Shiny and safe, the goal of New York itself.

Three decades ago, both the city and the subway shared the bad reputation: dirty, unsafe and no place to be.

New York cleaned up its image partly by cleaning up the subway.

At the Coney Island Yard, they do more than keep the trains running, they keep the Big Apple polished.

No job too small, no job too big, lifetime guarantee, how can you beat it? Send us these troubles.

On the subway, keeping car safe is only half the equation.

The system has more than 2600 switches to move trains from one track to another and more than 11,000 signals to control train traffic.

The equipment is older than most New Yorkers.

Much of it was installed before 1940. All together, more than 13,000 chances for something to go fatally wrong. New York can't take that chance.

To sidetrack catastrophe, maintenance workers go looking for trouble every day.

To find it, the crew themselves must venture into harms way.