Remember When?

[Q Broadway Express]

Remember when the ran to 168th Street in Jamaica and to Coney Island in Brooklyn?

[trainfan22]

Remember when the subway system was 100% SMEE? (In the 90s). My favorite time period of the subway that I was alive to experience. The debut of the 142s was pretty cool though. Always remember whenever I went to the BX Zoo back then I hoped to catch a glimpse of the new 142 cars at E180th street yard at the time.

[Q Broadway Express]

The (Then the (QJ)) was an excellent railfan ride in those days being elevated on both ends.

Remember when the was a Sixth Avenue express?

[T to Dyre Avenue]

Unfortunately, the  got cut back to Broad Street in 1973 and Queens Blvd four years later, (and the year before I was born) then 121st Street soon after that, so I never got to experience it. Hell, I never even got to ride the special  trains to Prospect Park or 36th Street. I’m sure it was an excellent railfan ride with all that outdoor running, though I imagine it must have been hell on the crews since it was a very long run from Jamaica to Coney Island with a ton of closely-spaced stations.

I do remember when the  was a 6th Avenue express. Not fondly.

[junjun441]

As a kid, I remember when the  had R62A’s. I never had a chance to ride on express because I needed the  to go to Brooklyn.

I also miss the  train.

[Deucey]

I remember when  ran on the Concourse.

When did that end - '98?

[NoHacksJustKhaks]

2 minutes ago, Deucey said:

I remember when  ran on the Concourse.

When did that end - '98?

Yes, on March 1st to be precise.

[MysteriousBtrain]

49 minutes ago, Deucey said:

I remember when  ran on the Concourse.

When did that end - '98?

 

48 minutes ago, NoHacksJustKhaks said:

Yes, on March 1st to be precise.

And 3 days afterwards I was born. Good times.

[junjun441]

23 hours ago, Deucey said:

I remember when  ran on the Concourse.

When did that end - '98?

Yep and at the same time the  terminated on 168th street. I remember seeing the R40 slanted trains waiting.

[T to Dyre Avenue]

It was also around the same time (1998) R68As took over on the , bumping the R40s onto the . The slants also started to make more frequent appearances on the  and still occasionally showed up on the  on weekends. That continued into mid-2001, when the  replaced the  in Brooklyn. 

[Riderrep]

Also the C had the longest route in the system back then going from Bedford Park Blvd to Rock Park

[Cabanamaner]

18 hours ago, junjun441 said:

Yep and at the same time the  terminated on 168th street. I remember seeing the R40 slanted trains waiting.

The R40 slants were a dream on the , especially during rush hours. Those things could FLY down a track in no time. Since the  is purely R68s, it was nice to see a different fleet running on the Concourse line.

[Cabanamaner]

On 1/28/2019 at 7:42 PM, T to Dyre Avenue said:

Unfortunately, the  got cut back to Broad Street in 1973 and Queens Blvd four years later, (and the year before I was born) then 121st Street soon after that, so I never got to experience it. Hell, I never even got to ride the special  trains to Prospect Park or 36th Street. I’m sure it was an excellent railfan ride with all that outdoor running, though I imagine it must have been hell on the crews since it was a very long run from Jamaica to Coney Island with a ton of closely-spaced stations.

I do remember when the  was a 6th Avenue express. Not fondly.

I find it a bit humorous that the old Jamaica Avenue El went further into Jamaica than the Archer Avenue Subway does. If I'm not mistaken, the portion between 121st And 168th streets was actually the youngest part of the line, yet the first to be demolished. Makes me wonder if it was worth getting rid of to begin with.

[T to Dyre Avenue]

19 hours ago, Cabanamaner said:

The R40 slants were a dream on the , especially during rush hours. Those things could FLY down a track in no time. Since the  is purely R68s, it was nice to see a different fleet running on the Concourse line.

They sure were. Scary as hell to look at, especially when they were covered in graffiti and grime before they went through GOH. But man, they flew through the dash between 34th and West 4th and on the 4th Avenue express tracks in Brooklyn. The ones that made a rare appearance on the  in the 80s were like rockets on the CPW express tracks, as were the R40M/R42 “salad trains” and the R32s that ruled the  before the R68s came. 

19 hours ago, Cabanamaner said:

I find it a bit humorous that the old Jamaica Avenue El went further into Jamaica than the Archer Avenue Subway does. If I'm not mistaken, the portion between 121st And 168th streets was actually the youngest part of the line, yet the first to be demolished. Makes me wonder if it was worth getting rid of to begin with.

In hindsight, we can say that. I read frequently on some of the other subway-related sites that Jamaica was a much more bustling area with the el still there, even during the “bad old days” in the 1970s and that el’s demolition in 1977 actually pushed the area into decline. Had the Archer Avenue subway gone at least to Merrick Blvd and then on dedicated tracks along the LIRR main line to Queens Village, then it would have been a worthy project. But with the Archer Avenue subway only being built up to Parsons, the Archer Avenue subway didn’t even completely replace what had been torn down in Jamaica. And by the time it opened in December 1988, it was too little too late. 

