Holiday Nostalgia Train Rides in New York

New York has a wonderful tradition of Holiday Nostalgia Train Rides, where the New York Transit Museum organizes rides on vintage subway trains over weekends in December. Everyone can partake for the cost of a subway ride, and there’s always an air of expectancy and excitement over being able to ride a vintage train.

The last time I was on a Holiday Nostalgia Ride, I was on a train that definitely predated me, and I loved the tongue in cheek ads that were plastered all over the subway car. You can read more about this ride here.

This time, the subway cars – and their ads – all dated back to 2003, so I have actually used these in my time in New York! I am not sure if this means that the New York Transit Museum is running trains that are retired but not quite that old, or if just need to accept that I am reaching the vintage category myself!

The trains this time around had carriages of all different colors, which I don’t recollect actually riding.

The windows had snowflakes decorations, making them very festive.

I had forgotten that I actually used the handles you can see below at one time, I am so used to the straight poles that we have these days in subway trains.

It was amusing to see ads for buying Metrocards from the newsstands to save time given we don’t even need a Metrocard to enter anymore!

The ads were all from 2003, which is probably the year the subway train was retired to the Transit Museum –

I love the Poetry in Motion they have in subway trains and platforms, which back in the day was a Barnes and Noble sponsored initiative –

The subway maps all predate the Second Avenue Subway Line!

There are always people dressed for the occassion, and they are happy to pose for photographs –

What I ended my ride with was the poster below, which was informing riders that FEMA assistance for mortgage and rental assistance for 9/11 related losses ended on January 31, 2003. This was a sobering reminder of the times we lived through in New York, and the nostalgia ride ended up taking me on a trip down memory lane in more ways than one. Never Forget.

#gottalovenewyork