Dec 24: The 8.38 E from WTC.
As I waited for my E train to Long Island City on Christmas eve, I was pleasantly surprised to see a spanking new trainset emerge from the dark and onto the platform at Chambers Street this morning. Looks like E train riders are getting a Christmas present from MTA. Looks like the old R42 and the older R38 trainsets they are being replaced with the new R160s. So it'll hopefully be a progressive bye-bye to the dim lighting, inconsistent heat/AC and generally grubby interiors. So I climbed into the first car and checked out the bright interiors, crystal clear announcements and the state of the art LCD displays. Rather than trying to fit all stations on the route on a single electronic strip, the cars feature a progammable display that list the first 10 stations and then the next set of stations in batches of 5. The next station was separately displayed. This clearly makes it more useful as it would be usable even when the train gets re-routed and needless to say, makes trainsets interchangeable.
Shortly after I took my seat, an older R42 'E' glided onto the other platform. Our (lady) driver took her seat and she looked quite pleased with the new toy at her command. But the joy was short-lived for all of us. Something wasn't working or she was unable to figure out. Minutes passed and we were still at WTC while a small posse of MTA staff tried to get things going. Finally, to avoid further delay, they asked us to move to the older R42 across. So my ride on the new 'E' was deferred. But I am glad I can look forward to it at some point in the near future.
