I was always sure to photograph the interior or exterior of a M-1 or M-3 Long Island Rail Road car whenever one pulled into the station where I was waiting. M-1s, introduced in the early 1970s, were retired long ago but their near-lookalikes, the M-3s, which arrived around 1980, ran until just recently; though supposedly all replaced by new M-9s by 2020, there were mechanical problems with the new cars, so the old reliables were trundled out for one last run, though not on my branch, the Port Washington, as far as I could tell.
I got this shot en route to a night shift job in the spring of 2018. This is typical of the M-3, with its blue and red upholstered seats arranged in sets of two and three opposite each other. If I was getting on at the first stop, I made sure to get the window in one of the three-seaters, since if the train got crowded, the last seat anyone wanted was the middle seat in a set of three. In fact even on crowded cars a lot of those seats went untenanted. Thus, I could be assured of some space next to me I’d say a good 6 or 7 times out of ten.
When I took the LIRR to my job in Port Washington from 1992-1999 and again from 2006-2011, I could often be found walking through the cars at the first stop in Port on the way home. Why? People often left their New York Posts and Daily Newses in the seats from the prior run, and I collected a free newspaper more often than not.
The decor was faux wood paneling on the vestibules. The exterior of the cars closely resembled the subway cars that were being produced at the time, the R42 through R-68. When the door opened, a shrill whistle was heard, in contrast to the ‘bing bong’ on the newer M-7 and M-9s. The seats were roomier and the windows a bit larger. One issue the older cars had that hasn’t been solved in the newer cars is that the glass used in the windows tends to cataract or cloud over the more the sun shines on them; this is an issue that subway cars that spend a lot of time outdoors on els don’t have. In some cars the windows are so opaque you need to depend on recorded station announcements, introduced in the M-7 and M-9 (I’m not sure who does them, that you, Charlie Pellet? Bernie Wagenblast?) to know where you are!
More observations: M-3s featured a band of yellow, continued in the M-7, that made them distinctive; the feature has vanished in the M-9. After awhile, the sinks in the M-3 restrooms vanished; if you needed to use the restrooms, you washed your hands when you got home. Adjacent to the restrooms there was the heady aroma of all varieties of human waste mixed with disinfectant.
I don’t know why the M-5 was skipped; I imagine it was an M-7 prototype that didn’t make it to the tracks. (I don’t know what the M stands for.) If you’re wondering where the even numbers are, Metro North car makes are numbered evenly.
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12/19/24