NYC Transit To Offer Yankee Fans A Ride On A Vintage IRT Train To Playoff Games At Yankee Stadium

Yankee fans who regularly ride the 4 train to Yankee Stadium are accustomed to new trains featuring bright lights, optimally-controlled interior temperatures and high-tech customer information delivered via digitized voice announcements and signs.

However, to celebrate the first playoff games at the new Yankee Stadium, fans choosing the smart way to travel to the game might be lucky enough to travel back in time, with a ride on a vintage IRT train that was serving Bronx subway customers a few years before the original stadium first opened its doors. The train's rattan seats, ceiling fans and drop sash windows hark back to an earlier age of subway travel, and our "Nostalgia Special" will serve as a photogenic counterpoint to the new home of the New York Yankees.

"Taking the subway is always a great way to get to the ballgame, but being able to travel there on the nostalgia train makes an already enjoyable trip extra special," said Steven Feil, Senior Vice President of Subways for NYC Transit. "These cars were in operation back when Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth were wreaking havoc on the American League and now they're back again for fans to see Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez patrol the Yankees' infield."

The train, originally operated by the Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) system, began service in 1917 and it is possible that these very same cars carried fans to the first opening day at the original Yankee Stadium in 1923.

The four-car "Nostalgia Special" is scheduled to leave 42nd Street-Grand Central subway station at approximately 3:45 p.m., Wednesday, October 7 and again Friday, October 9, making all express stops on the Lexington Avenue Line and arriving at 161st Street-Yankee Stadium about 35 minutes later.

The Lo-V subway cars served customers for more than five decades before they were retired in the 1960s and currently serve as a splendid illustration of just how far rapid transit car design and technology have advanced over the past 100 years.

Customers who can't make it aboard this vintage train but still crave a bit of nostalgia can visit the Transit Museum, one of the city's leading cultural institutions and the largest museum in the United States devoted to urban public transportation history. For more information, visit www.mta.info.

For travel information, customers may call our Travel Information Center at 718-330-1234 from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, or log onto www.tripplanner.mta.info to use Trip Planner to plan their trips. Customers with web enabled phones or PDAs can use our Trip Planner On-the-Go! by going to www.tripplanner.mta.info/mobile; in addition to planning their trips, Blackberry users can download the free icon for one touch access to the service.

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