“Blending memoir with institutional history, this fast-paced, edifying account elicits fresh appreciation for the workers who keep New York City moving. It’s a ride worth taking.”
—Publishers Weekly

The New York City subway system stretches over eight hundred miles and carries billons of riders. Much has been written about this legendary public transit system, but a century of published books say little about the subway as a workplace. Many describe railroad lines and equipment and building projects, but none portray the motormen operating the trains and the porters cleaning over four hundred stations. Railroaded describes these jobs, which the author held in the 1980s before beginning a successful second career as a historian.

Working the tunnels under 1980s New York City entailed braving dirt, noise, vermin, and certain dangers endemic to working on the tracks. Fred S. Naiden had long been a rider, but upon becoming a motorman he learned ways of getting killed that (most) riders are unaware of. Within weeks of starting his subway work, Naiden was taught to drive trains carrying a thousand people up to 55 miles an hour through the worst conditions in subway history. A friendly fellow rookie, Fred recalls, even nearly killed him on the tracks, only to die weeks later himself, struck by a train as he walked around a blind curve.

Naiden’s colorful and at times dangerous tenure as a subway station cleaner, a motorman, and a locomotive engineer—including his work as a union shop steward—all serve as a backdrop to his deep involvement in the NYC labor movement and his life in a tenement in what was then a blue-collar neighborhood. Railroaded will appeal to all interested in the fate of one of the biggest pieces of declining infrastructure in the United States.

This is the story of NYCTA employee #4046.