Train of Many Colors

The Train of Many Colors running in service on the 7 train bypassing 40th Street–Lowery Street station, with R33S 9306 leading, taken in April 2008.

The Train of Many Colors (sometimes abbreviated as TOMC) is one of the New York Transit Museum's nostalgia trains used for A Division excursions, which is made up of cars that were formerly used on Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) lines. The name comes from the fact that the cars are painted in many varying schemes from different eras. ^[1]

During the 2004 Subway Centennial, some of the cars were used for regular service on the 42nd Street Shuttle route. In addition, the cars may be used to commemorate a special occasion (e.g. the opening of Citi Field in Queens).

Some of the cars are housed in the New York Transit Museum when not used for excursions (R12, R15, R17, and R33S). ^[2] Others are stored at the 207th Street Yard.

List of cars and colors

The "Train of Many Colors" fleet consists of 19 cars painted in various schemes, as listed below: not all of them run at the same time.

Model	Builder	Car numbers	Livery	Era used
R12	American Car & Foundry	5760	Two tone gray with orange stripes [2]	Original, when new
R15		6239	Maroon with tan stripe [2]	Original, when new
R17	St. Louis Car Company	6609	Maroon [2]	Original, when new
R33		9010–9011	Silver with blue stripe ("Platinum Mist")	1971–early 1980s
		9016–9017	Watermelon/"Tartar" red with yellow handlebars	Original, when new
		9068–9069 9206–9207	Tuscan/"Gunn" red with silver roof ("Redbird") [3]	1986 to retirement
R33S		9306–9308 [4]	1964 World's Fair aqua blue and white ("Bluebird")	Original, when new
		9310 [4]	Tuscan/"Gunn" red with silver roof ("Redbird")	1984 to retirement
R36		9542–9543 9586–9587		1984 to retirement

References

1. "news - LIRR Provides Extra Service to All-Star Game & Events". MTA. 2013-07-10. Archived from the original on 2022-03-05. Retrieved 2023-02-28.
2. "Vintage Fleet". New York Transit Museum. 10 May 2016. Archived from the original on 8 August 2020. Retrieved February 27, 2022.
3. "Meet the Bluebirds and Redbirds, the most iconic cars in the Museum's IRT fleet!". New York Transit Museum. 2023-10-23. Retrieved 2024-03-17.
4. "New York Transit Museum on Facebook". www.facebook.com. Archived from the original on 2022-02-26. Retrieved September 9, 2021.

• New York City Transit Subway Centennial press release ^{[ permanent dead link ]}, describing two museum trains that ran in 2004 in route service.^{[ dead link ]}
• New York City Transit's 'Train of Many Colors'

External links

• Media related to Train of Many Colors at Wikimedia Commons