I rode the MTA Holiday Special as I usually do on one of the December Sundays. As usual, I got in the oldest car in the trainset, Car #100, which originally ran on the Independent Subway beginning in 1933. I wanted to experience the wicker seats, overhead fans, bare bulbs lighting the train, and the general feeling of actual railroading associated with the old cars. New subway cars, including the fancy R211 on which a prototype is on display at the #7 Hudson Yards station, all look like rolling dentists’s offices to me with their plastic, light blue and chrome.
I noticed something going on with the rollsign. One had “2nd Ave-96th Street” which happened to be the destination of the train which was traveling on 6th Avenue, 59th Street and 2nd Avenue, the routes of the F/M and Q trains. I imagined they had gotten a rollsign from the old 2nd Avenue El (which stopped running in 1942) and stuck it here. Later, I read that the MTA sprang a few bucks and had “new” rollsigns made up. If that’s what happened, kudos, since the lettering looks just like it did in the 1930s.
They should have made a “2nd Ave-Houston” sign, not “Houston-Lafayette” since the train actually started at the F train’s 2nd Avenue station.
Check out the ForgottenBook, take a look at the gift shop, and as always, “comment…as you see fit.”
12/18/17