Recently New York City Transit announced that they have signed a contract for 300 R179 subway cars to replace the R32 & R40
subway cars. The new cars are to start being delivered by the year 2015. The R32 & R40 cars are the last cars that one can stand by the front and rear end doors and get a motorman's view of the right-of-way. The remaining R32's when retired will be
operating over 51 years since entering service starting in September, 1964 to July, 1965. I was aboard the first revenue run of
the R32's one morning in September, 1964. When the train pulled into the 57th St. Station there was a red carpet on the platform and a band playing music. We were handed postcards with a picture of a train of these R32's Cars in the New York Central's Mott
Haven Yard taken the month before. I lived in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, NY at that time.
Ed G. Along The New Haven Line of Metro-North and Amtrak. The busiest railroad in the USA.