A Special Excursion comes to Willets Point

Sunday was a slow day, so I decided to check up on the oddball Redbirds in the Corona Yard. I watch the departure of an R62A headed towards Flushing. A glance towards Manhattan gets my attention on another train headed towards Flushing, partially hidden in the shadow of a tree. Too early for the next train what's going on? The lead subway car had a powder blue front and that's all I needed to know what it was. R33 9306, heading the excursion of "SMEE" subway cars (SMEE referring to the type of brake. For some reason the people over at SubTalk called this the YAWN train.) I ran down the steps to get to the Flushing platform. The first shot is what I managed to get of 9306 before the train came to a stop at the 11/10 post.
The 9306.Hey, let's shoot every angle of this one!
The interior is still the same, and the Redbird paint is still visible from the interior on the doors. One of the subway cars, 9068, is painted in the wierdest paint scheme. Kale green with a silver roof. Kale green was the original color of all the R33's, but not with a silver roof. But all the more Redbirds to be saved! Partner 9069 is expected to be painted into the "Greenbird" paint scheme as well.MTA Going your way for 100 years. 1904-2004

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RE: A Special Excursion comes to Willets Point, Thunderbolt3985, Jun-24-04, 10:10 PM, (1) RE: A Special Excursion comes to Willets Point, runaway_b_unit, Jun-24-04, 11:41 PM, (2) RE: A Special Excursion comes to Willets Point, Thunderbolt3985, Jun-25-04, 11:14 AM, (3) RE: A Special Excursion comes to Willets Point, Interborough, Jun-25-04, 11:06 PM, (4) RE: A Special Excursion comes to Willets Point, Thunderbolt3985, Jun-26-04, 10:26 PM, (6) RE: A Special Excursion comes to Willets Point, shoskins, Jun-26-04, 11:01 AM, (5) RE: A Special Excursion comes to Willets Point, Thunderbolt3985, Jun-26-04, 10:31 PM, (7)

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OK, OK, I was wrong. The R33's WERE painted into the Greenbird paint scheme before. This 1987 photo proves it.MTA Going your way for 100 years. 1904-2004

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Those poor Redbirds....How many were dumped in the ocean.......where are they.....how much does a salvage contractor cost...?

C h r i s

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About 1,100 were dumped into the Atlantic. The only site I know of is off New Jersey. A salvage contractor would cost alot, but whatever's left of the Redbirds won't be worth much. No trucks, no windows, no doors, no metal straps, no seats, no signage, no lights, no nothing. But the Transit Authority has left enough of them in the yards, esp. in the Corona Yard. I counted four of them, was originally three.MTA Going your way for 100 years. 1904-2004

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LAST EDITED ON Jun-25-04 AT 11:14 PM (EST)

I guess you missed the MOD trip the day before. Started at Times Square 7, switched over to the N at QB, went to Astoria (an Acela went by on the Hellgate Bridge), went back down to City Hall LOWER LEVEL (we had to walk through a regular W train to reach the platform), back up to 57th Street, BIE, 63rd and Lex, down the F to W4, down the A to Howard Beach (photo stop), down to Rock Park, and BIE 2 more times. And the lens of my camera was broken, so I only got a picture of an idiot who thought it was an F train at Herald Square! The t/o on Fulton Street was horrible: a local could have passed us (we were running express). Coming back was much better. But an R46 in the 60th Street tunnel after the end of the trip was the best ride of the day.
For the subway illiterate, t/o is train operator and BIE is Brakes In Emergency. The cause of the double BIE at the B116 is a bit complicated. Out of towners may not know about trip arms. New Yorkers know what I'm talking about. R33s can be tripped on both sides, so they can run on both Division A and Division B lines. This particular homeball tripped the same car twice. Because of the quick succession of the trips, not everyone was holding on, and someone fell and injured her knee. I was NOT on the train at that time: I was on a shuttle going to catch up to the train after taking pictures (one of which came out) at B98th Street Playland.
BTW: That was the Transit Museum trip that you saw.
NOTICE: THE BU CARS WILL BE RUNNING 4 TRIPS NEXT MONTH WITH THE R1/9 CARS. THESE TRIPS REQUIRE ADVANCED RESERVATION.
BTW: THESE are the BU cars. Image courtesy of nycsubway.org

These trips are test trips sponsored by the March of Dimes.
Please click here for more information and ticket order forms.
EDIT: Here is a picture of "greenbird" 9068
Photo by David Pirmann of nycsubway.org

I hope 9069 is left as a redbird, and I believe that will be the case.

John

Going Your Way for 100 Years. 1904-2004
"Ladies and gentlemen. For your safety, please do not hold car doors open while the train is in the station."
Preserve your First Amendment rights! Fight the MTA ban on photography in the subways!

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LAST EDITED ON Jun-26-04 AT 10:35 PM (EST)

I'm afraid 9069 will be painted into the Greenbird paint scheme, according to nycsubway.org. But there are alot of other Redbirds out there that I have discovered today. I went to Coney Island and tried to get some good shots of the complex. I only found a small road that was perpendicular to the F line, (I think the Neptune Ave. Station) that gave me a close-up view of the yard, and that was behind a barb wire fence. I didn't find the areas where the people at nycsubway.org got good shots. Were they able to get through the gates with permission? Anyway, I found two R36WF cars and 6 R29's or R33's (I do remember the car nearest me started in an "8," probably an R33 because that seems to be the trend in Redbirds.) A nearby gate said the area was under surveillance, and the proposed photo ban is making me nervous, so I didn't have the gut to take pictures of the complex. But I did take pictures of the four Redbirds in the Corona Yard, from the No. 7.

9308, 9309.
9307, 9310.The Corona Yard is unrecognizable in that sea of stainless steel.
The quality of the pic's is from all the compression. MTA Going your way for 100 years. 1904-2004

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Kale green was the original
>color of all the R33's, but not with a silver roof. Sorry, but that statement is erroneous.The original color on the R33's, as delivered, was exactly how 9016-9017 are painted nowadays...solid red with yellow grab irons.The cars delivered in Kale Green were the R21's (7050-7349), R22's (7350-7749), R-26/28's 7750-7959) and the R27/30's (8050-8569).The R29's and mainline R33's were red.The World's Fair R33's and R36's were in the light blue and white with black stripes.

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*smack* My bad. It's the heat wave, I'm not thinking strait... MTA Going your way for 100 years. 1904-2004

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