The Shore Line Trolley Museum in East Haven is holding a dedication ceremony for the 9/11 PATH Subway Car 745 exhibit this Sunday on the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
“This car is like unbelievable,” museum president Wayne Sandford said, while taking NBC Connecticut inside the subway car.
While posters, advertisements and signs have been replicated, stepping inside the train car takes you back to that Tuesday morning in September 2011.
“This is a living part of history, this is a witness,” Sandford said. “If you were on this car when it was stopped where we found it, and you looked out the windows that is exactly the sign you would have seen outside the window, it was in the world trade center path station”
Like many Americans, Sandford vividly remembers where he was on 9/11.
“Fifteen years ago, I was the fire chief in East Haven and I sent 17 firefighters to New York City on that Tuesday afternoon,” he said.
This 21st century relic recovered from the rubble beneath the South Tower remarkably stayed intact.
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“If you go to the 9/11 museum in New York City you see a lot of twisted steel,” Sandford said.
All the passengers and PATH employees made it out alive. Now, this subway car that dropped off passengers under the World Trade Center, but never made it back to its home station in New Jersey, will be on display for the public in East Haven.
“Instead of taking people to and from work," Sandford said. "It gives people an opportunity for a place for healing and that’s what we hope this is."
And it is a place for thousands of school children to visit each your to make sure this country never forgets.
“9/11 is our Pearl Harbor in our generation,” Sandford said. “We just hope and pray the next generation doesn’t haven one.”
A children’s book called Poppy’s Purpose has been written about this train car’s story to teach younger generations about the 9/11 attacks. The author Marie Betts Bartlett will be at the noon dedication ceremony on Sunday.
