The R33 World's Fair (R33 WF) is a class of 40 single cars for the New York City Subway car built in late 1963. They were made for the "A" Division, but only assigned to the 7 service (IRT Flushing Line) and were based out of Corona Yard. They were used to make 11-car trains with the R36 WF cars, which were built as two-car sets (pairs). They were built by the St. Louis Car Company in St. Louis, Missouri, for the 1964 New York World's Fair.
These cars were rebuilt "in-house" in 1985 by the Coney Island Shop, but not equipped with air conditioning system and retained their original Axiflow ceiling fans. They were the last New York City Subway car to not have air-conditioning. For this reason, they were not used during the summer months due to poor air flow and high humidity. The last car made its final trip on November 3, 2003 on the 7 train with ten R36 WF cars, marking the end of the Redbirds.
Most R33 WF cars are currently work motors and the number 1 was placed before the former number (i.e. car 9345 became 19345). They are based out of various yards around the system. They handle many tasks and are versatile, doing car moves, trash pickup and yard switching. The only exceptions are 9306, which has been part of the New York Transit Museum in Brooklyn since 1976 (the only R33 WF car to not be rebuilt), 9321 and 9339, which were retired and reefed in 2001 and 2010, respectively, and 9327, which is at the Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport, Maine.
Although the R33/36 WF cars were referred to as Redbirds, the paint scheme was actually light turquoise blue and white upon delivery. This paint color scheme was used until the mid 1970s when they were painted "Silver/Blue" for the MTA livery. Then they were painted a full white (roof, bonnets, sides were all painted white) in 1981–82 to combat graffiti. The look was abandoned for the famous "Redbird" style. The Redbirds were painted between 1984–89 to a deep maroon red body, black front bonnets and anti-climbers, and silver roof.
Famous quotes containing the words world, fair, york, city and/or subway:
“We have given the world our passion,
We have naught for death but toys.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“There was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I never can pass by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York without thinking of it not as a gallery of living portraits but as a cemetery of tax-deductible wealth.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“What it comes down to is this: the grocer, the butcher, the baker, the merchant, the landlord, the druggist, the liquor dealer, the policeman, the doctor, the city father and the politician—these are the people who make money out of prostitution, these are the real reapers of the wages of sin.”
—Polly Adler (1900–1962)
“In New York—whose subway trains in particular have been “tattooed” with a brio and an energy to put our own rude practitioners to shame—not an inch of free space is spared except that of advertisements.... Even the most chronically dispossessed appear prepared to endorse the legitimacy of the “haves.””
—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. “Cleaning and Cleansing,” Myths and Memories (1986)