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Re: How was it to ride the subway lines in the 60's and 70's? (93070)

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Posted by J Lee on Sun Feb 6 20:01:07 2000, in response to Re: How was it to ride the subway lines in the 60's and 70's?,
posted by Lou from Middletown NY on Sun Feb 6 16:19:38 2000.

Curtis is broadcasting just about 24 hours a day on WABC, whenever Rush Limbaugh or the Yankees aren't on.

The period of 1960-1970 was the best time to be a subway rider as far as cars models go, because you went from the last of the first-generation types on the BMT and IRT to the beginning of the current body design and air conditioning with the R-40M/R-42. The down side was, deferred maintenance really started to take hold by the mid 60s, and sewed the seeds for the disasters of the 1970s-1980s.

In that 10-year period, you could ride Standards, Triplexes, Q cars, Lov Vs, Worlds Fair Low Vs and every R-series car ever made from the R-1s to the R-42s. And back then, until you got to the R-16/R-17 design, every car modle had its own distinct look -- even a non-railfan could tell a multisection unit from an R-10.

Fifteen years from now, there will probably be only three types of cars on the IRT (R-62, R-142 and the R-whatever-it-is-that-replaces-the-last-of-the-Redbirds), while the BMT and IND might have as many as six different styles around, if the R-32s do make it to their 50th birthday.


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