21-12-26 PHOTOS: R32 Holiday Tribute

As the concept of the NYC Transit Museum sponsored holiday trains enters their second decade they have had to do some innovation as running a set of R1/9's between 2nd Ave and Queens Plaza started getting a bit repetitive. The first set of changes involved different routes such as going up Central Park West to 135th or 145th Streets, but as the ultimate retirement of the R32 cars approached, the powers that be decided to give the "obviously vintage" R1/9 cars a year off and substitute in the R32's for holiday duty running on the 2nd Ave to 145th St CPW routing. Of course a change to the itinerary meant I felt required to make the trek up from South Jersey to ride them and you can find the full set of photos here ( mirror ).

My day started early at Hamilton where I passed on an NJT Corridor Line local pushed by ALP-46 #4635 in favor of an express led by split level cab car #7013.

PATH's long headways now makes it quicker to just go directly to Penn Station wher I caught an R46 A train to West 4th Street.

While waiting for an F to 2nd Ave I noted that W 4TH ST tower has closed since my last visit in December 2019.

I also caught the R32 holiday train heading north on the lower level, likely having traveled from Coney Island and needing to make a reverse move to get to 2nd Ave.

An R160 F Train soon arrived on the local track and transported me to 2nd Ave where the r32 holiday train soon arrived with southward leading car #3360 modified by the transit museum to resemble its as-delivered 1964 condition.

Northward leading car #3894 was equipped with a wreath and signed as a "D" train for the day's service.

Austere half cab of #3894.

Due to Covid and the extreme demand for the single railfan window, I contented myself with a rear car ride that day and I will include the videos in a follow-up post. Here is car #3360 laying up on the middle track at 145th St with the crew in the process of switching ends.

Again, I didn't feel like dealing with the crush level crowing in the lead car to get video coverage I already had to I shifted back to the festive #3894 car.

Even the rear car was getting crowded by the second run. Due to COVID safety theatre, the NYCTA had strung a rope to keep people back from the half-cab door on both ends. Here Koi Morris borrows my go-pro extension wand to get some higher quality rear facing video.

#3894 back at 145th St. The R32 holiday consist had clearly gotten a through going over by the Coney Island shoppes to leave them in as good as condition as possible for both the retirement services and future life in preservation. Even the H2C coupler looked new!

#3360 even had a reproduction Budd builder's plate placed about its 1980's rebuild plate.

Two round trips was enough for me that day so I departed the holiday train back at West 4th St at the start of the second southbound run.

Back at Penn Station I ran into NJT #4635 again. It looked like NJT was just running the same trainsets back and forth all day.

I should also mention that two days before I visited the former Reading RR station in Pennington, NJ (last seeing service in 1967) and the Lehigh Valley Flemington Station that I believe was also closed in the 1960's.

That's all for today. Stay tuned for a post covering the video content from this same trip.