Redbird subway cars, built for the 1964 World's Fair will sing their last song soon.
The last 88 cars, with their signature bright red paint, now only running on the No. 7 line will be dumped into the Atlantic Ocean to create an artificial reef.
I'm not really sure just how many R142's have been delivered yet. My guess is that at least 200 to 300 have been delivered. It may even be higher than that.
Primarily you can find the 142's on the #2, #4, #5, & #6 lines. The R62's will continue to run on the #1, #3 and the #7 lines.
Heard about this on the news, now I may want to take the subway back to Penn Station since I'm going to Shea for a Springsteen concert on October 3. That's of course depending on the amount of time we have. Any idea what percentage of the 7 line that is?
Assuming that all 88 are still running at that time and also assuming that the MTA hasn't changed the number of available cars on the #7 line, that would represent about 22% of the cars. So you've got about a 20% chance that you'd be able to ride on a redbird consist. That also assumes that you don't let a few R62 consists go by.
The odds of seeing a redbird consist during your journey however are much better.
Well last I knew there were 389 cars assigned to the #7 line, so assuming that number is still correct and I'm not sure that it is, that would leave 301 R62 cars running on the line.
However, I would not be surprised if the MTA hasn't assigned more cars to this line. The yard can hold 408 cars and of course there's always at least 66 cars out running even in the middle of the night.
It's still strange to see the R62's running on the 7 as for most if not all of my life I remember seeing the redbirds on that line. It'll be a strange day when they finally retire those final 88.
