New York Subways: An Illustrated History of New York City's Transit Cars (review)

Gene Sansone has set out to chronicle the development of the New York subway car throughout the system's more than 130-year history—no small task. He has done exceptionally well. New York Subwaysprovides an account of the design, construction, and service record of virtually every type of car ever built, accompanied by photographs, drawings, and extensive tabular data. It covers the steam locomotives that preceded electrification of the elevated railways; elevated and subway cars of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) and its predecessors until the merger of all the city's subways into the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) in 1940; Brooklyn elevated and subway cars from the 1880s until the merger; and cars built for the city-owned Independent Subway (IND) from 1930 to the present.

Enormous passenger loads and traffic density have made the New York system one of the most demanding in the world, and the development of its cars reflects a continuing evolution of equipment that can better meet these demands. An early and important transition was from wood to steel construction. Recognizing that the use of wooden cars from the elevateds would pose major risks in the event of fire in its new subway, the IRT sought to use all-steel cars from the beginning. But when it was ready to place its initial order, the car-building firms were unprepared to produce equipment in such large quantities, and the company was forced to accept its first five hundred cars in a composite design that included wooden components. Even though special protective measures were adopted, the hazards of such equipment were demonstrated in a 1905 accident that burned up a five-car train. Major loss of life was avoided only because the cars were empty. The IRT switched to all-steel as soon as possible, operating composite cars only on elevated lines after 1916.

From the beginning, a primary consideration was to design equipment that could rapidly handle huge crowds boarding and exiting. The original elevated railways followed steam railroad practice, with open platforms at each end of the cars, but with station platforms the same level, rather than several steps down. The first subway cars had enclosed vestibules rather than open platforms, which greatly slowed the process of boarding and exiting. The IRT began experimenting with different arrangements of doors, and hit on a design with three or four double doors spaced along each side of a car and no end vestibules.

Noteworthy design innovation was pursued by Brooklyn Rapid Transit and the successor Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit (BMT) between 1910 and the merger into the NYCTA in 1940. The BMT car developed in 1915 was the first to follow what became standard New York practice, with three double sliding doors on each side of a 67-foot car that could accommodate nearly two hundred passengers. In 1925 the BMT designed a 137-foot "triplex" car made up of three articulated units that accommodated nearly four hundred passengers. This was followed in 1934 by two experimental lightweight, five-section articulated units, one built of aluminum by the Pullman-Standard Company, the other of stainless steel by the Budd Company. This was the configuration for an order the next year of twenty-five high-tensile-steel five-section cars. Finally, the BMT ordered three-section articulated compartment cars called Bluebirds, which utilized the advanced technology developed by the Electric Railway Presidents Conference Committee for street railways. When the BMT was incorporated into the NYCTA, however, its engineer of new car design insisted on using standard heavyweight cars, and only five of the lightweights were ever delivered.

A conservative approach to design since 1940 has resulted in a long series of sturdy, heavyweight cars. The first air-conditioned car appeared in 1955, and air-conditioning has since become standard. Although the Transit Authority placed a small order for stainless-steel equipment...