Let's see...it must have been the time around 1984, when I started to bid and win on these slide auctions at the Urban Transit Club (formerly known as M.E.S.T.A.) where I would get mostly those R-10 slides at some really competitive, high prices. It later come to a point where I would start buying from other rail hobby vendors anything and everything connected with the R-10's, thus solidifying my reputation and infamous status as a true fan of the cars, thereby they (not I myself) began calling me as "Mr. R-10".
The membership of both the U.T.C. and the E.R.A. would soon see that I has this, um, fascination...okay, obsession plus this knowledge with the R-10's themselves, especially being on the IND "A" line. I have been a long time transit buff since age 4 (the year 1962), and it was that fleet on that route that made it all possible, so credit them for doing so. I was also given the nickname for a brief time as "Mr. 'A' Train", but that was only because of the close and my personal association with the R-10's on that route.
By the way, when I post these messages on the R-10's or anything else in general, they come freely from my memory banks and visual instant recall without notes in front of me at all. Also, I can be very specific while on Subtalk on certain and distinctive R-10 car numbers from that fleet of 400 cars built that I know from past knowledge or first hand experience. By the way, I was there right up to the last time and very end of their 40-year service life with the R-10's ever operated on their "Farewell" fantrip chartered by the E.R.A. on that Sunday, October 29, 1989.
-William A. Padron
["American Car and Co.-Builder"]