As a (former) regular rider of the NYC subway, the thing that strikes me the most is just how short the platforms all are! Anyone who's ever had to turn an MVP

As a (former) regular rider of the NYC subway, the thing that strikes me the most is just how short the platforms all are! Anyone who's ever had to turn an MVP into something that can serve millions of requests will appreciate some of the history of the MTA. At almost every station along the old IRT lines, you can pick out the boundaries of the "old" stations and where the platforms were later extended. As the article mentions, this was also the reason for the closing of some of the stations. For example the 91st St. station was closed because 96th St. was extended exclusively to the south, adding a new entrance between 92nd and 93rd St. (not much sense in having two station entrances one block apart). Another related fun bit of trivia... If you've ever wondered why some NYC subway lines have numbers and some have letters, the numbers are the old IRT lines while the letters are the old BMT/IND lines. Both sets of lines use the same gauge (width of the actual rails), but the BMT/IND lines had wider cars. Since the stations had to be built to the width of the cars and not the gauge of the track, even today you can't run the letters on the numbers or vice versa.