That's a Lot of Subway Cars

I received an email last week from Edrick Ang, who pointed out that there were a number of subway cars preserved on the New York City subway system that are not on the PNAERC list. This isn't a shock; for a while I've been meaning to comb through the vast nycsubway.org site and try to identify cars that have entered preservation in the last several years that were never added to my roster. Fortunately, Edrick was ahead of me on this and sent along a list. As such, I've now added a net total of 10 subway cars to the list - not quite as many cars as have been removed recently, but still quite a few.

First, NYCTA 3360 and 3361 comprise a R32-type stainless steel married pair built by Budd in 1964 (2022 photo above from here). These cars were part of the last hurrah at the retirement of this type about two years ago, and at that time this pair was backdated to more-or-less original appearance, as you can see. This included the clever device of affixing vinyl stickers over the end door to replicate the original roll signs these cars had when new, which are long gone. This pair is now considered part of the NYCTA historic fleet.

Next up are NYCTA 4280 and 4281, which comprise a married pair of "slant" R40-type cars built by St. Louis Car Company in 1968 (2015 photo above from here). These things are pretty homely, but they're certainly distinctive and I believe they're the last of this type. They were taken out of service in 2009.

Then there's a mismatched pair: NYCTA 4460, which is a straight-end R40A (also known as an R40M) built by St. Louis in 1969, is paired with car 4665, a very similar-looking R42 built very shortly thereafter, likely the same year. Both of these cars had their original mates damaged or destroyed in the Williamsburg Bridge wreck of 1995, so following that they were mated with each other. Car 4665 is shown above in a 2021 photo from here, complete with its as-delivered blue stripe restored to the car end.

The last "modern" car is NYCTA 5240, an R44-type cab car built by St. Louis in 1972. These R40's were delivered in four-car sets with two blind motors and two single-end motors, so this is the car from one end of one of those sets. A number of R44's are still in service on Staten Island, but this is one of the ones that was used on the main subway network and it was retired and put in the New York Transit Museum around 2013. The R44 order is a bit notorious in that it was the last production order built by St. Louis Car; there were so many issues with these cars that SLCC, which by 1972 relied almost exclusively on New York subway car orders to stay in business, went under soon after the order was completed.

There are also three R33-WF "World's Fair" cars built by St. Louis Car Company in 1963 for the IRT division of the subway system. A lot of these cars seem to have just sort of hung around after the "Redbird" fleet was retired back in 2003, and as far as I can tell, 9308 was one of those that was just "around" for a while. Then, in 2019, it was painted in as-delivered colors as shown above (photo from here) and it's now quite obviously a part of the historic fleet.

The second R33-WF is identical car 9310, shown above in a 2018 photo from here. This is another R33 that seems to have just kind of hung around, but it has stayed in its end-of-service "Redbird" colors, albeit with its number plates moved down to their original height for whatever reason.

The final R33-WF is 9343, shown here in a photo from here taken in 2011. I can't find any recent photos of this car, but supposedly it is indeed still around and is stored with the historic fleet at 207th Street Yard. 

And that brings us to surely the weirdest addition: the Money Train car. Yes, you read that right. When Columbia Pictures was filming the movie Money Train in 1995, they purchased a retired R21 subway car and heavily modified it to represent some sort of revenue collection car (I'm not sure - I've never seen the movie). After filming ended, they donated the thing - fancifully numbered 51050 for the movie - to the New York Transit Museum. In recent years, it has been sitting in dead storage at Coney Island Yard. The above 2014 photo is from here; it looks like the car retains its electrical equipment but I'm not sure. I'm a bit dubious about exactly how historic this thing is, but I can see the argument that it qualifies for the list. Although it's been modified, it's been modified as another (albeit made-up) type of subway car, not as a diner or a house.

Now, with all those additions, there's also one removal: NYCTA 9075, an R33-ML (Main Line) car built by St. Louis in 1963 as part of a married-pair set. This car sat on the front lawn of Queens Borough Hall from 2005 until 2022, but as described here, it was then auctioned off. When it was removed (the striking photo above was taken by Bill Wall), it was carted off to places unknown. Wesley Paulson has now supplied the answer: the car found a buyer looking to place it in their garden, and while it awaits shipment to this person, it's been in storage. Regardless, it sounds like it may qualify for my non-preserved list (if I end up figuring out where it ends up) but not for PNAERC. So, I've removed it.

With all these changes, I now have a total of 38 cars listed under the New York Transit Museum, 24 cars listed under NYCTA ownership, and 16 listed under Railway Preservation Corporation but effectively overseen by NYCTA. That comes to 78 cars preserved on the New York City subway system! That's more than all but the three largest museums - only Seashore, IRM, and Branford have more cars on the PNAERC list.

Northeastern Updates

There are a few updates to the PNAERC data out of museums (and non-museums) in the northeast. First, NYCTA 9075, an R-33ML subway car from New York, was moved over the weekend from its home of 17 years on a plinth in front of Queens Borough Hall. Many thanks to Bill Wall for the striking photo above. Unfortunately, I'm not sure where the car has gone, though online rumors suggest somewhere in New Jersey (which doesn't narrow it down much!). At the time the car was sold, it was said to have been purchased by an art dealer, so make of that what you will. Any updates are appreciated!

Second, there's another update to the ongoing saga of the deaccessed Warehouse Point cars. Halton County Radial Railway has come to an agreement to acquire Canadian National 6714, a boxcab locomotive from the Montreal suburban electrification. The locomotive was built in Toronto (it was news to me that this series of six locomotives were built in three different locations!) so has some local significance in addition to its technological significance. That means that, of the six cars deaccessed by CTM, three have been scrapped and two sold with just one still available: LIRR 4153. Any takers?

And finally, Branford's restoration shop has posted on its Facebook page that the wheel sets and motors have been pulled from underneath their diminutive four-wheel GE locomotive "Amy." Surely one of the more obscure pieces of equipment at the museum, this 1902 industrial boxcab gains a bit of prominence on the PNAERC list because the top line in the alphabetical "Now or Formerly Owned By" search box on the homepage is always Abendroth Foundry, the locomotive's owner. It's been out of service for years but that looks like it will be changing in the near future. The locomotive's condition has been changed to "undergoing restoration."

New York subway car being auctioned off

Now is your chance to have your very own New York subway car. NYCTA 9075, an R33-ML type car built in 1963, is being auctioned off by the Borough of Queens according to this article (and a few others). The article says that this is the last car of its kind, but that's manifestly not true, as there are at least ten other R33 cars in preservation and likely more knocking around the subway system. Car 9075's record has been updated to reflect that it's for sale, and with luck I'll find out who buys it and where it ends up going, even if it's into a scrap dumpster.

Some real money was put into plinthing this car back in 2005, including a substantial concrete pad, but it was probably inevitable that its owners would tire of maintaining it. I was surprised to see, in one of the photos, that at least part of the car's interior looks completely original (well, end-of-service original). I had thought it was being used as some sort of visitor's center, but perhaps it was just an exhibit piece. But electric cars put to uses like this usually have a finite shelf life (example). I'm surprised the relatively nearby MPB-54 chamber of commerce is still in use.

As an aside, if you're wondering why these cars are on the PNAERC list when cars on the ground (i.e. diners, private homes, and other "chicken coops") aren't, the reason is trucks. If a car is complete enough to retain its trucks and underbody, then I'll typically consider it sufficiently intact to be considered "preserved" even if it's in non-railroad use.