The R42 is a New York City Subway car built between 1969 and 1970 by the St. Louis Car Company in St. Louis, Missouri, serving the B (IND/BMT) Division. This fleet of cars were the first to be fully equipped with air conditioning. The R42 fleet is numbered 4550-4949. It was the last 60-foot (18.29 m) B Division car built for the subway until the R143 in 2001, and the last model class to be built in married pairs. Thereafter, the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA), for the time being, switched to 75-foot (22.86 m) cars for the B Division.
On May 9, 1969, pair 4554-4555 entered service on the N train as part of a mixed consist.
Between 1988 and 1989, R42s underwent overhaul as a result of deferred maintenance in the New York City Subway during the 1970s and the 1980s. 282 cars (4550–4839) were overhauled by Morrisen-Knudsen while the last 110 cars (4840–4949) were rebuilt in-house by the Coney Island Overhaul Shop in Brooklyn. The one minor difference in appearance between the two overhauls was that many cars of the Coney Island version featured the original blue door indicator lights at the ends of the cars, whereas these lights were removed from the Morrison-Knudsen rebuilds.
Pairs 4680-4681, 4714-4715, and 4766-4767 were scrapped in 1984. On June 6, 1995 pair 4664-4665 was involved in a collision on the Williamsburg Bridge. Car 4664 was scrapped in 2000 (with cars 4685 and 4726, which were not involved in the accident) while 4665 was mated with R40M 4460, which lost its mate in the same accident. On November 6, 2007, an M train of R42s was involved in an accident when the motorman attempted to relay it south of the Chambers Street station. As the R42 fleet was being retired, the entire consist was hauled to 207th Street Yard for reefing instead of being repaired even though only the first two cars suffered major damage.
As of 2010, pair 4572-73 is preserved for the NYCTA Museum. This set was used in the famous chase scene in the film The French Connection. Pair 4736-37 was donated to East New York's Transit Tech High School on April 14, 2009, replacing R30 #8337, which was reefed a few months later. Pair 4460-4665 is located at the Coney Island Complex.
The R160 order was intended to replace all of the R42 fleet, but this has been halted due to structural issues found on the R44 fleet. All R42s have been retired and most were reefed along the Atlantic coast, except for cars 4788-4817 and 4822-4839, which are assigned to East New York Yard and run on the J and Z services.
The R42s are expected to be replaced by the R179 beginning in 2015.
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