MTA retiring historic R-42 subway cars after more than half-century in service
Straphangers, say goodbye to these historic Mayor John Lindsay-era subway cars.
The MTA will run the half-century-old R-42 subway cars on the A line for the last time Wednesday before what is left of the gray, bench seat fleet is taken out of service.
“So long, and thanks for all the trips,” the transit agency said in a statement this week announcing the final run of the R-42.
The R-42s were first rolled out in the transit system in 1969, and eventually made up 400 cars in the MTA’s fleet during its heyday.
They are only one of two post-war trains to reach the 50-year service mark, according to the MTA.
The R-32 is the other post-war train and stills runs on the A and C line.
The steel-bodied, more than 70,000-pound, 44-seat capacity R-42 cars — which made up the first fleet of cars to be entirely equipped with air conditioning units — were first used on the BMT Broadway line, which is now the N line.
But air conditioning isn’t the fleet’s only claim to fame. The R-42 subway car was featured in the famed car-versus-subway chase scene in the 1971 action thriller “The French Connection.”
A majority of the R-42s were retired between 2006 and 2009 and about 50 cars remained in service on the J and Z line.
Some of those retired cars were deployed to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean as part of an artificial reef program.
The R-160 fleet has replaced most of the R-42s.
On Wednesday, the R-42 train will make its final run and leave Euclid Avenue at 10:30 a.m. and go to Far Rockaway, making all A stops along the way, leave Far Rockaway at 11:30 a.m. and go to 207th Street, making all A stops, and then leave 207th Street at 1:30 p.m. to go back to Euclid Avenue, making all A stops.
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