A startling article in The Gothamist reports that the electrical equipment in New York City's subways is so old it frequently explodes.
As journalists Stephen Nessen and Ramsey Khalifeh relate, subway trips in America's largest city are powered by "a ramshackle electrical room maintained by an MTA manager who uses unorthodox tricks of the trade to keep its antiquated technology running." When decades-old equipment breaks or wears out, the agency searches for replacements on eBay or at online auctions. A rotary phone and a broomstick-sized stick are the favored means of getting work done in a system that can sometimes literally seem like a "blast from the past" -- yes, according to the writers, on Dec. 11, a Brooklyn substation exploded, halting service and trapping thousands of riders for hours.
How to remedy things? A proposed $65 billion five-year capital plan is up for debate in the state legislature -- but faces opposition from those who don't want higher taxes.
There's more at The Gothamist - https://gothamist.com/news/the-nyc-subways-electrical-equipment-is-so-old-it-frequently-explodes