"Brightliners on the Canarsie Line"
On the evening of June 15th, 2021, a New York City Transit transfer move of eight Budd Company R32 "Brightliner" railcars approaches Sutter Avenue station on the BMT Canarsie Line in Brooklyn, NY. The move was enroute to Concourse Yard in the Bronx, then ultimately 207th Street Yard for storage and future retirement.
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. A final farewell trip of the R32s is set to run on January 9th, 2022 along the BMT Brighton Line traversing the same route the cars made when they were originally debuted in 1964.