So me, a Masshole, made a railfan/Christmas overnight trip to NYC Thurs-Fri. I took Amtrak to Penn, the LIRR to Trainland, and saw several the toytrain/model railroad displays. I took the subway quite a bit during my brief trip and I noticed that the subway cars tended to be quite clean. Up here in Boston, the subways are often littered with coffee cups, newspapers, etc from our wonderful riding public. Is this common on the NYC subway or did I experience an exception.
The MTA does a surprisingly good job of keeping car interiors clean, at least during rush hours. If you ever ride a train to a terminus on a weekday, you will see up to a half dozen MTA employees sweeping and/or mopping the interior of each train that pulls in, time permitting. On the 7 line at times square there are usually 2-3 cleaners who will zip in and out to sweep and collect debris except during the peak of rush hour. On the 4 and 5 lines at their Bronx terminuses there seem to be a lot of cleaners on the job weekdays, they mop out each train that pulls in. I dont know whether this is an everday occurance or how long it has been going on but i have been pleasantly surprised to see so much manpower at work keeping the trains clean.
It has occurred to me that they may be a site for people sentenced to community service, given the amount of cleaners on duty at one time but I have no other indications of this, I'm sure someone else on the boards might know.