New York City's subway transports more than 1 billion passengers along 660 miles of track each year. Still, most of us know very little about the hundreds of blue-shirted men and women responsible for getting us to and from our destinations safely and efficiently every day.

So what's it like to work the rails of one the largest underground transit systems in the world?

We came across this revealing thread on Reddit created by a first-year MTA subway conductor anonymously answers some of our most burning questions about NYC's underground railway and the people who operate it. Here are 14 of the juiciest and gruesome things we didn't know about running a New York City subway train.

[Note: We have reached out to the MTA to fact check these comments. Until we hear back, please take them with a grain of salt.]

This post was originally published by Dina Spector at Business Insider on October 20, 2011 at 9:09 AM. It has been republished with permission.

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