MTA Holiday Nostalgia Train 2019

Now that I'm living in NYC, someone sent me a link to an article that mentioned there were Holiday Nostalgia rides in the subway.  The MTA Transit Museum in conjunction with the MTA pulls out their historic R1-R9-based subway car train and takes them for a stroll every December. The route changes a little from year to year, but this year it originated from the 2nd Ave station on the F (on the unused express track at that station) to 125th st over the 8th avenue line.

If you live nearby and have yet to experience this train, I highly recommend you do to get a flavor of the past. You can freely walk between cars and see the difference between each of them, though the only serious differences are the R7 car vs the R1 IMHO.  Be aware, this train may get insanely packed as the holiday season chugs along and the number of tourists riding increases.  I have also been to the Transit Museum in Brooklyn and highly recommend that as well for anyone really interested in the NYC subway. They have a lot of vintage cars to check out as well as displays of old tokens and turnstiles. These cars may also be on display if you go when they're not running in an event.

Also, since I had other friends tell me about other model train related things in the city. Here's a clip of whats on display at the Botanical Garden and here's a clip from 2016 of what I believe is the layout they still display in Grand Central Terminal.

Anyway, in case the transit museum may change their webpage for these rides, below is a screenshot taken from it that corresponds with 2019's route for December 1.  I chose to take the very first uptown and downtown trains to beat what I imagine will be a tourist crowd. In 2017, they went up the 6th Ave/2nd Ave lines to 96 st (This video is very nice and you can hear the unique motor growl), which would have saved me the effort of going to and from the LES, but luckily the M was running up to 96 st as it has been on the weekend for quite some time. All of this was for the low low cost of $2.75. The cost of one ride, which included my trip on the M/F to/from the UES. With weekend maintenance, I did have to transfer at Essex/Delancy St to an UT F to get to 2nd Ave, as DT F trains were rerouted over the A line. Q trains were also replaced with M trains.

If this is hard to read, click on it.

Below is my photo essay from today's trip.  Also, there is a subway prodigy who is perhaps obsessed with the subway and knows more about it than probably almost all of its employees.  That article is old, but apparently he now works for the MTA. He was working the 2019 Holiday Train and can be seen managing the door closing buttons (who knew they were also on the outside of the car!) in this video. He goes by the name DJ Hammers.  He has his own YT channel.  I highly recommend it, especially the HD time-lapse videos taken from the front of various trains. (Basically motorman views.) Since he's done it, I don't have to ride every train to see it for myself.

The holiday train consist was indeed made up of the operable cars listed in the link above. The 8 cars were in this order: 1802 - 1300 - 1000 - 1575 - 401 - 381 - 484 - 100 where 100 was the uptown lead and 1802 was the downtown lead.

And don't think the Holiday train is immune to typical occurrences.  While it ran 5 minutes ahead of schedule in both directions, it was forced on more than one occasion to wait in the station and/or wait for red signals in between stations. Also, the ride wouldn't be complete without your daily panhandler on there as well. Yup, even they found their way on in the 40 minutes that the train was on the tracks in both directions.

The front of car 100. Yes, there was a line of grown men rushing to get to the front window. This event drew out a lot of subway fans who wore hats and shirts that reminded me a lot of a crowd you'd see at a comic con.  In any case, as far as I could tell, one guy ended up putting a camera onto the front window.  The other had to eventually make way for any and all kids that went to the front.

 

Here's the view they were fighting over. I found one video of the view of the ride for those interested, but its low quality.

 

 Car 100.

Car 100 history.

 Some of the crowds rushing to get onto the very first 2019 Holiday Train.

 The interior of car 100 before we were allowed on. The seats were not all that comfortable.
 

 Old roll signage along with the transit museum logos, who own these cars.

People railfanned this train. These guys had a near empty station for this. Their video I believe is here.

Someone was interviewing one of the volunteers. The questions were sort of odd from what I recall.

