Railroaded

Fred S. Naiden

ISBN 10: 1978844093 / ISBN 13: 9781978844094

Published by Rutgers University Press, US, 2026

The New York City subway system is one of the largest and oldest in the world, still carrying traces of the transport systems that came before it. Some of its elevated tracks are remnants of steam railroads, and some tunnels run where canoes served as ferries. For passengers, riding the subway can feel like stepping into another world, dark and dank and sometimes dangerous. Now just imagine what it's like to work there every day.One of the few subway workers who went on to earn a PhD from Harvard, historian Fred Naiden gives readers a firsthand look at what it was like to work as a subway porter, a motorman, and a locomotive engineer during the 1980s. He recounts the labor activism of his fellow MTA employees, who advocated for better conditions, higher pay, and less institutional racism. He also shares wild stories about the riders he encountered, from a homeless former realtor who worked as a mob frontman to an angry passenger who pulled a gun on him while the train was stuck at a stop signal. Above all, Railroaded will answer many questions about the New York subway system, including how it could be improved. Seller Inventory # LU-9781978844094

Synopsis:

The New York City subway system stretches over 800 miles and carries billions of riders every day. ​ While many have written about this legendary public transit system, a century of published books​ says little about the subway as a workplace. Older books describe railroad lines and equipment ​and new​er ones transit unions and building projects. None of this subway literature, however, portrays the motormen operating the trains and the porters cleaning over 400 stations. Railroaded describes these jobs, which ​the author, Fred Naiden, an award-winning Harvard-trained historian, held in the ​1980s before beginning a successful second career in academia. ​His academic training enabled him to make comparisons between transit work today and in the past, beginning with horsecars and elevated trains. ​ Naiden's colorful and at times dangerous tenure as a subway station cleaner, a motorman, and a locomotive engineer—including ​h​is work as a ​union shop steward—all serve as a backdrop to his deep involvement in the NYC labor movement, including his life in a tenement in what was then a blue-collar neighborhood​. Railroaded will appeal to both urban historians and to a ​g​eneral public​ interested in the fate of one of the biggest pieces of declining infrastructure in the United States. It will also appeal to labor historians and to readers of memoirs by American workers. This is the story of ​N​aiden's ​t​enure as NYCTA employee #4046.

About the Author: Fred S. Naiden is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of Soldier, Priest, and God: A Life of Alexander the Great (Oxford, 2018). He is formerly employee #4046, New York City Transit Authority.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Railroaded
Publisher: Rutgers University Press, US
Publication Date: 2026
Binding: Hardback
Condition: New