[Lance]

They should've kept the elevated until the Archer Ave line actually opened, but community pressure practically forced the line's curtailment back in '77. It's no surprise that eliminating the easiest way to get to/from the neighborhood led to the area's depreciation. Go figure.

Then again, there have always been measures to tear down the Jamaica line. In the '80s, there was an idea thrown about by the MTA to cut the line all the way back to Crescent St, which would've made half of the Archer Ave line completely useless.

[T to Dyre Avenue]

I remember reading about cutting the  to Crescent in the Daily News Sunday magazine back then (I think it was around 1985). The  had just got cut back to 121st Street and they wanted to go even further. The magazine did a special report about the state of the subways and had a freshly painted Redbird  train on the cover page. Hate to think about what would have happened if they actually followed through on cutting the . Just recently we discussed figuring out how to do peak direction express service on the Jamaica el over in the Proposals thread. With no  past Crescent, that would be yet another pipe dream. 

[Wallyhorse]

10 hours ago, Lance said:

They should've kept the elevated until the Archer Ave line actually opened, but community pressure practically forced the line's curtailment back in '77. It's no surprise that eliminating the easiest way to get to/from the neighborhood led to the area's depreciation. Go figure.

Then again, there have always been measures to tear down the Jamaica line. In the '80s, there was an idea thrown about by the MTA to cut the line all the way back to Crescent St, which would've made half of the Archer Ave line completely useless.

Supposedly, from what I remember reading elsewhere the head of Macy's really wanted it gone because he was in reality looking to close the Macy's in Jamaica, figuring the more desirable clientèle would go to the flagship store in Manhattan, figuring it would make Macy's look better to certain other clientèle.  That I believe is what led to the Jamiaca EL being demolished before the replacement line was ready. 

[Q Broadway Express]

Remember when the formerly known as the (AA) ran on Eighth Avenue at all times except rush hours and nights?

Those days were crazy. The and ran rush hours but not the .

207th Street

168th Street

Bedford Park Boulevard

205th Street

179th Street

Mott Avenue/Lefferts Boulevard

Coney Island via the West End

Rockaway Park

Brighton Beach via Brighton Express

World Trade Center

Then middays

168th Street to World Trade Center.

 

 

 

[BrooklynBus]

I remember when the IRT was entirely Lo V and how excited I got the first time I saw a train with fluorescent lights at Brooklyn Bridge on the Lexington Avenue Local. I was about five years old.

[Eric B]

 

1 hour ago, BrooklynBus said:

I remember when the IRT was entirely Lo V and how excited I got the first time I saw a train with fluorescent lights at Brooklyn Bridge on the Lexington Avenue Local. I was about five years old.

I remember in the 70's, when my school went from incandescent to fluorescent, and it was exciting seeing the new "whiter" light on the walls when looking down the hall. (and at the same time, they were converting the mercury street lights to sodium, though the mercury's were closer to the color of fluorescent. This is now of course essentially being reversed as they replace the sodiums with white LEDs).

So anyway, the old R9's were in their last days, and then in the 80's, upon seeing the R7A redone as a proto-R10 (with fluorescents) in the mix in the museum, I figured it must have been just as exciting to see fluorescents start to appear in trains as well. (And then, riding a fan trip with museum bus 3100, which was the first outfitted with both fluorescent and A/C, I imagined how "futuristic" the fishbowls must have looked with the bright fluorescents at night; sort of like how the Grummans and RTS's looked futuristic).

[bobtehpanda]

I remember a Redbirds only 7. Those were the days.

I actually liked the Redbirds more than I liked the R62/62As.

[speedyracer90]

I hope I'm not going crazy with this one, but I remember the R62s and other car classes that had GE1257E1 traction motors (R30, R33, R40, etc) had a distinctive howl/scream to them when I started riding the subway in the early 1990's. You can still sort of hear it when the R62s get up to speed, but it was definitely a lot more pronounced almost as soon as they started accelerating.

[NoHacksJustKhaks]

6 hours ago, bobtehpanda said:

I remember a Redbirds only 7. Those were the days.

I actually liked the Redbirds more than I liked the R62/62As.

I heard that the announcements on those trains were much clearer than the R62/R62A's and other SMEE's (as clear as NTT maybe). I wish we could have trains that lasting on the subway again, with today's technological advancements of course.

[BrooklynBus]

When the R 9s were running you could tell by the ozone smell in the station if you missed a train in the last three minutes. Also, before they started washing the trains, they were all covered in steel dust and you could only see the colors near the doors where people held the door open. When they red cars appeared in the 1960s, after the guest few weeks they were also red only near the doors where people touched the doors. 

[josephnyy42]

When the R142s were still really shiny and new...