Background
These cars consisted of a variety of equipment used on the BRT and later BMT. Some cars were inherited from steam railroads that became part of the BRT system while others were built new for the BRT as late as 1907. In 1913, the BRT introduced an advanced steel car design for subway service (the AB Standard) and no more BU cars were produced.
The term BU was derived from the Brooklyn Union Elevated Railroad (BUERR) Company, one of the last operating companies of Brooklyn elevated lines before the BRT formed the New York Consolidated Railroad in 1912 to absorb the BUERR and other properties.
Historians disagree as to whether the term "BU" was commonly used before the BMT was purchased by the City of New York in 1940, or whether it was mainly an introduced term to describe the wooden elevated cars of the former private company.
Read more about this topic: BU Cars (New York City Subway Car)
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“... every experience in life enriches one’s background and should teach valuable lessons.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)