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This website has been archived from TrainWeb.org/subway to TrainWeb.US/subway.


About This Site

I started this site out of a desire to organize my train links. Thats all I really wanted, just a links page. I have so many sites I like to visit, but some were in my favorites at work, some at home, and no real order to them. It has since grown into what you see here.

I'm always interested in hearing others thoughts and ideas, so if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to send me an e-mail. If you have a link you would like to add, please e-mail it to me, or on the chance I have included your site and you wish me to remove it contact me as well.

My goal is to bring an organized place for subway and modeling fans to come as a jumping off point. A place for everything, and everything in its place. It has become a bit of a hobby in and of itself, but a very enjoyable one at that. Thanks for visiting.

About Us

I was born in New York City in 1975. I started riding the subways with my parents when I was just 2 weeks old. When I was 1, we moved to 218th St in Manhattan just a couple blocks from the 215th St station on the #1 Broadway line. I rode to work with my parents on the subway to 50th St everyday until I started school. This was the mid-seventies, so I was even used to the graffiti. Some of the most memorable cars for me were the R-15's because they had the unusual 4 circle windows on the doors. I've had a passion for them ever since. I've always dreamed of having model subways, but they just werent available.

When I got older, we moved to Yonkers, just over the Bronx border and I would ride the subways whenever I got a chance. I used to ride out to Yankee Stadium for games by myself, and even out to Shea a couple times. When I graduated college, I got a job on 49th and Broadway and I was back to commuting on the 1 to 50th St. everyday just as I had done as a kid. When I got married, (to my high school sweetheart) I moved to White Plains and then Ossining where I switched to Metro North. I have since switched jobs and work as an editor for A&E and The History Channel in CT, so I now drive to work.

I always thought I was a nut for loving the subways so much - even a self-admitted freak before I learned that I wasn't the only one. Through the various forums, and many other sites on the Internet I have met many great people who are into the subways as much as me. Getting more involved in subway modeling has given me the chance to personally meet some of the great pioneers in subway modeling like Nate Gerstein, Vern Gillman and Steve Olsen. These guys were building subways from scratch when nothing was commercially available. I have also had the chance to talk with many other great modelers which I hope to meet someday as well. Since there were no commercially available subway models for so many years, subway fans have been kept in the dark - and many gave up on trains and moved onto other things as I had done for many years. The came that wonderful day back in 1999, when I walked in the Transit Museum annex in Grand Central Terminal and there they were: O gauge R-42 subways cars! I never heard of this company, but wrote down Mikes Train House on a piece of paper, and started researching. The rest I guess you could say is history as here we are many years later and we have dozens of great subway models!

For so many of us in this area, subways are the only trains we know. We've only ever seen a steam engine in old movies, and diesels in pictures, or some of us have enjoyed them on the Metro North and Amtrak lines, but for the most part our everyday trains are subways. I also have traveled around and been on other subway systems and they just don't seem to have the same character as the New York subways. The rolling stock is what is really unique, and New York has had such a wide variety of looks and colors over the years. Even one type of car in the NY system could have worn four or five different paint schemes during its life and that to me is very intriguing.

Questions or comments please contact me at cshaffer18 @ yahoo.com (remove spaces)

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