Second Ave. Sagas

Catching a Nostalgic ride this weekend

Written by

Benjamin Kabak

in

trainmanycolors

The Train of Many Colors rides its way east past the Citibank building in Long Island City. (Photo by Ron Yee/New York Transit Museum)

The Transit Museum is breaking out their old cars this weekend, and they have asked me to help promote the trip. This Saturday, June 20th, the museum will run its Train of Many Colors for a day trip up to the Bronx. The train will depart from Shuttle Track 1 at Grand Central at 10 a.m. on Saturday morning. It will then travel south to the Brooklyn Bridge and then north to East Tremont in the Bronx. At the West Farms – East Tremont stop, railfans can either ride the Low-V train for a ride between East 180th and 239th Sts. or they can visit the Bronx Zoo at a discount.

The cost for this ride back in time is $30. Transit Museum members enjoy a discounted fare of $25, and children ages 5-17 get in for $10. As long as I can get up early enough on Saturday morning, I’ll be there. These rides are great fun. For more info on this and other transit-related events, check out the Transit Museum’s events page.

Comments

9 responses to “Catching a Nostalgic ride this weekend”

  1. Kid Twist

    Thanks for passing along the info.
    FYI: The pic is in LIC on the Flushing Line.

    Reply
  2. Tomás

    I’m going to post this info in my own blog as well. And as Kid Twist says, that’s the approach to the QBP station (or at least, that’s what seems to me).
    And a final note: June 20 is saturday.
    Thanks for the info!!!

    Reply
  3. Scott E

    So this includes a trip around the old City Hall loop station. I don’t suppose it stops there, would it?

    Reply
  4. Adam

    I actually saw Redbirds the other day running through the system. The ironic part is….they were under Central Park West! In the IND! They’d have to get some sort of big overhaul to do that though because if I’m not mistaken, the IRT trains run on narrow gauge track or the BMT/IND runs on a broad gauge track, making the Redbirds incompatible with IND ROWs.

    Reply
    1. Alon Levy

      The tracks are standard gauge everywhere. The difference is loading gauge, which refers to the maximum allowable width and height for trains. The pre-Dual Contracts IRT has a narrower maximum width, so an IND/BMT train will not have enough room to run on it. IRT trains can run on IND/BMT track, but there’s a large gap between the trains and the platforms, so they can’t serve the stations.

      Dual Contracts-era IRT lines are mostly built to IND/BMT loading gauge, so they can accommodate IND/BMT trains in principle, but the platforms are built to the narrower IRT loading gauge. So those lines are easy to convert to IND/BMT operation by shaving off the platforms, as was done to the Astoria Line.

      Reply
    2. Judge

      Not quite. It’s the width of the rolling stock and therefore the potential gaps from train to platform that make the IRT incompatible with the BMT & IND; all tracks in the system are standard guage (4′ 8.5″).

      Reply
      1. Judge

        Nevermind! 5 minutes to slow on my part!

        Reply
  5. Kevin

    just to clarify the shot above. it’s a Main St bound train pulling into 33rd – Rawson St coming from Queensboro Plaza.

    Reply
  6. Connecting with SAS (and weekend service advisories) :: Second Ave. Sagas | A New York City Subway Blog

    […] I thought I would take a few minutes to promote the site a bit. Tomorrow, I’ll be riding the Nostalgia Train to the Bronx, and when the train goes above ground, I’ll upload some pictures via […]

    Reply

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