"Farewell to the Brightliners at Parkside"
On the morning of January 9th, 2022, the "R32 Retirement Extra", consisting of eight Budd Company R32 "Brightliner" railcars, emerges from the Ocean Avenue Tunnel at Parkside Avenue station on the BMT Brighton Line in Brooklyn, NY. Leading the train is R32 #3360, which had it's doors painted blue, just as they were out of the factory. The train made several trips along the Brighton, Broadway and Second Avenue Lines, before officially retiring at the end of the day.
The R32 fleet entered service in 1964 and would run in service up until January of 2022, making them the oldest surviving subway cars in North America. About half of the fleet was retired in the late 2000s with the arrival of the R160 cars leaving the rest to cover services mainly on the Eighth Avenue Line routes (A & C) during the winter season and BMT Jamaica Line routes (J & Z) during the summer season. During the month of October, 2020, the rest of the fleet was finally placed into storage/ work service after 2 reactivations and the securement of the R179 fleet in revenue service.
