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The Conquestor boys, in N train hats, started posting videos of the train doors opening and closing rapidly, like some ghost had taken hold of the system. They would break into trains' vacant conductor cabs, and during service they "conquested" the lights, turned off the AC, and made announcements over the PA. With their newly found brake handle, they could now stop and start trains. The subway's signal system stopped them from running trains haphazardly up and down the tunnels, but nothing could stop them from putting pieces of metal on the third rail so that a train would trip it, sometimes halting service for hours.That's when DJ Hammers and the railfan community went on the defensive.Related: Death of the American Hobo"The worry was that the distinctions between our group and their group would get lost," he said.The two groups share some obvious similarities. They are both keen observers of the riding stock. The Conquestors also refer to the trains by the make of the car (R42, R160A). They are both working every day to satisfy their fascination, to peel away the mystery of the train system. But the railfan community grew anxious that it was going to be demonized—that their members would be filming the trains, and an MTA worker might assume that they were trying to figure out how to break in, or how to adjust the brakes. Some feared that the MTA would ban photography altogether. The community looked to the member with the widest reach on YouTube: DJ Hammers.
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