 The crowd at the front of the lead car. Can't imagine anyone really got a good view.

 

The fan and vents in car 100.  I couldn't get a good answer from anyone on what the lever near the pole on the left did.

Another shot of 100 at 125th st, the terminus. The ride was only like 20 or so minutes, so we had a lot of time to kill at 125th st.

We had a special guest visit us as soon as the holiday train left the platform. Of course I had no idea I'd see three brightliners while I waited for the downtown holiday train. These R32 cars were the first to have AC as well as stainless steel. This is the first time I ever saw one. It's one of just FOUR assigned to the A train. Of course I had already crossed over to the downtown tracks and couldn't run back over in time for a better photo.

Then two downtown C trains stopped by. I didn't get great photos because by the time I realized what they were, they were already pulled in. The C train only has SEVEN of these assigned. So these guys are rather rare for someone like me who rarely ever rides the A-C-E.

Another shot. I was almost tempted to get on this thing instead. Not sure when I'll see another. I guess I have until 2022. (Neat 207th st shops video in that link.)

 And another. And yes, its stainless steel. I checked.

 

C moved too fast to get a good shot of the end.

 The crowd was building up for the downtown train.

This is from the MTA phone app. They called the train an F train in both directions, even though it ran partially over the A-C-E. I didn't think to take a screenshot of the uptown train.

 

Car 1575.

Exterior of 1575.

The NYTM branded this car too.

Sorry, its blurry, but you can still read the history paper.

This is inside car 1575, an R7A made to look like an R10. I spent part of my first stop or two in this car before moving throughout the rest.

 

This is the wicker seat I sat on. Worn down and not too comfortable. The wicker seats are perhaps less comfortable than today's plastic and definitely can't fit 2 modern-day sized people on them.

A shot of the upgraded strap-handers and interesting ceiling fans. I think I also prefer today's bar structure vs the strap-hangers, as there are far more places to hold onto. I also can't imagine the subway if it didn't way AC in the cars.

Looks like this was just a vent to let in outside air, but passengers apparently could open and close it. Air conditioning didn't show up on cars until 1964.

Interior of car 1000.  There is a them in all of these cars - their age really shows. You can really feel and hear the ride. The lights also actually turn on and off over many of the turnouts and diamonds.

Since they ran this with the doors open between cars, it was more fun to hang out near the door. You could actually hear the cars a little bit, and the air-horn when they used it. Just something you don't experience on the regular subway.

 Hand brake.

View between cars at one of the stops. 

 

 Car 1300.

 

Car 1300 History.

 

 Car 1300 Diagram.

 Car 1300 Interior.

 This seat was in car 1300 and was the most comfortable seat I sat in on the entire train.

  

Car 1000.

 Car 1000 History.

 

 Car 1000 interior.

Car 1000 from Car 1300 threshold.

 Car 1802.

 Car 1802 History.

 Car 401.

Car 401 history. I didn't get a lot of interior photos of some of the cars as they were very similar to cars 100 and 1300.

 Car 381.

 Car 381 history.

 Car 484.

 Car 484 history.

Crowd at 2nd Ave after the arrival of the downtown train. Some people stayed on the train to ride it again. Once each way was good enough for me.

They had several people who were dressed for the 1930's. Not sure if they were volunteers or not, but all of then garnered a lot of photos from various people.

Final shot of car 100 back at 2nd Ave before I caught an uptown F back home across the platform.


Videos:

While I've already linked to videos throughout, let's start with NYCTA Railfan's YouTube video with the 2019 holiday train coming into 125th street for its downtown return trip. Also, I found this other YouTube video that is a HQ look of someone walking through the cars. Light flickering, motor growling, music, and more. I'm briefly seen looking at my phone in the lead car. I reviewed my footage and don't see anything worth sharing that someone else hasn't already on YouTube.


Thanks for reading. Also thanks to the young man who does this train ride every year and was nice enough to take my picture.