“Luxury condominiums for fish”

Reporting from Slaughter Beach, Delaware, Ian Urbina has an article in today’s New York Times about the offshoring of the MTA’s Redbird trains to create artificial reefs, a combination of the subway and the natural world that I find fascinating.

In the last several years, the reefs have drawn swift open-ocean fish, like tuna and mackerel, that use the reefs as hunting grounds for smaller prey. Sea bass like to live inside the cars, while large flounder lie in the silt that settles on top of the cars, said Mr. Tinsman, the Delaware official.

According to the article, though, there have been problems with
overcrowding.

The New Jersey Scuba Diver website has an in-depth look at the artificial reef program, with diagrams, video, and amazing photos of the cars being dumped from a barge on to the Shark River Reef.

And from YouTube, here’s a short video of the last Redbird to be in service:

I guess it just brings out the “foamer” in me, or, as Wikipedia gently corrects me when I search for the term, the “railfan.”