photographs of the rarely seen Washington D.C. Capitol Subway.

Chris Slaight: Chris is a Staten Islander who has been contributing new photos of the Staten Island Rapid Transit. (contact)

Dave Steckler: Dave contributed photos to the 2001 Chicago SubTalk field trip and a guide to the St. Louis Metrolink system.

<b constantine Steffan</b>: Stef has contributed many photos, particularly of the Westchester Yard's open house, the New York Days at the Shore Line Trolley Museum, and others. He's also been invaluable in keeping the R142 delivery schedule up to date.

Zach Summer: A Former Staten Islander for 22 years. Zach has contributed many photos of the Southern BMT routes (mostly Brighton and West End). Besides the NYC Subway, Zach's other interests include: Geology (The Study of Natural Disasters), meteorology, and Parapsychology (The Study of the Supernatural), (contact)

Joe Testagrose: Joe has been taking pictures of the subway for many years, and he has contributed many photos from his own collection to the site in various categories, including the bulk of our historical rolling stock photos.

Òscar Ureña: Òscar Ureña is from Olesa de Montserrat, near Barcelona. He is an industrial engineer who works in the railroad world. Very keen on his passion in every way possible, he likes drawing trains, collecting tickets, taking photos, scale modelling (all sizes!). Especially loves metros, thanks to his grandfather (they both used to ride just for pleasure when he was a child). Other interests: cars, cinema, theatre, travelling, etc. (contact)

Jean-Pierre Vergez: Jean-Pierre was born in 1964 and resides in Bayonne, France. His primary occupation is a history and geography teacher at the high school level, but he wrote several books on railways in France, mainly on former companies who merged to form SNCF in 1938, and on former French colonial railroads. He's also written for railroad magazines in France, England, Germany, Spain and Australia. In another life (when he was young) he was a journalist and professional photographer. His most recent photo sale can be seen on the cover of the Thomas Cook overseas railroad timetable, March/April 2006 edition. (contact)

Bob Vogel: Bob, or "Chuchubob" to his friends and SubTalkers, has contributed many photos, particularly of Philadelphia regional rail and the 2001 SubTalk field trip to Chicago.

Adam Weiss: Adam contributed the guide to and photos of the BMT Astoria line. (contact)

Wayne Whitehorne: Wayne is a subway fan, trainspotter, and all-around fan of the Canarsie Line, a page about which he contributed to the line-by-line section of the site, as well as numerous photographs of other stations around the system. Wayne also contributed the entire guide to the Washington D.C. Metro and the many accompanying photographs. (contact)

Bob Wright: Bob contributed the station by station guides to the Philadelphia subway-surface, Norristown/Rt. 100, and Media-Sharon Hill/Rt. 101-102 lines, as well as the guide to the SEPTA Regional Rail system. (contact)

Disclaimer

www.nycsubway.org is not sponsored by, approved by, or affiliated with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, New York City Transit or any other transit agency. None of the pages contained on the www.nycsubway.org site are provided by transit agencies and are not to be considered official, unless specifically indicated. The use of the name www.nycsubway.org is not meant to cause confusion in this regard. The official New York City Transit web page is at http://www.mta.info/.

Contributed items are copyright © their respective creators. No part of this work may be copied or republished in electronic or printed form without prior approval of the respective copyright holder.