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| Re: The subway during the 1970's, how bad did it really get? (55382) | |||
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Re: The subway during the 1970's, how bad did it really get? |
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Posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Thu Feb 24 07:54:19 2005, in response to Re: The subway during the 1970's, how bad did it really get?, posted by Chris R16/R2730 on Thu Feb 24 07:26:40 2005. Me too, for some sick twisted reason. I used to hate those R27's when they were running.I used to HATE the R27-30's (and the R16's for that matter) when I used to have to ride them all the time on the L, J or M. I used to always wonder why we were stuck with all the "junk", while the other lines got the R46's, etc (75 foot car? What's that, who knew they couldn't run on the J, M, and L - I didn't find that out until I discovered SubTalk). Also, before someone jumps down my throat anout RF windows or something, the reason I liked the R46's is because they were the only trains that were clean and grafitti-free in the system back then. The R44-46's were the first ones to get cleaned up. Then they cleaned up the R40 Slants and R40M-R42's, painted attractive blue interior doors in them, and around 1985 sent them to the, here. I was happy to get rid of having 100% filthy R27-30's (although of course they were still mixed in too). Although we did get the occasional red R30 mixed in with the "junk" too. Then I got pissed off once again thinking that they gave us all the "junk". The attractive R40 and R42's with blue doors disappeared (again, who knew they were getting rebuilt), and then they sent us those R16 basket cases. Man, I hated them even more than the trashed R27-30's at the time. Those things were SO dirty, and so full of grafitti. I still can't believe what those things looked like. Many of them had not been painted in decades. While a few had orange doors inside (meaning they were at least painted in the 70's), most still had the old gray doors with mint green walls inside (if you could tell under all the grafitti). It's still amazing that they were in service regular passenger equipment considering the condition they were in. Anyway, as fast as the R16's seemed to infest the M in the fall of 1986 or spring of 1987, they disappeared almost as fast, and the grafittied R27-30's came back again, although the red R30's also came in in force by then too. Then, seemingly as fast as the R27-30's came back, the R42 rebuilds started coming back. At first, I didn't know if they were the R42's I remembered. I didn't recognize them at all. (Remember, there was no SubTalk/Chat to tell you what was going on, eveything I knew about the subway back then was strictly from my own observations). I remember getting on one of those "new" trains (R42 rebuilds), and looking around. It took me a few rides to actually accept the fact that they were my old friends back again. Gone were the aqua blue/green seats. The painted doors were gone, the brush painted walls were gone, the windows on doors seemed different (what these aren't the same doors!?). The painted and pealing formica sealings were gone. The air conditioning was working!? They smelled new. Could these be the old trains I remember, all fixed up? Again, my experience with "cleaning" up a train, was brush painting every surface of the interior (including the formica ceilings many times!), and sending them out for service, only to be grafittied up a few days later. This "total rebuilding" was new to me. Finally after a few days, I accepted the fact that these "new" trains weren't really new trains afterall. Then, slowly all the R30's started to get rarer and rarer. Never did I think they were being cut up! I just figured they were safe on the C, probably coming "home" one day again - Remember, back then, you didn't have "assigned" classes of cars for lines basically permanently - I was still stuck in the mid 80's and earlier where every six months different classes of cars may be serving your line, many times all at the same time. ANyway, the point of all this is that, I actually hated the R27-30's until they became red. Then as soon as I started to really enjoy and like them.....they were gone. Now, i only wish I could ride a train of them again, grafittied or otherwise. I had so many happy years riding them, so many good times happened in them, no matter how trashed they were at the time. You only remember all this after they are gone. |
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