New train cars begin to run on Staten Island Railway

The subway’s forgotten borough entered the 21st period Tuesday, arsenic the archetypal acceptable of caller R-211 bid cars entered rider work connected the Staten Island Railway.

The cars — a variant of the R-211s that person been moving connected the A enactment successful Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens since past twelvemonth — regenerate the half-century-old R-44 cars that person been traversing Staten Island since 1973.

“These are our subway cars of the future, brought to our riders connected the Staten Island Railway,” MTA Chairman Janno Lieber said Tuesday astatine the railway’s St. George Terminal.

“People person been telling me, and I deliberation we each perceive it, that Staten Island sometimes feels similar an outsider wrong the 5 boroughs,” Lieber said. “But I’m present to archer you that the squad astatine MTA ever has Staten Island beforehand of mind.”

The archetypal five-car acceptable of caller R-211s entered work aft the greeting unreserved Tuesday. The cars are expected to tally for a 30-day proceedings play earlier further R-211 cars are enactment into work connected the line. The MTA has ordered a full of 75 Staten Island-capable cars from shaper Kawasaki.

The MTA unveiled 5 caller R211 cars for the Staten Island Railway past October. (Evan Simko-Bednarski / New York Daily News)

In caller years, the existent R-44 cars person been averaging less than 75,000 miles betwixt breakdowns.

“These cars are the oldest cars successful the full MTA network,” acting NYC Transit President Demetrius Crichlow said of the outgoing R-44s.

“When you speech astir the magnitude of enactment that goes into maintaining them, and keeping them successful service, these guys bash astonishing work,” Crichlow said of the Staten Island Railway’s workers. “But there’s truthful overmuch much that we could beryllium doing for our customers.”

Staten Island’s R-211 cars — known arsenic the R-211S variant — are configured to enactment with the borough’s unsocial signaling system, an artifact of the line’s past arsenic an autarkic heavy-rail route. The cars are different identical to the R-211A cars operating elsewhere successful the subway system.

The the archetypal five-car acceptable of the caller bid cars arrived astatine Staten Island’s Clifton Yard nearly a twelvemonth ago, and person been undergoing investigating since then.