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.

Drill motor goes to Kingston

New York City Transit Authority 41, a "drill motor" (known everywhere else as a cab-on-flat locomotive) built by Magor in 1930, has been acquired by the Trolley Museum of New York and has been moved to the TMNY site in Kingston. The photo above is from a Facebook post from the museum (no log-in required).

The history of this unique piece of equipment in recent decades is slightly muddy. It was built for the IND in 1930 and was apparently used in service into the 1970s. Around 1978, I believe, it was acquired by the Trolley Museum of New York but was never moved to the TMNY site in Kingston (I'm not sure TMNY was even in Kingston that early). It remained at Coney Island under the oversight of New York Transit Museum and later, possibly starting around 2008, under the oversight of the Railway Preservation Corporation, which owns several of the cars in the NYCTA historic fleet. The TMNY Facebook post describes this as "an extended loan to the New York Transit Museum... under the care of the Railway Preservation Corporation." But it is now at home in Kingston in the company of a handful of other New York subway cars. Though not operational, the car is (I believe) complete and it appears to be pretty solid. Many thanks to Mark Wolodarsky for sending along this update.

South Brooklyn steeplecab to Branford

Many thanks to Bill Wall for forwarding the above photo and the news that Branford has acquired the locomotive pictured, New York City Transit Authority 7. NYCTA 7 is a fairly standard GE steeplecab, though fitted with a flat roof for low clearance areas. It was built in 1925 for the South Brooklyn Railway and later in life performed maintenance and switching duties for the general subway system. I believe this was the last locomotive on the New York subway system with trolley poles. Anyway, it's complete and in pretty good shape, so it will make a great addition to the Branford collection. The photo shows the locomotive being loaded today, leaving New York City ground (probably) for the last time, and it is due to arrive at Branford tomorrow. Bill mentioned that Branford extends their thanks to the New York Transit Museum for making this long-sought-after locomotive available to the museum.

While locomotive 7 may have been the last steeplecab with trolley poles on the New York subway system, it's not the last steeplecab. The NYCTA/NYTM still has locomotive 6 on their property, built a few years earlier than 7 but virtually identical. And of course there's the very historic NYCTA 5, the last early-style arch-window GE steeplecab in existence, built in 1910 and now part of the NYTM collection.

UPDATE: Bill has sent along some additional photos of locomotive 7 being loaded onto its Silk Road trailer along the iconic Brooklyn waterfront. These are the locomotive's old stomping grounds, just about where the old South Brooklyn Railway 39th Street Yard and its interchange with the Bush Terminal Railroad were located. All photos are copyright Bill Wall - do not copy without permission.

New York subway pump car added to list

Thanks to Bill Wall for sending me information on a car that was not on the PNAERC list until now: New York City Transit Authority 5001. This is the only "pump car" on the list and it was built for use in pumping out flooded subway tunnels. It was constructed by ACF in 1918 on the same order as car 5000 but unlike that car is not motorized, since it was designed to be shoved into flooded portions of the subway. The above photo, sent by Bill, shows the car when relatively new. Bill writes:

Pump cars are specially outfitted cars that are sent into flooded tunnels to pump  water out.   What makes 5001 unique is that it is equipped with a master controller and ME23 brake valve on each end and  was set up to operate with BMT subway cars of the day.   Later on it was modified to operate with R9 cars.  No other pump car had this feature.

The way the pump train would work is, with power on as far as you could get into a flooded area, the pump car would lead into the flood, going in as far it could go.  The siphon would be dropped down, hoses rigged to go the nearest sewer line (since the sewers are above the subway level)  or simply to the street and water pumped out.    When enough water was pumped out, break it down, move and repeat as needed.

