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What does it sound like when you give every train in New York City an instrument?

WBUR | By Here & Now Newsroom

Published May 25, 2026 at 8:53 AM PDT

A subway train pulls into a station in New York, Monday, Feb. 21, 2022. (Seth Wenig/AP)

The B line on the New York City subway is a tenor saxophone. The A is a jazz trombone. And the No. 3 train is an upright bass.

Joshua Wolk is a designer and engineer who assigned different instruments to every train in New York City, creating a small jazz combo that plays on an interactive website.

Here & Now‘s Indira Lakshmanan speaks with Wolk about what inspired him to do this.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

What does it sound like when you give every train in New York City an instrument?

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