Title card photo by Peter Dougherty, whose Tracks of the NYC Subway’s new edition is available.
THIS weekend is particularly busy with holiday stuff and freelance work, so I’ll do a short piece on the MTA’s holiday train, my first foray in quite awhile. The pandemic ceased the runs for a couple of years. Who knows if the annual Panorama Challenge at the Queens Museum (my team won the first year) or Transit Trivia at the Transit Museum (my team won first prize once and generally is in the money) will ever return.
The Holiday run features a trainset including R1 cars, first used on the original IND line, the 8th Avenue, in 1932, and R9 cars built in 1940 (train buffs call them “Arnines”). The “R” nomenclature, now used for all NYC subway cars, was first developed for the IND, with the “R” standing for Revenue. In 2023, the route was between 2nd Avenue and 145th Street. Today, no line has those two stops in common, but they are most often used by the IND B, D, F and M trains and the cars are holding true to their original IND trackages.
The R1s and R9s generally have the same proportions and seat arrangements; I won’t get into specifics, since I find all that boring and I suspect everyone else but the hardcore “foamers” do, too. Though all began with rattan wicker seating, some were later fitted with red vinyl (in later years, all gained plastic seating due to vandalism; the cars were lit with bare incandescent bulbs, that later had plastic covers; “straps” were white porcelain (as were vertical handholding bars); and overhead fans (with some futility) attempted to keep the cars cool in summer.
Unlike Chicago’s holiday trains, the MTA’s holiday cars are not totally festooned and bedecked with neon Christmas decorations, but there are some modest wreathing and holiday-themed stickers on the windows. This year, the MTA has limited the runs to the five Saturdays in December, and in the first week already had to end things early because of vandalism. There are people whose only enjoyment in the world comes from disruption and destruction; ask them why and blank stares will be your answer.
In 2023, December had little to no cold temperatures or snow…in what is becoming a regular occurrence… so the Holiday Train helps kindle whatever Christmas spirit remains for me after 66-plus years and counting.
One of the cars from 1940. At this point the construction was getting a bit more streamlined, but the seats still had exposed bolts and rattan seats.
I gravitated to the R-1s, with their exposed bolts on the walls, ceiling fans (in use during a warm December), exposed incandescent bulbs and porcelain handholds. I am unsure when the red cushions were first used, likely after the rattan seating became, well, ratty. The local youth made quick work of the red cushions by applying shivs; in newer cars the Transit Authority (today’s MTA) gave up and instituted plastic seats.
I chose to sit in the classic IND R-1 cars complete with original wicker seating, olive paint scheme etc. Believe it or not cars very similar to this were running on the Canarsie Line (L trains) as late as 1977. [In Comments, please indicate which cars those were] In more recent times, the Williamsburg-Jamaica el (J train) was the “museum line” with R32s and 42s, built in the 1960s, well past their retirements on other lines. Today Staten Island Railway runs rehabbed R-44s that are due to be gradually replaced the next few years.
Closeup of the porcelain handholds and exposed incandescent bulb. According to legend they are threaded in reverse so stealing them leaves you with a useless lightbulb.
Amelia Opdyke Jones was a cartoonist who drew a slew of subway posters that gently and humorously called attention to the shortcomings of subway riders in the manners department. The posters were given a faux newspaper masthead called The Subway Sun.
The Sun was introduced originally to warm riders to a fare increase, but the signs evolved to tout technological improvements, highlight travel destinations: ”You too can reach the beach by subway!”-and most memorably, to promote straphanger etiquette. The most famous campaign used Monopoly-like cartoon characters, the women often modeled after Oppy herself, to push good manners on a captive audience. Some considered it propaganda, but at least it was entertaining, and it gave the impression that management was paying attention. ABC News
What Oppy would think about today’s subway etiquette is ripe for speculation.
A look down the corridor of an R-1. Manufacturing subway cars that looked like this in 2023 would likely be prohibitively expensive.
That’s all for me for another year, but the “Holiday Train” will be running again Saturday December 23rd and 30th, 2023.
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12/17/23