My Life Underground

I live in New York. For roughly two years, I’ve always taken the 7 train to my school, a roughly thirty-minute commute. I’ve never put much thought into my mind how intricate and complex something so minor in my life, such as a train ride can be.  The New York Subway System has twenty-three different train routes and more than six hundred fifty-five mainline track miles. Without switching trains, the A train travels thirty-one miles to one of the stops along the route.  What makes the New York Subway System especially unique though, is how many people have to work in order to keep functional. There’s first the people who conduct the trains, of course, then those who power all the machines, including the trains, those who supervise the safety of subways and tunnels, and then the engineers who keep the trains in proper shape. That’s only at surface level though. The MTA Staff ranges from an elevator manager to a cabinet maker. I’m sure there are hundreds of things that I didn’t even touch on, but it’s amazing what you can find when you look into the most smallest of things a little more deeper.

Even the smallest things are made by complex networks of factors.