The pump car was  attached usually to 3 reach cars, which were old wooden Q type cars, which were loaded with hoses and other gear, as well as providing some seating for work crews.    There was a bus line, located in the  roof area of the pump cars and the reach cars, that would go all the way through the cars.  The times I was on it, the bus line plug on the rear car would be jumped into one of the electrical panels in the car of the R9 pushing it..   On site, this was disconnected and a heavy duty connector put to a 3rd rail, as everything on the car was 600 volts DC

Control from the  pump car back was an interesting conglomeration.    The pump car had electric portions on the H2 couplers it was built with.  The lead reach car had an H2 coupler on the end coupled to the pump car but the other end had  a Van Dorn, as did the middle car and the “blind” end of the 3rd reach car, which in turn had an H2 coupler with an electric portion to couple to the subway cars.    In areas where the Van Dorns were, there were MU jumper cables.   

Now what really made this train odd was while the pump car was equipped with ME23 brake valves and had the electric brake plug feature, it and the reach cars were all straight air. The electric feature only worked on the subway cars attached to it.  When I operated it, I usually did not bother with the electric brake feature as it was not dependable at the time. Straight air was a bit slower but more reliable when you needed it.

So that's pretty interesting! The only recent photo I could find online of car 5001 is here but it is indeed stored at Coney Island with several other non-revenue cars in the historic collection.

Many thanks to Bill for sending me information on this car so that it can be added to the list. Unpowered equipment like this can be a grey area, and in general I tend not to add unpowered non-revenue equipment unless its design is unique to traction practice (like an interurban freight trailer). But car 5001 is a control trailer, set up with a controller and brake stand, and undoubtedly qualifies.

Adding details

I've mentioned this plenty of times before, but I'm always looking to fill in gaps on the PNAERC roster wherever possible. There are a lot of cars on the list for which I'm missing technical information - trucks, motors, control, brakes, air compressors. Some of these are car bodies, and in certain cases that information just doesn't exist. But in many cases, it's simply that this information hasn't been published online.

I'm always appreciative of people taking the time to look up information like this and sending it to me. To that end, many thanks to Bill Wall of Branford and Joel Salomon of Rockhill for filling in a few gaps recently. Bill sent me a cache of information on NYCTA 44 (pictured above in a Dave Pirrmann photo), a unique piece of equipment with virtually no published information available online. By design, it's a box motor, but it was built for service on the New York subway system and has long been used as a subway maintenance work car. It's been in the NYCTA's historic fleet since 1988. The PNAERC list now includes this car's trucks, motors, control, dimensions, and Bill also pointed out that it was built for the BMT and not - as previously and erroneously listed - for the IND.

UPDATE: And Bill has also sent information on NYCTA 5000, another New York subway system work car that resembles a box motor. This one started out as a locomotive and was converted to a welding/tool car right at the end of its service life. In addition to mechanical and dimensional information, Bill also pointed out that it was built not for South Brooklyn Railway but rather for New York Municipal Railway, a subsidiary of Brooklyn Rapid Transit that was folded into BMT in 1923. The car is pictured above in a photo Bill took a few weeks ago when he and a few others boarded it up, in the process evicting the pigeons that had taken up residence inside 5000. Bill comments about the pigeon eviction, "There were over one hundred living inside it and were not happy at all about it. In some ways, it was like the Hitchcock movie 'The Birds'."

Meanwhile Joel sent me some information on a couple of pieces of ex-Philadelphia & Western non-revenue equipment at the Rockhill Trolley Museum, snow plow 10 and freight motor 402. Both complete and operational, car 10 is a 1916 Wason double-truck plow retired in 1988 while car 402 was built in 1920 in the shops of the Detroit United system and is one of only two surviving ex-DUR cars. Previously missing information like motors, brakes, and air compressors have now been added to these cars' listings.

You too can help! If you notice that your local museum includes cars with missing information, jot it down and send it in. Thank you!

Another New York subway car runs

It has come to my attention that yet another subway car in the extensive historic collection of the New York City Transit Authority, R-10 subway car 3184, was just recently made operational after a couple of decades out of service. Video:

This is one of two R-10 cars still in existence and is technically owned (as far as I can tell) by Railway Preservation Corporation but is kept at Coney Island Shops along with the rest of the preserved fleet of subway cars, some owned by NYCTA and some owned by RPC. The car was built by ACF in 1948; unfortunately I don't know when it was retired (the majority of the fleet seems to have been retired in 1989 so that's a best guess), nor when exactly RPC purchased it.