Back in 1980 I worked briefly as a doorman in a building at 88th street and Park Avenue. Every afternoon you could hear the parade of FL9 hauled trains as they raced north through the tunnels that ran under the avenue. There are airshafts in the center median of the roadway at each cross street and you could see and smell the diesel exhaust as the engine passed under one. The sound of those 567s in run 8, in that urban canyon of concrete was something to hear.
They were supposed to shut the diesels down and operate on third rail power, but restarting the units was such a crapshoot, owing to their age and condition, that they would violate NYC ordinances and railroad rules and run through to GCT under diesel power.
My dad was a clerk on the LIRR and held down a job in the Ticket Receiver's office in Penn Station for a while. They would periodically bring FL9s in there too. Since the pick up shoes were designed for the ex-NYC under-running third-rail, they couldn't be used with the LIRR over-running third rail, so the only way they could and did operate into Penn was on diesel. The tracks they used in Penn put them directly under the office where Pop worked. He said until they would cut them off and move them to the open cut past the Farley Post Office, the office was like a gas chamber.
They were also supposed to shut down the steam generators on the GG1s between the Queens portals of the East River tunnels and the Jersey end of the North River tubes, but I stood next to many a G with its steam generator spewing heating oil exhaust in the station.
You can see one of the airshafts in this Google Street View, located under the grate in the foreground, and the building I worked in, 1085 Park Ave, in the background.
