New York City, NY – MTA New York City Transit has unveiled the new cars, known as the R211s, a few years ago. These cars are to be built by Kawasaki Heavy Industries. Recently, a few new photos have surfaced of a few new cars in a near-complete state.

R211 near completion, courtesy of wikipedia.org

What few know, is that unlike with past orders, the R211 cars aren’t just a single new car type. The R211 is actually a series of new cars that are incoming to New York City.

What the R211s will have over the likes of the R160, and R179 series, can be described as the following:

  • Brand new multi-color destination signs, which can now display route bullets in their proper colors
  • The return of the full-window route bullets but as a multi-color sign as well
  • New doors, about 8 inches wider than the older cars, which will improve passenger flow into and out of trains
  • new double poles on the interior, which are now yellow instead of silver
  • Completely digital FIND display with multi-color full LCD displays
  • brighter lighting on both the exterior and exterior of the trains
  • A brand new end cap design with the color blue instead of the color black.
  • WiFi, USB, and digital advertising on the interior for maximum passenger comfort.
R211 Interior

Now keep in mind, these are all the features that will come with all types of R211s. Now we will talk more about the three types of R211s, mentioned above.

R211A – This is basically the base model. All cars that will operate on the B division will be R211As except….

R211 Open Gangway Prototype

R211T – Twenty of these cars will be built as “open gangway prototype” cars so to speak. These will consist of 5 car sets, with articulation ends built between them. This design will be similar to that found on some commuter railroad trains and articulated buses. Should the open gangway prove successful, the option orders will be R211T as well.

R211S – These cars will be exclusive to the Staten-Island Railway (or SIR), replacing the aging R44 cars. These will be very similar to the R211A except they will be meant to operate exclusively on the SIR

These three types of cars will eventually replace all the R44 cars on the SIR as well as most of the R46 cars. The option orders, should they be taken, will potentially knock out the remaining R46 cars as well. In other words, get your rides, pictures, and videos in of the R44s and R46s NOW. Time is ticking before you would no longer get that chance..

About the author: Dash Verified icon 1

I have been with Virtual Transit Center since it's conception as the "Dash Forums" back in 2008. Since then, I have been writing and doing YouTube side by side, focusing both on Transportation and Gaming. Most of my knowledge comes from SEPTA as I lived in Philadelphia for most of my life. As of 2021, I am on YouTube as DashTransit, Dash5155, and TheDashOfficial.

As for the name DashTransit itself, it actually stems from my YouTube channel.

DashTransit was originally called "njt5329" and the channel was just clips of buses. Mostly SEPTA and NJT. A Fujifilm Finepix was used in this era.

Starting in July 2011, the Canon SX130IS camera became the camera of the channel, bringing HD documentary-style videos much like my buddy (trainman1971) did for DVD for many years past. This is when the channel became known as "Transit Action Series"

In May 2012, the original Canon SX130IS retired, and then all videos were recorded off a mobile phone until eventually uploaded proved too difficult due to hardships IRL

Starting in 2017, I used a Canon SX200IS from Bastranz to reboot the channel that otherwise was dead for a whole year prior.

Between April 19th, 2019, and January 21st, 2021, all videos were recorded by a Canon SX710 HS camera. The channel was renamed DashTransit 4/19/19.

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Comments

@peepso_user_255(Jonathan)
It is unfortunate that it'll be the final stage for the R44 and R46 cars, But I hope to go to New York before they retire. And I am probably sure MTA is going to replace the R68 to, but we'll see what future says
February 2, 2021 2:47 am