AB Standard (New York City Subway Car) - Final Notes

Final Notes

The Standards were revolutionary subway cars for their time. Despite their lack of speed, they introduced an enormous amount of improvements and innovations when they entered service and set the bar high as to what future subway cars would look like, and would be the template used in Philadelphia when the Broad Street Subway, owned by the City of Philadelphia, was designing a new fleet. The Philadelphia cars would prove to be a modified version of the BRT Standard, with improved horsepower. The Standards were not just durable - serving for a long time underneath New York - but also highly influential, as noted above. Today, five of them still exist as living examples of the legacy of the BRT and BMT.